Ietsism - wikipedia Ietsism Part of a series on God General conceptions Agnosticism Apatheism Atheism Deism Henotheism Ignosticism Monotheism Monism Dualism Monolatry Kathenotheism Omnism Pandeism Panpsychism Panentheism Pantheism Polytheism Theism Transtheism Specific conceptions Creator Demiurge Deus Father Great Architect Monad Mother Supreme Being Sustainer The All The Lord Trinity Tawhid Ditheism Monism Personal Unitarianism In particular religions Abrahamic Judaism Christianity Islam Bahá'í Mormonism Indo - Iranian Hinduism Buddhism Jainism Sikhism Zoroastrianism Chinese Tian Shangdi Hongjun Laozu Attributes Eternalness Existence Gender Names ( `` God '' ) Omnibenevolence Omnipotence Omnipresence Omniscience Experiences Practices Belief Esotericism Faith Fideism Gnosis Hermeticism Metaphysics Mysticism Prayer Revelation Worship Related topics Euthyphro dilemma God complex God gene Theology Ontology Problem of evil ( theodicy ) Religion philosophy texts Portrayals of God in popular media `` Belief without religion '' redirects here. For a similar concept, see Spiritual but not religious. Ietsism ( Dutch : ietsisme ( pronounced ( itsˈɪsmə ) ) -- `` somethingism '' ) is an unspecified belief in an undetermined transcendent reality. It is a Dutch term for a range of beliefs held by people who, on the one hand, inwardly suspect -- or indeed believe -- that `` there must be something undefined beyond the mundane and that which can be known or can be proven '', but on the other hand do not necessarily accept or subscribe to the established belief system, dogma or view of the nature of a deity offered by any particular religion. Some of the English language related terms are agnostic theism ( though very many ietsists do not believe in one or more gods and are thus atheists ), eclecticism, deism and spiritual but not religious. Ietsists might call themselves Christian or followers of an other religion based on cultural identification with that religion, without believing in the dogmas of that particular religion. Contents 1 Etymology 2 Beliefs 3 See also 4 References Etymology The name derives from the Dutch equivalent of the question : `` Do you believe in the conventional ' Christian ' God ? '', a typical ietsist answer being `` No, but there must be something '', `` something '' being iets in Dutch. The atheist political columnist and molecular biologist Ronald Plasterk ( who later served as the Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science and Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations ) published a piece in 1997 in the magazine Intermediar in which he used the word. The term became widely known in the Netherlands after Plasterk used it in a feature for the television programme Buitenhof. In October 2005, the word ietsisme was included in the 14th edition of the Dutch Language Dictionary Dikke Van Dale. Around the year 2012, the word began to circulate among English speakers as a loanword. More recently, the word ietsers ( `` somethingers '' ) has emerged in the Netherlands to describe people of this viewpoint, but this has not yet been borrowed into English. The term ietsism is becoming more widely used in Europe, as opposed to the phrase ' spiritual but not religious ' which prevails in North America. The word occurs inter alia in Dutch ( ietsisme ), German ( Ietsismus ), Russian ( итсизм ), Czech ( něcismus ), West Frisian ( eatisme ), Ukrainian ( ітсизм ) and Belarusian ( іцызм ). Beliefs Ietsism may roughly be described as a belief in an end - in - itself or similar concept, without further assumption as to exactly what object or objects have such a property, like intrinsic aliquidism without further specification. Other aliquidistic lifestances include the acceptance of `` there is something -- that is, some meaning of life, something that is an end - in - itself or something more to existence -- and it is... '', assuming various objects or truths, while ietsism, on the other hand simply accepts `` there is something '', without further specification, detailing or assumption. In contrast to traditional agnostics who often hold a skeptical view about gods or other metaphysical entities ( i.e. `` We ca n't or do n't know for sure that there is a God '' ), `` ietsists '' take a viewpoint along the lines of, `` And yet it feels like there is something out there... '' It is a form of religious liberalism or non-denominationalism. Ietsism may also be described as the minimal counterpart of nihilism, since it accepts that there is something, but yet, assumes as little further as possible without any more substantial evidence. Within ietsism beliefs are very diverse but all have in common that they are not classifiable under a traditional religion. Often concepts from different religions, folk beliefs, superstitions or ideologies are combined, but the ietsist does not feel he / she belongs to or believes in the dogmas of any particular religion. There is usually not a personal god who actively intervenes in the believer 's life and an ietsist can be an atheist at the same time. Some ietsists believe in an undetermined higher power or one of more specific theistic entities, others only in spiritual energies, souls or some form of afterlife. Ietsism often coincides with a belief in pseudoscience or paranormal phenomena such as acupuncture, angels, animistic deities and creatures, astrology, aura reading, chakras, clairvoyance, deities, elves, energy medicine, esoteric energy, ghosts, healing gemstones, homeopathy, karma or osteopathy. Ietsism also shares many attributes with similar viewpoints such as Deism and the so - called ' God of the Gaps ', whose origins lie more in questions about the nature and origin of the physical universe. It could be said that ietsism is ' Deism for the spiritually - inclined '. As the ietsist will not have found any of the ' pre-packaged ' gods offered by traditional religions satisfactory, each ietsist 's conception of spirituality will be different. This can range from the Judeo / Christian / Islamic concept of God as a force / intelligence that exists outside the world, to a position similar to the Buddhist `` world view '', with collective spiritual power existing within the world. Other ietsists will take a truly agnostic viewpoint -- that the actual nature of God is totally unknown or unknowable. An opinion poll conducted by the Dutch daily newspaper Trouw in October 2004 indicated that some 40 % of its readership felt broadly this way, and other Northern European countries would probably get similar rates. From a December 2014 survey by the VU University Amsterdam, it was concluded that the Dutch population has 27 % ietsists, 31 % agnostics, 25 % atheists and 17 % theists. As ietsists can not be neatly classified as religious or nonreligious, ietsism is somewhat notorious for mucking up statistics on religious demographics. Hence labeling ietsists as either religious or nonreligious will tilt the demographic balance for those countries to either predominantly religious or predominantly nonreligious. See also Agnostic theism Deism Higher Power Moralistic therapeutic deism Religion in the Netherlands Spiritual but not religious Unknown god List of English words of Dutch origin References Jump up ^ ( in Dutch ) wayback.archive.org ( permalink ) - Ronald Plasterk : ietsisme, the site `` weblog.nl '' is archived and transferred to wordpress.com Jump up ^ `` In iets geloven ! ? ''. Godsdienstonderwijs.be ( in Dutch ). Retrieved 2017 - 01 - 02. Jump up ^ http://systempsychology.ru/journal/2012-6/115-tkachenko-av-itsizm-kak-osnovnaya-forma-religioznyh-predstavleniy-sovremennoy-molodezhi.html Jump up ^ amazon.com - Born - Again Deist ( e-book ) Jump up ^ van Beek, Marije ( 2015 - 01 - 16 ). `` Ongelovigen halen de gelovigen in ''. www.trouw.nl ( in Dutch ). Trouw. Retrieved 2017 - 01 - 02. Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ietsism&oldid=854329378 '' Categories : Agnosticism Theism Deism Hidden categories : Articles with Dutch - language external links CS1 Dutch - language sources ( nl ) Articles containing Dutch - language text All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from August 2015 Articles with unsourced statements from June 2017 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Беларуская Беларуская ( тарашкевіца ) ‎ Čeština Deutsch Ελληνικά Frysk Nederlands Русский Українська Edit links This page was last edited on 10 August 2018, at 14 : 45 ( UTC ). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: what is it called when you believe in a higher power but not god
Answer: Ietsism