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Discussion 1 to Ask the Patriarch 69
Ignosticism

by Chris Warren

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There is indeed a concept called "ignosticism," which can be considered a subset of agnosticism. It was coined by Rabbi Sherwin Wine, who founded the Society for Humanistic Judaism, which is a very interesting organization of cultural but secular Jews. The term is considered synonymous with "theological noncognitivism."

Ignosticism is based on the question of "how can we say whether or not God exists when there is no meaningful definition of 'God' to evaluate?" Without a rigid determination of what "God" is, the question of whether one exists is meaningless and irrelevant, and not worthy of consideration.

To answer the original question, in my mind Ignosticism differs from Apathetic Agnosticism in that Apathetists acknowledge that the question of the existence of God is meaningful, just that it currently has no answer and if there is such an answer, it is irrelevant.