Agnosticism
Agnosticism is not the same as atheism. Atheism holds that there is no divinity to the universe, while agnosticism states that the ultimate truths of religious claims, including the existence of God cannot be known. Paper Masters can compose a custom written research paper on Agnosticism that follows your guidelines.
The term agnostic was first coined in 1869 by Thomas Henry Huxley, an English biologist, although the philosophical underpinnings of the idea can be traced back as far as the 5th century BCE to the Greek philosopher Protagoras, and the Indian thinker Sanjaya Belatthaputta. Huxley maintained that agnosticism was not a creed, but a method that follows human reason to the limits of understanding. He used the term in a speech to describe his rejection of spiritual knowledge.
Agnosticism and Popular Philosophers
Huxley built upon the works of many philosophers, including
Kierkegaard's writings attempted to move philosophy past the need to prove the existence of God. One of the more classic statements of agnosticism came in the 1927 book Why I Am Not a Christian by English thinker Bertrand Russell. In a later essay, 1953's What Is An Agnostic?, Russell put forth the notion that an agnostics believes that it is impossible to know the truth regarding both God and the dogmas of religion. Many critics of agnosticism contend that it limits human understanding to no reality other than materialism, while others maintain that agnosticism fails to account for anything other than scientific knowledge.