Charles Bradlaugh was the first militant
Atheist in the history of Western civilization. He was elected to the British
parliament six times, and each time that body refused to seat him because he was
an Atheist -- and because he would not swear his allegiance to queen and
country, so help him ``God.'' Everyone in
The intellectual community contained, at the time, Sir Thomas Huxley, and he
coined the word agnostic in 1869 to keep from aligning himself with the
hard-pressed Bradlaugh. The
word gnosis is the Greek for ``knowledge.'' In words of Greek derivation
the prefix a is a
privative, that is -- it gives the word a negative sense. Literally it means
``against knowledge'' or ``negating knowledge.'' Huxley in his letters to the
literate community pointed out that he did not feel that salvation could be
attained through knowledge.
We don't know what ``salvation'' is. But we do know that Huxley referred to
the New Testament biblical story of Acts 17:23 wherein Paul
visited
Huxley held that there was a ``god'' and this was implicit in his definition
of agnosticism. He said two things which are quite different:
1. God is -- and God is unknown.
2. God is _ and God is unknowable.
Agnosticism is very close to the religious dogma that the ways of god are
unfathomable, that human reason is fallible, and that man requires a different,
non-scientific, path to the truth -- such as faith. Agnostic followers are
always allies of the church. The false notion that anything is unknowable
undermines science and reinforces theology. It inclines man to faith and induces
men to trust religious doctrines. The church does not anathematize the agnostic
and even the Roman Catholic church will accept the agnostic in its fold.
Popularly, the word agnostic has been corrupted (just as the words
Atheist and Epicurian have been corrupted) to mean to the
man in the street, ``I don't know whether there is a god or not.'' But an
inspection of that sentence leads one into accepting the logic of Huxley above.
The Atheist position is that the traditionalist historical concepts of god
are quite fallacious and that the notion of some ``super power'' is not now
susceptible of proof by existing scientific methods or by the accumulation of
knowledge presently accessible to man. Therefore the Atheists live as if there
were no god, no efficacy in prayer, and no life after death. We are free from
theism. We bet everything on this as being accurate.
The agnostic is gutless and prefers to keep one safe foot in the god camp.
Copyright American
Atheists, Inc. All rights reserved Printed copies of this essay can be obtained
from: American Atheists, Inc.,
Text prepared and distributed by American Atheist Online
Services,