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Old 08-23-2003, 09:04 PM   #37 (permalink)
Johnny Rotten
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Location: Berkeley
But I have made up my mind . My conviction is that it can't be proven or disproven. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The term "agnostic" came from Thomas Huxley, a 19th Century British scientist.

From a Google search:

"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 gnosis, “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 fellow intellectuals“ists,” as he called them, who had eagerly embraced 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."

The term has been used to describe "One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something," which is why I emphasized that I'm an agnostic in the classic sense.
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