2021-05-12 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด – A – atheist & agnostic
2021-05-12
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด – A – atheist & agnostic
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Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง atheist = ‘EY-thee-ist’
ออกเสียง agnostic = ‘ag-NOS-tik’
Dictionary.com
ABOUT THIS WORD
What does atheist mean?
An atheist is a person who does not believe
in the existenceof a supreme being or deity.
In other words,
an atheist is a person who does not believe
in the existence of God or of any gods.
The beliefor doctrine that denies the existence of gods
or supreme beings is atheism.
Atheist can also be used as an adjective
to describesuch beliefs or things involving such beliefs.
The adjective atheistic can be used in the same way.
The word atheist means something different from the word agnostic,
which refers toa person who believes
it is impossibleto know whether or not a supreme being exists.
When askedif God or gods exist,
an atheist would answer “No,”
while
an agnosticwould answer “It is impossible to know.”
Example:
Being an atheist doesn’t mean I think God is bad
—it means that I think God doesn’t exist.
Where does atheist come from?
The first recordsof the word atheist come from around 1570.
It comes from theGreek áthe(os), meaning “godless.”
In atheist,the beginning part a- means “without”
and the main rootis based on a word meaning “god”
(the words theology and theist are based on the same root).
The noun suffix -ist
indicates a person who holds certain beliefs.
Historically,
being known as an atheist has been dangerous
—many atheists have even been tortured or killed,
such as in societies that require adherence to a specific religion.
Even today, many atheists face discrimination.
Many support policies that ensure that religious freedom applies
even to those who do not follow any faith.
Dictionary.com
What’s The DifferenceBetween Atheism And Agnosticism?
Studies have found that
both atheists and agnostics are surprisingly knowledgable
about a variety of religions.
Which begs the commonly asked question:
what is the difference between
someone who defines themselves as “atheist”
and a professed “agnostic?”
Atheist vs. agnostic
There is a keydistinction.
An atheist doesn’t believe in a god or divine being.
The word originates with the Greek atheos,
which is built from the roots a- (“without”) and theos (“a god”).
Atheism is the doctrine or belief that there is no god.
However, an agnostic neitherbelieves nor disbelieves
ina god or religious doctrine.
Agnostics assertthat it’s impossible for human beings to know
anything about how the universe was created
and whether or notdivine beings exist.
Agnosticism was coined by biologist T.H. Huxley and comes from the Greek ágnōstos, which means “unknown or unknowable.”
For example:
- While I now consider myself an atheist,
I did attend church regularly as a child.
- If you’re not certain that god exists,
you could describeyourself as agnostic.
- Given that the director is an outspoken atheist,
it didn’t surprise us that the film was so critical of organized religion.
Theist vs. deist
To complicate matters,
atheists and agnostics are often confused with theists and deists.
A theist is the opposite of an atheist.
Theists believe in the existence of a god or gods.
Like a theist, a deist believesin God.
Buta deist believes that while God created the universe,
natural laws determine how the universe plays out.
Deists are often connectedto Isaac Newton’s clockwork universe theory,
which compares the universe to a clock that has been wound up
and set in motion by God but is governed by the laws of science.
For example:
- As an atheist, Edgar has endured quite a few heated arguments with theists who want to win him over to their point of view.
- Many scholars have described Thomas Jefferson as a deist
because he rejected certain aspects of Christianity,
such as miracles and resurrection,
buthe most certainly believed in God.
Dictionary.com
SYNONYM STUDY FOR AGNOSTIC
Agnostic, atheist, infidel, skeptic
refer topersons not inclined toward religious belief
or a particular form of religious belief.
An agnostic is one who believes it impossible to know
anythingabout God or about the creation of the universe
and refrains from commitment to any religious doctrine.
An atheist is one who denies the existence of a deity or of divine beings.
Infidel means an unbeliever,
especiallya nonbeliever in Islam or Christianity.
A skeptic doubts and is critical of all accepted doctrines and creeds.
Dictionary.com
HISTORICALUSAGE OF AGNOSTIC
The word agnostic was coined by the English biologist T.H. Huxley in 1869
as a member of the now defunct Metaphysical Society,
in response to what he perceived as
an abundance there of strongly held beliefs.
The original usage of the term was confined to philosophy and religion,
and referred to Huxley's assertionthat
anything beyond the material world,
including the existence and nature of God, was unknowable.
Today the word can be seen
applied to questions of politics, culture, and science,
aswhen someone claims to be a “political agnostic.”
In a more recent trend,
onecan be agnostic simply by not taking a stand onsomething.
In 2010, President Obama called himself “agnostic” on tax cuts
until he had seen all available options.
Ata forum on sustainable energy in 2008,
GE CEO Jeff Immelt said he was “fuel agnostic fundamentally.”
In technology, software or hardware can be said to be agnostic as well.
Computer codethat can run on any operating system
is called “platform agnostic,”
and such services as phone and electric may be considered “agnostic”
if notdedicated to a particular carrier, device, or user interface.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
How Agnostic Differs From Atheist
Many people are interested
in distinguishingbetween the words agnostic and atheist.
The difference is quitesimple:
atheist refers to someone
who does not believe in the existence of a god or anygods,
and agnostic refers to someone who doesn’t know
whetherthere is a god, or even if such a thing is knowable.
This distinction can be troublesome to remember,
butexamining the origins of the two words can help.
Agnostic first appeared in 1869,
(possibly coinedby the English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley),
and was formedfrom the Greek agnōstos
(meaning"unknown, unknowable").
Atheist came to English from the French athéisme.
Although both words sharea prefix
(which is probably the source of much of the confusion)
the main body ofeach word is quite different.
Agnostic shares part of its history with words
such as: prognosticate and prognosis,
words which havesomething to do with knowledge
or knowing something.
Atheist shares roots with words
such as: theology and theism,
which generally havesomething to do with God.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Words at Play
Secular, Atheist,and Agnostic
More Americansare identifying with these than any religion
A studyby the Pew Research Center
foundthat fewer Americans identify as "Christian"
and that the numberof people
who claim to belong to no organized religion has increased.
According to the study,
"as the ranksof the religiously unaffiliated continue to grow,
they also describe themselves in increasingly secular terms,"
including "atheists," "agnostics," or "nothing in particular.
Secular means "of or relating to the physical world
and not the spiritualworld" or "not religious."
It comes from the Latin word that evolved from meaning
"generation" or "age" to meaning "century"
(taken as the extreme limitof a human lifetime).
From this notionof a period of time or "the present time,"
it evolved to mean "the present world,"
as opposed tothe seclusion of monastic religious life,
in order to identifyclergy who worked in churches among the people.
From there, it was only a step to today's meaning of "not religious."
Secular came to English from Latin through French;
in modern French the word siècle means "century."
Though atheist and agnostic are words
that are often used together or cited in similar contexts,
they do not meanthe same thing.
Agnostic comes from the Greek word meaning "unknown" or "unknowable"
(a-, "not" or "without," and gnōstos, meaning "known").
It means "a person who does not have a definite belief about whether God exists or not" or,
more broadly, "a person who does not believe or is unsure of something."
Atheist also comes from Greek, from a- meaning "not" or "without"
and theos, meaning "god."
In Englishis simply means
"a person who believesthat God does not exist."
For more detail, see the original Pew Research Center study,
as well as their survey overview.
Dictionary.com
Trend Watch
Agnostic
Yes, it's different from 'atheist'
Lookups for agnostic spiked on June 3rd
after CNN.com published an article by Penn Jillette
titled “Time for atheists to stand up and be counted.”
Jillette wrote:
We try other words: "humanist," "non-religious," "heathen," "infidel."
Some of us even lie about the term "agnostic,"
and pretend that it means "atheist with an open mind" or "atheist lite,"
but it really doesn't.
—Penn Jillette, CNN.com, 2 June 2016
It really doesn't.
Agnostic refers to someone
who doesn’t knowwhether there is a god,
or even if such a thing is knowable.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,
ag·nos′ti·cal·ly adv.
Word History:
Agnostics do not denythe existence of God
—instead, they hold that one cannot know for certain
whether or not God exists.
The term agnostic was coined by the 19th-century British scientist
Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that
only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge.
He made up the word from the prefix a-, meaning "without, not,"
as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic.
Gnostic is related to the Greek word gnōsis, "knowledge,"
which was used by early Christian writers
to mean "higher, esoteric knowledge of spiritual things";
hence, Gnostic referred to those with such knowledge.
In coining the term agnostic, Huxley was considering as "Gnostics"
a group of his fellowintellectuals—"ists," as he called them
—who had eagerlyembraced various doctrines or theories
that explained the world to their satisfaction.
Because he was a "man without a rag of a label to cover himself with,"
Huxley coined the term agnostic for himself,
its first published use being in 1870.
Common Errors In English Usage Dictionary
Atheist
An atheist is the opposite of a theist.
Theos is Greek for “god.”
Make sure the “TH” is followed immediately by an “E.”
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