A baby is not an agnostic, and philosophers can explain why
Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word agnosticism in 1869, from Greek for without knowledge. Philosophers since have insisted it is not simple uncertainty. An agnostic has weighed the question of God and deliberately withheld a verdict, which is why an infant, who has never considered it, does not qualify.
Huxley introduced the term in a speech to the Metaphysical Society, describing the view that human minds cannot reach firm knowledge about God and related questions. He rejected theological and metaphysical conclusions that lacked adequate evidence. The label was new, but the attitude has roots reaching back to ancient Greek and Indian thought.
There are two main senses. The weaker one is psychological: a person suspends judgment, holding neither belief nor disbelief, as an informed indecision reached after reflection. The stronger, favoured by many philosophers, is a claim about knowledge itself: that God's existence cannot be known because human cognition is too limited to check it. Agnosticism can be seen as a neutral point between theism and atheism, or as a rejection of the assumption both share, that the answer can be known. It is related to skepticism and fallibilism, which doubt that certainty is ever achievable.
The attitude is not confined to religion. Someone can be agnostic about string theory or free will if they cannot decide either way. Nor does it rule out faith. Agnostic theists believe in God while denying that anyone can truly know the divine, and some agnostics take part in religious rituals and traditions while staying uncommitted. In daily life, though, agnosticism often looks secular, much like atheism, and some approaches group the two together as the absence of belief.
Defenders argue that the evidence is inconclusive and that intellectual humility calls for suspended judgment rather than dogma. Critics come from several directions: some say the evidence decisively favours God, others that it decisively rules God out, and others still that when evidence is lacking, disbelief rather than neutrality should be the default. The debate is pursued in theology, philosophy and psychology of religion, and the social sciences.
Source: Agnosticism
