According to experts, agnosticism does not mean the denial of God or gods, but means that it’s impossible to know it. Agnostics say they are often confused with atheists.

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*This publication was prepared as a series of CABAR.asia articles dedicated to raising awareness on religious diversity in Central Asian countries. The authors do not seek to promote any religion.

There are no official data about how many agnostics live in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Population census and surveys usually take into account only atheists or don’t differentiate between these concepts. In Kyrgyzstan, the State Commission for Religious Affairs in 2016 held a survey of religious affiliation of people during the social research “The impact of religious factor on the socio-political situation in the Kyrgyz Republic”. 98.4 per cent said they counted themselves religious, 0.7 per cent didn’t count themselves religious, and 0.4 per cent didn’t answer.

The Open Doors human rights Christian organisation (USA) reported that by early 2019 578 thousand Kazakhstanis deemed themselves agnostics or 3.1 per cent of the total population of the country.

Yulia (Kazakhstan), 22 years old:

I consider myself an agnostic since I was a teenager. By the time I was 12, I started thinking seriously about my origin and the origin of my family. A few years later, I first came across the term “agnosticism”. I have always understood that life on the planet didn’t emerge by itself. I’ve read a lot, studied a lot, communicated with people who told me various views on the origin of life. I believed in a little bit of everything, but I’ve found something I can totally agree with in every religion. After I read the bible, I knew none of existing religions fits the way I think and feel. Then a good friend of mine told me about agnosticism. Finally, I’ve come to understand that I don’t have to choose any certain god to explain my origin. What I don’t like about religions is that every confession tries to grab the biggest piece of the pie. Religious people always prove something to each other, argue, quarrel because they believe in various gods. I think it’s all very strange. People Without Religion. Number of Atheists Grows in Kazakhstan. I believe life appeared on earth thanks to the supreme forces, but I still don’t know what “God” looks like. These powers could be abstract, or related to alien creatures, another life, another civilisation. That’s why I consider myself an agnostic, not atheist, as many would think. I’ve never felt pressure from anyone. Representatives of various religions tried to persuade me that I would come to one certain thing with time. But what I constantly see is that many people don’t differentiate between atheists and agnostics and think I’m “just a non-believing person”. However, it’s not true, I am also a believer.

The term “agnosticism” is thought to become generally used in 1869 due to Thomas Henry Huxley, a biologist and geologist, supporter of Charles Darwin. He was searching for a word to define his own vision of the world, and he invented the term “agnostic”.

According to the “Great Russian Encyclopaedia”, agnosticism is often interpreted as the view that the existence of God (or gods) or “world unseen” is unknown and sometimes it is unjustifiably confused with atheism.

According to Kazakhstan-based theologian Dauren Toimataev, an agnostic doesn’t deny the existence of the divine, yet is not ready to recognise it as the unconditional and specific reality as few evidences exist. For agnostics, the question of what is God always remains open.

“In terms of philosophy, agnosticism is directly related to scepticism, which means the reasoning of ideas that a man constantly learns the world around, their knowledge expands, but there’ll always be some unsolved questions that a man won’t be able to answer despite all their knowledge and skills. Agnosticism doesn’t mean the denial of the existence of supreme power, it only claims it’s impossible to know if God really exists,” Toimataev said.

The expert divides agnostics and atheists into three key groups:

Atheist gnostic – they don’t believe in any god and know he doesn’t exist. Agnostic theist – they believe in God, but don’t know for sure if he exists. Theist gnostic – they believe in God and know for sure he exists.

Daniil Orlov, Kyrgyzstan: