Talk:Theological noncognitivism

Expanding/improving article
Any ideas on how to expand/improve this article? I found it a difficult proposition to understand at first. --Faradayplank (talk) 09:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I suggest bringing in some of the thinking by A. J. Ayers and Ludwig Wittgenstein, both of whom had much to say on this topic. Philip Wik (talk) 20:27, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

That's not right. It's not even wrong.
"Some theological noncognitivists assert that to be an atheist is to give credence to the concept of God because it assumes that there actually is something understandable to not believe in. This can be confusing because of the widespread belief in God and the common use of the series of letters G-o-d as if it is already understood that it has some cognitively understandable meaning. From this view atheists have made the mistaken assumption that the concept of God actually contains an expressible or thinkable proposition. However this depends on the specific definition of God being used. [4]" This is reminicient of "That's not right. It's not even wrong." Maybe a reference to it should be worked into the article. Superluckycat (talk) 16:33, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * A reference to "That's not right. It's not even wrong."?  hmwith  τ   02:18, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No, a reference to Pauli's "not even wrong" quip, which has its own WP article, does not belong in this article, but a reference to this article might make sense for that one. -- 98.108.199.69 (talk) 20:45, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Negative theology
As one of the skeptic links does in fact point out, believing that name the God is not cognitively meaningful does not make someone an atheist, and very often it is insufficient to qualify as an agnostic. For instance, there are currents of negative theology within certain Eastern religions that focus not on what God is, but on what he isn't. Also, some religions will forbid their members from pronouncing the name of God because they feel that it adds no particular meaning to what they feel the deity is. ADM (talk) 11:30, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No, that's not why they forbid it. And focusing on what God isn't (but is still a "he", eh?) assumes that the notion is meaningful, contrary to noncognitivism. -- 98.108.199.69 (talk) 20:47, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

A. Whitney Brown Quote
"I'm not an athiest. How can you not believe in something that doesn't exist? That's way too convoluted for me." I saw this quote on reddit, and then someone pointed out that it's a good argument for Theological Noncognitivism, and provided a link to this article. Mutatron (talk) 06:01, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Most people do not believe in unicorns, leprechauns, 999-leaf clovers, and numerous other things that don't exist. Noncognitivism isn't about lack of existence, it's about lack of meaning. -- 98.108.199.69 (talk) 20:50, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * God definitely exists. What do you think causes religious warfare. God. Now if "God" refers to the ego of those who profess "God", God still exists. It is the fault of Western science, which precludes the ego, that gives rise to this silly idea that something so influential is not "cognitively meaningful". Even if God is one's ego and not even a heuristic for a synthetic ego, to ask, "Is the ego 'cognitively meaningful'?" is like asking, "Is consciousness meaningful to a person?" The question is whether "a person" is a concept above-and-beyond "consciousness". Similarly, is "cognition" a concept above-and-beyond "ego"? Absolutely not. Therefore, cognizant "atheist" Wikipedians are God-fearing, not to mention, sometimes they do not even have cognitions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.174.82.190 (talk) 03:23, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Please bear in mind that the talk pages are for discussing improvements to the article. Thanks. —Mrwojo (talk) 01:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Suspect claim
The claim is made in the article "Some thinkers propose it as a way to prove the nonexistence of anything named 'God'." I'm not so sure about this. The claim of theological noncognitivism is that god-talk is meaningless. A theological noncognitivist cannot simultaneously say that "God" as a term is cognitively meaningless and then turn around and say that that view proves that "God" does not exist. HobgoblinOfLittleMinds (talk) 18:39, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Something that is meaningless cannot be said to exist; Does kisdjffs exist? No, kisdjffs does not exist (except as a random string of letters), because kisdjffs doesn't mean anything.
 * Even if something was discovered that you could call kisdjffs, or self described as kisdjffs, if you don't know what it is then it's not what you mean if you say kisdjffs, so consequently cannot be said to be the same thing.
 * I wouldn't say it proves the nonexistence of anything named 'god' though; the fictional mythological construct of an extremely powerful personified being charged with certain elemental attributes certainly exists as a part of mythology for instance, it's just that it's not actually real in the literal sense, in the same way that Little Red Riding Hood exists, only as a component of her eponymous fable.121.72.155.217 (talk) 21:50, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

What cognition can mean
The title says it. It isn't clear in this context what non-cognitive can mean. Postulates in mathematics are not verifiable yet they are acceptable. Axioms are quasi-verifiable in that they can be true in one system and false in another. The infinite can be talked of in mathematics because a framework for discussing it has been set up. So in what sense is TN not equivalent to the assertion that one cannot set up a system (a logical impossibility since it requires the proof of a negative)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by YouRang? (talk • contribs) 17:09, 12 October 2009 (UTC) My expectation is that philosophy requires axiomatization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by YouRang? (talk • contribs) 17:12, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Dash usage
Since non-cognitivism uses a dash, should this page be moved to theological non-cognitivism? Nym (talk) 03:21, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Own research
There seems to be a lot of personal opinions in this article. In fact it kind of reads like a personal essay. For instance, the claim that positivism is 'considered a dead philosophy' obviously doesn't belong in a Wikipedia article. Rewrite required IMO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.150.196.7 (talk) 00:56, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I've moved the specific sentence you mentioned to here:

"This, however is based on logical positivism, which is now considered a dead philosophy since its verification principle is itself not verifiable."


 * The reference was added by another user later, and is a tangential piece of advice for Christian philosophers to be more critical of ideas like positivism and verificationism. A better source would be more explanatory and more specific. —Mrwojo (talk) 01:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

atheist label
The source makes no mention of it.Conchobar O Beig (talk) 10:08, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * note, this user has been blocked for sockpuppetry. Rockypedia (talk) 02:18, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Merger proposal

 * (Whoever proposed this merger neglected to state their reasons.)
 * Support - Neither article makes an unambiguous distinction between the two. I don't see any reason why "ignosticism" warrants an independent article rather than a subsection of Theological noncognitivism. It seems to just be an independently coined name for the same basic argument. Scyrme (talk) 01:23, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Since no objections were raised, I've implemented this merge. Scyrme (talk) 02:52, 4 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose (The merge was reverted, but the merge tag is still up, so just to throw in my thoughts...) I agree the articles don't exactly make it clear, but there does seem to be a difference between the two positions. I think it could be be expressed like this: when presented with the proposition "God exists", an ignostic will say "I don't understand what that means", whereas a theological noncognitivist will say "That doesn't mean anything". The ignostic is theoretically willing to believe in God if a sensible definition could be provided; a theological noncognitivist asserts that no such definition could ever be provided. That's my understanding anyway. Dan from A.P. (talk) 18:56, 19 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose. I agree with DanFromAnotherPlace. The difference between Theological Noncognitivism and Ignosticism appears to be comparable to that between Atheism and Agnosticism. Retxnihps (talk) 10:18, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Igtheism/ignosticism
The above category has been dropped and the term is folded into Theological Noncognitivism. The original igtheism entry had a very good and succinct description of the difference between igtheism and theo noncog. Can that be retrieved? Rongaul (talk) 16:41, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

One of the references is a dead end
One of the references - Martin 1994 - is a dead end. Clicking on it leads nowhere. In the bibliography section there is Martin 1999. Is it possibly a result of a confusion between the two? Fmpgri (talk) 10:49, 11 December 2021 (UTC)