= Ietsism =

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= Ietsism =
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Introduction
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Ietsism ( () � "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 related terms in English are agnostic theism
(though many ietsists do not believe in one or more gods and are thus
agnostic atheists), eclecticism, deism and spiritual but not
religious.

Ietsists might call themselves Christian or followers of another
religion based on cultural identification with that religion, without
believing in the dogmas of that particular religion.

Etymology
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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 ('и��изм'), Czech ('n�cismus'), Spanish
(�ietsismo�), Greek (��ε��ι�μ��), West Frisian ('eatsisme'),
Ukrainian ('��изм') and Belarusian ('��зм').

Beliefs
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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 can't or don'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 cannot be neatly classified as religious or nonreligious,
ietsism is somewhat notorious for blighting 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.

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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ietsism