Meanings
- human sciencesThe proposition that the universe began to exist last Thursday, with the appearance of age and history.
The statement is on the order of Last Thursdayism; it can never be proven or disproven.
1991 June 3, Ken Arromdee, “Re: Firewalking”, in sci.skeptic (Usenet), retrieved 30 Sep 2010, message-ID <10836@emanon.cs.jhu.edu>2 more examples
Any memories you might have of the past were created in your head when you were created, just as the fossils were placed in the rocks to look as if they were from the ancient past. This idea is nicknamed “Last Thursdayism” by the famous philosopher Bertrand Russell as in “the world might have been created last Thursday—how would we know the difference?”
2007 December 15, Donald R. Prothero, “The Nature of Science”, in Evolution: what the fossils say and why it matters, New York: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 9Last Thursdayism is a response to omphalism which posits that, by the same logic, the world might have been created last Thursday (or, by implication, any given date and time), but with the appearance of age: people's memories, history books, fossils, light already on the way from distant stars, and so forth.
2009, William Powell, “Creation Theology”, in Philosophy of Scientific Creationism, New Delhi: Global Vision Publishing House, page 224
Origin
Translations
Esperanto pasintĵaŭdismo
- pasintĵaŭdismoTranslations
Finnish viimetorstailaisuus
- viimetorstailaisuusTranslations
Cite this entry
Last Thursdayism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Last%20Thursdayism
“Last Thursdayism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Last%20Thursdayism. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Last Thursdayism,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Last%20Thursdayism.
Source: Last Thursdayism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.