![](\"http:\/\/localhost\/rs\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2012\/12\/5.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to Huxley, the word was designed as antithetic to the \u2018Gnostic\u2019 of early church history, and was intended to be opposed not simply to theism and Christianity, but also to atheism and pantheism.\u00a0 He meant the word to cover with a mantle of respectability not so much ignorance about God but the strong conviction that the problem of His existence is insoluble.\u201d<\/span><\/strong>[1]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The tail-less fox searching for a \u201cmantle of respectability?\u201d\u00a0 So it would seem, but who could blame him?\u00a0 It was a difficult and confusing time — given the setting, many intellectuals must have been pretty frustrated and imagined themselves to be short not just a tail, but both hindquarters as well.\u00a0 In a time and place where, as Huxley describes, the choice, in a practical sense, was Christianity or nothing, anybody who pondered the theological difficulties would have been forced to reconsider the oath of membership to any of the exclusive Christian clubs.\u00a0 Invention of the label of \u2018Agnosticism\u2019 was no doubt born of the frustration of having had to deal with those whose doctrines could easily be discredited by men and women of intellect, but in a theological void where an acceptable alternative was not yet presented to the English-speaking world.\u00a0 What could a person who believed in God, but who did not believe in the religions of his or her exposure do?\u00a0 Escape was the only alternative, and that, so it appears, is exactly what Huxley did.\u00a0 Huxley coined a term which encapsulated an ages-old concept which afforded all who claimed allegiance an escape route from the overheated, overcrowded room of religious discussion, and into the private den of personal convictions.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Yet, although the term afforded a popular relief valve for those who evaded the pressure of serious religious discussion in the time of Huxley, the question arises, \u201cDoes the term have value in the present day?\u201d\u00a0 The truth of the concept remains, but the question is not whether there is truth in the concept, but whether there is value in the truth.\u00a0 A rock has truth, but what is its value?\u00a0 Very little, under normal circumstances.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n So on one hand, the \u2018So what?\u2019 factor remains.\u00a0 Encapsulating the ages-old concept of the non-provable issue of God sounds so neat and practical, but does the concept of non-provability change anybody\u2019s belief in God?\u00a0 A person can embrace any of the myriad belief\/disbelief systems while at the same time admitting that the truth of God cannot be proven.\u00a0 Yet such an admission does not change the depth of conviction each person holds in his or her heart and mind.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n And most people know this.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Few devotees believe they can support their religion or the existence of God with absolute and irrefutable proof.\u00a0 Growing challenges by increasingly intelligent and well-informed laity have placed an impossible burden of proof on the clergy of the Judaic and Christian faiths, in specific.\u00a0 Questions and challenges, which in previous ages would have brought charges of heresy as a practical measure for the suppression of sedition are now commonplace, and deserving of answers.\u00a0 The fact that Church responses to such queries defy logic and human experience has resulted in clergy often having no other resort than to reverse the challenge upon the questioner, in the form of asserting, \u201cIt\u2019s a mystery of God, you just have to have faith.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The questioner may respond, \u201cbut I do have faith \u2013 I have faith that God can reveal a religion which would answer all my questions,\u201d only to be counseled further, \u201cWell, in that case, you just have to have more<\/span><\/em> faith.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, a person has to stop asking questions and be satisfied with the party line.\u00a0 Even when it doesn\u2019t make sense, and even when the foundational scriptures teach otherwise.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Hence, over the past few centuries the hierarchy of the many Judeo-Christian sects have been driven back on their heels by God-given logic to a teetering, bowed-back, arm-spinning posture of Gnostic ideology, which in the early (i.e. the period of those who knew best) history of Christianity was regarded as a no-holds barred, no doubt about it, \u2018gather-the-firewood-and-plant-the-stake\u2019 heretical sect.\u00a0\u00a0 The scenario is bizarre; it is like saying, \u201cSure, that oven was last year\u2019s model.\u00a0 The prototypes didn\u2019t work.\u00a0 In fact they exploded and everyone who used one burned to death, but we\u2019re bringing it back anyway because we need the money.\u00a0 But we promise you, if you believe — I mean really believe — then we promise you\u2019ll be OK.\u00a0 And if it does<\/span><\/em> explode in your face, don\u2019t blame us.\u00a0 You just didn\u2019t believe enough.\u201d\u00a0 The sad thing is, lots of people are not only buying it, they\u2019re setting one aside for each of their kids.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The overall scheme of things is one in which clergy considered Christian faith to be founded upon knowledge up until the educated laity came to know better.\u00a0 For many centuries laity were not allowed to own Bibles, with the punishment of possession in more than a few cases having been death. \u00a0Only with suppression of this law, manufacture of paper in Europe (14th<\/sup> century), invention of the printing press (mid-15th century), and translation of the New Testament into the English and German languages (16th<\/sup> century) did Bibles become readily available and readable by the common literate man.\u00a0 Hence, for the first time, laity became able to read the Bible (where available \u2013 publication and distribution remained limited for many decades) and present rational challenges to established doctrines based upon personal analysis of the foundational scriptures.\u00a0 When such challenges defeated the arguments of the Church apologists, most Christian sects did an amazing thing — they disavowed the nearly 2,000 year-old claim that doctrine should be based upon knowledge, and instituted instead the concept of salvation through spiritual guidance and justification by faith.\u00a0 Particular emphasis was placed on the alleged virtue of blind, unthinking (and hence unquestioning) commitment.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The modern \u2018spiritual\u2019 defenses which sprung from the new church orientation mimic the heretical \u2018mystic exclusivity\u2019 of the ancient Gnostics, all echoing familiar sentiments such as, \u201cYou just don\u2019t understand, you don\u2019t have the Holy Spirit inside you like I do,\u201d or \u201cYou just need to follow your guiding light — mine is leveled, laser-straight and Xenon bright, but yours is flickering and dim\u201d or \u201cJesus doesn\u2019t live inside you as he does inside me.\u201d\u00a0 No doubt such assertions appeal to each speaker\u2019s \u2018aren\u2019t I special\u2019 personal ego inventory, but if someone insists on belief in spiritually exclusive pathways, then no doubt others will insist on a discussion of the difference between delusion and reality.\u00a0 T.H. Huxley, no doubt, would have been happy to chair the debate.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The problem is that claiming mystical exclusivity as the key to guidance and\/or salvation is to claim that God has arbitrarily abandoned the \u2018un-saved\u2019 of creation — hardly a God-like scenario.\u00a0 Does it not make infinitely more sense for God to have given all of humankind equal chance to recognize the truth of His teachings?\u00a0 Then those who submit to His evidences would deserve reward, while those who deny would be blameworthy for failing to give acknowledgement, credit, and worship where due.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n But unfortunately, the nature of delusion is that the ones who are deluded rarely are capable of recognizing the errors of their misunderstanding; the nature of the Gnostics is similar in that they typically are too enamored with their self-satisfying, self-serving philosophy to realize the falsehood of their foundation.\u00a0 And indeed, it is hard to believe the waiter has spat in the soup when the restaurant is rated five-star, the service refined, the presentation impeccable.\u00a0 Appearance and taste may be so good as to defy reality.\u00a0 But it is the patron who regards the bearer of truth as an inconvenient kill-joy rather than as a sincere benefactor who is going to wear the sicknesses of the server home.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Footnotes:<\/span><\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n [1] Meagher, Paul Kevin et al.\u00a0 Vol. 1, p. 77. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Ref. www.islamreligion.com \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cAccording to Huxley, the word was designed as antithetic to the \u2018Gnostic\u2019 of early church history, and was intended to be opposed not simply to theism… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":1444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atheism"],"yoast_head":"\n
<\/span><\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n
\n\n
<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"