Ietsism
The term ietsismus is derived from the Dutch iets (something). It denotes the belief in a metaphysical greatness. It is a general term for different beliefs, whereby people assume that there is “something” between heaven and earth without adhering to a specific religion . A Ietser is a creditor , the Orthodox gods aside leaves, but for his giving meaning well "something" to transcendental believes that all existent is an absolute, but not nameable force is based.
etymology
The term became better known in the Netherlands after the molecular biologist and longtime Minister of the Interior of the Netherlands Ronald Plasterk named it in his column in the weekly Intermediair on November 20, 1997:
“As soon as you start to shake orthodoxy , you slowly but surely slip out of the church and sooner or later end up in atheism , or in Ietsism. According to a recently published study, the latter appears to be the religion of the majority of Dutch people living today: the belief that 'there must be something' because they are uncanny about the idea that life is pointless and ends with death. […] Ietsism is a rather diffuse religion, its followers do not give the impression that they are busy with it daily or even weekly, but when they have pointed out, they summarize their image as follows: 'There must be something there? It would be bad if there was nothing more. It would feel really bare to me if nothing comes after death . "
Plasterk initially expressed himself negatively about Ietsism as lukewarm and intellectually unsatisfactory, but then increasingly from 2005 onwards, since Ietsists are at least not fundamentalists .
Ad Verkuijlen claimed to have described the same phenomenon a year earlier with the term "ietsers":
“Fewer and fewer people feel that they belong to a church. In contrast, the number of those who believe in a higher, not more precisely defined power rose steadily from 2% in 1991 to 22%, according to the Sociaal en Cultureel Rapport of 1996. It is a national epidemic, everyone knows some of them. When asked whether they believe in a God, they answer with meaningful meaning: 'No, but there must be something!' "
Perhaps the Sociaal en Cultureel Rapport was also the first source for Plasterk to substantiate the phenomenon with numbers, to which he then presumably referred to with the words “recently published study” (see above).
The Ietsisme has been included as an independent lemma in the 14th edition of the dictionary of the Dutch language, the Dikke Van Dale ( Large Dictionary of the Dutch Language ), published in October 2005 .
Mark
In contrast to classical agnosticism , which tends to have a negative attitude towards religious beliefs (“don't believe anything that you can't know”), Ietsism remains rather positive towards it (“there is much more than we can know”). It is a form of extra-church but religious liberalism. In terms of content, it can range from Christian images of God as an external force to Buddhist images of the world with inner-worldly force. It is also possible to leave the choice between these extremes open. Thus the ietsism in his dealings with the abstract symbol, in his view resembles the demiurge of Freemasonry , each trailer can construct their own interpretation; the difference is that Freemasons are actively looking for that "something" that the Ietsist does not need to do.
criticism
Ietsism meets with rejection among both theists and atheists, while according to an opinion poll by the daily Trouw in October 2004 around a third of the Dutch can be counted among the Ietsists. On the theist side, this resistance is based on the fact that Ietsism more or less clearly denies the revealed faith. Convinced atheists, on the other hand, are bothered by Ietsism's diffuse belief in higher powers instead of consistently leaving it behind.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Translated from Ronald Plasterk: Tepelklem, dioxinekip, ietsisme , De Volkskrant , August 12, 2005, accessed on May 23, 2005 (Dutch)
- ↑ Ronald Plasterk: Ietsisme ( Memento from May 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), Onze Taal , February 14, 2007, accessed on May 23, 2005 (Dutch)
- ↑ [1] , Nederland los van kerk en bijbel, Trouw , October 21, 2004, accessed on May 23, 2005 (Dutch)
- ^ Wim Couwenberg: [2] , Is het redelijk nog in God te geloven ?, Civis Mundi , September 6, 2012, accessed on May 23, 2005 (Dutch)