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The very last sentence of this article reads: "The premise for Apatheism is not that, if real, God would not be very important, but rather that since it is an absurd superstition, it is without essential import other than as a political and social reality." That sounds more like a strong opinion (God is a silly superstition) than apathy (a lack of care one way or another regarding whether God is a superstition or not) and doesn't seem to gel with the rest of the article. Edris Qarghah 17:57, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Many people have come up with "apatheism" independently, years before Mr. Rauch wrote his article. John Cooper, who wrote the Church Of Apatheism web page, came up with the word years before he wrote the page in August 2000. A glossary of secular terms on another site <http://www.eclipse.co.uk/thoughts/glossary.htm> may have added "apatheism" as early as 1998. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.156.167.110 (talk) 05:06, January 25, 2005 (UTC)
The article says:
What does the phrase "but no clear basis for this page is evident" mean? Does it mean "there is no evidence that such a church actually exists"? -- samuel katinsky (137.111.13.34) 09:20, March 16, 2005 (UTC)
The sentence reads "Apathetic agnosticism claims that no amount of debate can prove or disprove the existence of one or more deities, and if one or more deities exist, they do not appear to be concerned about the fate of humans. Therefore, their existence has little to no impact on personal human affairs and should be of little theological interest." [5] The existence of god(s) should be of little theological interest? What then should be of theological interest...? This is nonsense.
How? Apollo The Logician (talk) 16:28, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
Apathyism is a neologism and oxymoron meaning "The belief system based on a general uncaring attitude." I set up a Wikipedia page based on this defininition and preserved the old Apatheism page there just as I had found it. A more experienced Wikipedian decided to change Apathyism into a redirect to Apatheism, thus losing the preserved page. The way I read the Rauch article he was using Apatheism to mean a specific uncaring attitude about belief structures, which is far from Apathyism.
I'm a NUG Wikipedian. Since the new stub was not acceptable, I will include the discussion of of the difference between Apatheism and Apathyism with in the current article. I will do this as soon as I can learn enough to do it properly, i.e. table of contents, headers, indenting, etc.
In a phrase, "Remeber that Apatheism is not for the apathetic."
DrBobStirling 17:17, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I added the second link to the Rauch article, because the Atlantic Monthly site would not allow me to access the article without a paid subscription. "Let it be" is reprinted at the seminary site with Mr. Rauch's permission and in a format most users can easily access.
DrBobStirling 01:49, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I have been an Apatheist for many years, well before I saw the word in print. I was raised an evangellical Christian, with a tolerant or apatheistic bias. I have been at many points on the scale of theisms, including a long stay at agnosticism. I am currently a practicing Roman Catholic. Throughout it all I have been and am still an Apatheist. This "attitude best described as 'apatheism'" in Mr. Rauch's words has served me well. It has kept me open to other ways of seeing the universe. However Apatheism is not intrinsically tied to, or "contrapositive to" any theistic stand.
If you wish to view the continuum of theistic belief from the far left of Atheism (100% disbelief in the existence of God) to the far right of any theism (100% belief in God), with the Agnostic position (0%) squarely in the middle. Apatheism is not on this scale at all. It would be 90 degrees to the theism axis and delimits a two dimensional plane for describing a person's position.
It is the Dominance vs. Submissive scale. At the top is the belief that I am 100% correct in my belief and you should believe the same way also. At the bottom is the belief that there is some 100% correct belief and I'm trying hard to find it and submit to it. Apatheism is the assertive middle position. The attitude that I have found my spot on the theism scale, and I will not submit to any attempt to dominate me away from that position, nor will I attempt to dominate you away from your position.
Mr Rauch, an atheist and an apatheist, supports this position when he writes, "And Agnostics? True most of them are apatheists, but most apatheists are not agnostics. Because--and this is an essential point--most apatheists are believers.", in the May 2003 Atlantic Monthly.
Mr. John Cooper also at least implies this relationship when he writes, "There is a common misconception that Apatheists don't care about anything. Apatheists might be interested - fascinated even - in all sorts of other questions of life and existence. General apathy is not necessarily an Apatheistic trait, but it admittedly provides a springboard for the 'leap of indifference'.", on his "The Church of Apatheism" web page.
This is one of the points I was trying to make with the "Apatheism vs. Apathyism" comment. Apatheism is an attitude about theisms, not a stand on the theistic scale.
I will attempt to cast this in a "neutral point of view" and expand the Apatheism stub to include this and the currently expressed point of view, but not until later. As a NUG I still have a lot of formatting to learn, but quoting from the earlier works of the Govenator of California, "I'll be back."
DrBobStirling 03:13, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This is really interesting for me. Till this very day I had never heard of Apatheism, but I’ve been one for many years now. My friends call me an N/A-ist. It started when in some application, asking for my religion, I wrote “N/A”. Having to explain about why I would write “n/a” as oppose to “no religion” or “atheist” or etc. I explained how existence and non-existence of god(s) is an irrelevant subject and how labels like religion are meaningless and hence not-applicable. This was almost yars ago. From then on, I was an N/A-ist!
To me n/a-ism is a state of mind. You can always be one, even if you convert from a believer to a non-believer and vice versa. I used to be borderline agnostic/atheist n/a-ist. More and more I’m leaning towards atheism, but I’m still an n/a-ist.
I especially liked the analogy given by DrBob – the xy plane analogy. --LogiPhi 06:26, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
As one of the first people to expand on this page, it's good to come back a year or two later and see it to have grown so well. Thanks to everyone helping in elucidating this somewhat tricky theological perception. However, Apatheism has nothing to do with proving, disproving, or having anything to say about Religion. Do not be confused, an Apatheist is only stating that the existance or lack of existance of God, aka: a being of infinite or greater ablity in one or more areas, is a qustion that is not one which can have any merit. Religion is still considered valid for many valid and profound reasons from: a persons desire to explore their own spirtuality, to a means of keeping those with less questioning minds from becoming a weight on society. Apatheism, in short, is apathetic to God and makes no claims on anything else. CSO (68.211.49.246) 02:10, September 27, 2005 (UTC)
Just having been used by a columnist once, and appearing on a couple of internet pages doesn't make it a respectable term. The concept can easily be merged with either Apathetic agnosticism or Ignosticism. Or else, if discussion of the coinage of the term itself (apart from the concept it wishes to express) is deemed important enough, make it about the website explicitly. But I doubt that "apatheism.net" as a website passes our notability threshold. As a neologism, it could also be exported to wictionary. As far as I'm concerned, Apathetic agnosticism and Ignosticism can also be merged, since not caring about the question and not caring about the answer for most purposes seems to be pretty much the same. Come on, people, this is stub-creep, what's the use of spreading a discussion about a single topic over so many independent "articles"? dab (ᛏ) 11:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
The article describes apatheism as "the position that God may exist but is of no real importance to one's daily life". However, "one" in "one's daily life" could refer the holder of the belief or people in general.
In other words, this description could mean either: a. the existence of god is of no importance to the believer b. the existance of god is of no importance to ANYONE
I follow the first defintion (I don't care about the existence of god), and I have labeled myself as an apatheist for quite a long time now. Viltris 09:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
"Daily life" is different than life altogether. An apatheist could be saying that while ze believes in a god, and it plays no real importance in day to day life, it still may determine hir afterlife, lack thereof, etc.
In other words, "said deity isn't going to help you win the lottery or get an A on your test, but will send you in the right direction when you die." They may come around for the so-called "Apocalypse" or grant a Divine Intervention, but don't really care otherwise. "Day-to-day life" is a minor thing.
An Apatheistic Christian may believe in God, and that Jesus is the son of God, but since then, God's not made much of a difference in humanity. Agnostics say they don't know whether there is a god or not. Ignostics say it doesn't matter whether there is a god or not. Apatheists say they do or they don't believe there is a god, but that doesn't matter. It is a subtle difference, but noticable enough that they should not be merged. -Nie (68.93.80.252) 22:30, June 12, 2006 (UTC)
I have replaced the rhetoric and pejorative "definition" on the article with a neutral definition.
Whether it is possible to be an apatheist is tangential to the definition of the term and is a debate topic that shouldn't be including in a neutral encyclopedia.
It is pejorative to claim that apatheists actually are, secretly, interested in gods and secretly believe in gods. It likens to the oft seen debate by theists that it is allegedly impossible to be an atheist and that those who claim to be atheists really do believe in a god (i.e. the one the theist happens to believe in). This is an offensive statement, just as it is offensive to post materials claiming that apatheists really do believe in gods and are interested in them.
Therefore, the previous material is inappropriate, offensive, and judgmental. The discussion belongs on debate forums, not on an encyclopedia.
An apatheist is a person who lacks belief in gods and who lacks interest in gods. Lacking belief does not meant the same thing as believing gods do not exist. I believe that the general usage of this term requires stating that the person lacks belief in gods, and is, therefore, a weak atheist. Having an active belief in gods contradicts lacking interest in gods, I believe.
I would agree to an edit that inserted the caveat that some apatheists do not consider themselves to be atheists. But, since many people misuse the term "atheist" in the more restrictive "positive atheist" sense, rather than its more proper broader sense of being "a person who lacks belief in god". However, I think have already covered that in my definition. KeithStump
This page is a joke —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.244.119.20 (talk) 00:08, October 23, 2006 (UTC)
The problem with apatheists is that they just dont care... Emoscopes Talk 02:28, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
The term was used by a notable author Jonathan Rauch in a respected and notable publication The Atlantic Monthly. It has also been used by other authors. It seems to have a relatively unique meaning. It is not a word or concept to be deleted. Richard Dates 21:47, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
This apatheism is far too philosophical. So what do you call someone who simply does not care whether there is a god.
If you ask a theist, "Does god exist?", he answers "yes". If you ask an atheist, he says "No". If you ask an agnostic, he says, "We can't possibly know?" But if you ask a whatever you call it, he answers, "Look what I got on sale at the mall today." Of course there are people (very much the opposite of agnostics) who answer, "I haven't figure it out yet." So what do you call them? [Note: My sister is a devout whogivesafigist. I'm the serious one. I'm an atheist.] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.41.0.50 (talk) 03:24, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
I first encountered this word here: "apatheist, someone believing that God or gods exist but are not of any use (7)." http://www.americandialect.org/index.php/amerdial/2003/01/ I would have thought they cared enough to get it "right" . . . any idea where they might have come up with that definition? It seems to clearly differentiate the "Apatheist" from the actual atheist, whereas this article does the opposite.
3 years ago I tried to describe my own beliefs and came up with: One must live ones life as if God's existence is irrelevant.
I tried to come up with a name for this and settled on: Apatheism: a combination of apathy and theism
After searching this term, I quickly realized that others had come up with this term years before I had, and with slightly different meanings.
With my definition that I applied to this term, whether it's: apathy and theism, apathy and atheism, apathy and agnostic (doesn't quite work on the combination) is really irrelevant because the belief in God is irrelevant, which fits any of these combinations. Personally I believe in a universal God, but not in any involvement of God in human affairs. I disagree with the comment that Apatheism is lack of belief in deities. Rather, I see it as the existence of god/gods is not meaningful for how we live our lives.
As far as being apathetic about everything, I see Apatheism as a dedication to defining our existence without reverting to some religious doctrine. It focuses the responsibility on the individual to redefine religious topics: good and evil, uses of power, etc. Some atheists may view this as the definition of atheism. My impression has been that a major focus of atheism is on the non-existence of God as opposed to how our live should be lived without a divine interpretation.
So much of this was stated in earlier discussions (I also like DrBob – the xy plane analogy), but people keep trying to force Apatheism into a religious belief which it is not.
Deloi 17:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
- I'm pretty much of the same view. And since this is really apathetic Agnostic-Deism or apathetic-deism, I['ve taken to calling it "ApaDeism".---Iconoclastithon (talk) 19:11, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Apathetic theism or for that matter apathetic agnostic-theism is actually more a form of "Deism" is it not? I have found many Apatheists are of the same view as the poster above me. I am in agreement with her/him. I am Agnostic leaning towards Deism, but find the deistic god practially, emotionally, morally irrelevent. I know many will say, "oh but deism is a form of theism", but it really isn't. Deism is a belief category all it's own, it's not a form of Theism, Agnosticism, or Atheism{as it's detractors often claim whether the detractors are theisst or atheists}, it is a category all it's own and in a sense combies all the best aspects of Atheism, Agnosticism, and Theism, but is yet distict.
That beeing said. If someone is like myself and "suspects" there is a deistic prime mover/first cause based on rational arguments and the evidence and not contrary to it, yet feels no emtoional atatchment to said creator force and sees it's existence as "practically, morally, emotionally" irrelevent, and only relevent in terms of philosophy{if that much} than this artcile suggests that they are "Apatheists", but as I said, deism not beeing a subset of theism{at least anymore} would not "ApaDeist/Apadeism" be more accurate? Perhaps as a secondary subset of Apatheism in the apathetic agnostic sense, and as de-fault atheism. I know this sounds very convuluted and complex, but it really is a matter of intelelctual honesty and term correctness IMO, which is why I am expressing the idea. This pretty much describes me, however I am also simultaneously an Anti-theist{opposed to theism, faith, and religion- at least revealed religions anyhow}-and I have noticed this actually where alot of alledged, so-called, and self-professed "Apatheists" stand as well. So, I wonder if my suggestion should be taken seriously by the Raionalist community at large and perhaps discussed amongst us all and amongst so-called "Apatheists". Actually, perhaps it could be seen that "Apatheism" is apathetic agnostic atheism and "ApaDeism" is apathetic agnostic-deism{not theism}. Thoughts?--Iconoclastithon (talk) 19:23, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
((User:TechBear/Apatheist)) |
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Just wanted to share. If you have any suggestions, please visit my talk page. TechBear 23:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I changed the first two occurances of God to gods on the basis that atheism isn't necessarily specific to a particular god (ie: not limited to disbelief in Yahweh or whatever one wishes to call him). If this definition isn't actually carried across to apatheism then feel free to change it back. Antisora 10:59, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 03:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
why does apathetic agnosticism redirect to this page? it's not the same. -76.27.231.192 (talk) 14:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
It redirects HERE, instead. What the heck is Wikipedia 'pruning' my (lack of) religion for? Is it the editorial opinion of Wikipedia that the Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic is NOTHING except a description of this fashionable 'apatheism' neologism? Should Wikipedia similarly redirect Baptist and Methodist and Christian Science and Mormon and Catholic (and the other thousands of sects) to a single generic 'Christian' article? Hey, maybe then we can just redirect Islam and Hinduism and Christianity and the other top-level religions and all their subspecies into one generic 'Religion' topic. That'll save some space. This pruning and redirecting of topics is turning into a black hole that's devouring content at a frightful rate. Soon Wikipedia will be nothing but redirections to redirections. Like opening up the phone book to look for 'Clothing' and finding 'See Apparel', then going to 'Apparel' and seeing 'See Clothing'. I mean, sure the phone book is a lot thinner for not having to have any actual listings at all, but it's kind of useless as well. There's probably a name for such an information collapse, or maybe one needs to be coined. Storage is CHEAP, people! Quit pruning content! It's not as if you're going to print an affordable paper encyclopedia from this. Sorry about the rant. Pingnak (talk) 05:35, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Pingnak (talk) 06:56, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Couldn't this reasonably be linked to atheism? Since atheism is not selectively a belief that there is no god, it is also an absence of a belief in a god; simply put, anyone who does not actually have a belief in a god is an atheist.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atheism#English atheism (plural atheisms)
1. Absence of, or rejection of, belief in the existence of God or gods.
apatheism (uncountable)
1. Apathy towards the existence of a god; belief that the question of the existence of a god is unimportant.
Apatheism seems to essentially be a lack of belief, or reason to believe. I'm sure one could easily be an apatheist yet maybe have theistic leanings, but is it not very fundamentally linked to atheism? 98.168.204.179 (talk) 06:33, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
That meaning is in the dictionary, but is somewhat controversial; the proper place to discuss the definition of atheism wouldn probably be Talk:Atheism (which, however, has the following disclaimer: "The definition of atheism has been repeatedly argued on this talk page. The current revision attempts to put forward all definitions without favoring any particular definition."). -- AnonMoos (talk) 08:00, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
- Theism - "I believe in God(s)."
- "Weak" atheism - "I do not believe in God(s)."
- "Strong" atheism - "I believe there is/are no God(s)."
- Agnosticism - "I do not know whether to believe in God(s)."
- Apatheism - "I believe I will have another cookie."
Apatheism should be viewed as more of an attitude than a certainty or belief. Apatheism generally boils down to not seeing any practical place for one's beliefs in the world. While you might personally observe your beliefs or live according to the values therein, you would have no interest in debating them, justifying them to others, involving them in politics, making everyday decisions based on these beliefs, etc. Say I believe in the existence of a deity. If I have never observed this deity intervening in this world, guiding my actions or decisions, or otherwise influencing this life in any manner what-so-ever, I would fail to see the significance of telling other people their beliefs are wrong, pursuing evangelicalism, attempting to outlaw practices my deity forbids, etc. Regardless of what we create in this mortal life, higher powers obviously don't care enough to drop in and say, "Hey, guys! You're doing it all wrong!" Why, then, do any of us waste our time trying to enforce their doctrines? 70.153.104.235 (talk) 11:08, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
I gave the page a new format and added some material. Please feel free to contribute and suggest new fun stuff. I hope its better. Ideas? Gu3Miles (talk) 00:26, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Hello, people!
I red this article quickly and I noticed that the part with the title "Not In My Power" is not in a enciclopedian format (or at least, is far from what we can see in normal Wikipedia articles). In fact, it's almost like an apantheist justifying his friend's actions to a believer in a conversation rather someone describing the data in a 3º person point-of-view. I would recommend to someone that its interested on this to change that part in a way that the same information would be keept, but told in an encyclopedian way.
Thanks for your attention! Ass: User:Momergil (sorry: it was logged out but I didn't noticed...)
As Agnostic neutralism and Indifferentism are both currently close to being deleted and have/share Apetheism views (and are actually the same thing), I suggest they be added under the "Arguments of brands of apatheism" portion of the article. Would do it myself but am new and unfamiliar with formatting and properly worded needs. This would also help with the current un-encyclopedia nature of Indifference as it is currently written in the article.
I cut the following text from the section on Agnostic Neutralism:
because the terms "agnostic theism" and "agnostic atheism" seem to be self contradictory, because being considered neither theist nor atheist seems to me pretty much the definition of agnostic to me, so both of these statements need to be clarified by somebody more familiar with this than me, and because the "holding both sides equal in their potential to be true" part is already present in the section. Eldamorie (talk) 14:20, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Note I disagree with the use of apatheism as anything but an agnostic term, but that's for a different discussion. GManNickG (talk) 20:21, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Eldamorie (talk) 15:05, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
First question is a simpler one: for years I have called myself an "agnostic apatheist" but the article uses the term "apathetic agnosticism". Is one way of ordering the terms more technically correct than the other? Next, after reading the article, I became confused about the compatibility of the two terms. Are the two together really a refined subcategory? Or does stating "apatheism" alone imply "agnosticism", itself being a refined category of agnosticism? Or is there even some incompatibility of the two, as the article gave me the impression that an apatheist should not make an assertion as an agnostic would, profoundly declaring "We cannot know"? --71.196.252.254 (talk) 16:04, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
"But since for the socialist man the entire so-called history of the world is nothing but the creation of man through human labour, nothing but the emergence of nature for man, so he has the visible, irrefutable proof of his birth through himself, of his genesis. Since the real existence of man and nature has become evident in practice, through sense experience, because man has thus become evident for man as the being of nature, and nature for man as the being of man, the question about an alien being, about a being above nature and man – a question which implies the admission of the unreality of nature and of man – has become impossible in practice. Atheism, as the denial of this unreality, has no longer any meaning, for atheism is a negation of God, and postulates the existence of man through this negation; but socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation. It proceeds from the theoretically and practically sensuous consciousness of man and of nature as the essence. Socialism is man’s positive self-consciousness, no longer mediated through the abolition of religion, just as real life is man’s positive reality, no longer mediated through the abolition of private property, through communism. Communism is the position as the negation of the negation, and is hence the actual phase necessary for the next stage of historical development in the process of human emancipation and rehabilitation. Communism is the necessary form and the dynamic principle of the immediate future, but communism as such is not the goal of human development, the form of human society."-Karl Marx, Private Property and Communism Bolegash (talk) 16:30, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
"The active exclusion argument states that religion has been the root cause of wars and cultural disputes for thousands of years, and therefore "religion" is still a very relevant issue within societies. However, since the existence of a god or gods can never be proven or disproven, society, culture, and science can and should progress without religion playing a role in intellectual pursuits and practical action. Including religion in dialogues and actions can result in suboptimal outcomes due to the inherent fractionalization between cultures that religions cause."
This is completely counter to the notion of apatheism. The whole point is that the world should not, nor should any behavior, change if god was proven or disproven. Thus, this "active exclusion argument" is exactly equivalent to suggesting that (religion = fractionalization) and (not religion = not fractionalization). Whence comes this inherent fractionalization? Perhaps when a society is under threat of annihilation or something less dramatic such as famine, just maybe the members of that society band together in multiple, opposing groups along common lines to fight over the remains? Maybe the symbol under which these members unite is completely arbitrary?
Maybe this section was poorly written and poorly planned. A future religion that teaches a lifestyle that is identical to the status quo and that there is to be no discrimination between believers and non believers. Is this religion necessarily fractionalizing? Is there any reason at all to think a completely irreligious society is a completely unified society? Is this section of this article necessary, relevant or even sensical? In a phrase, Are You Serious, Bro? DiogenesThaDogg (talk) 12:28, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
"The Catholic Church ascribes indifferentism to all atheistic, materialistic, pantheistic, and agnostic philosophies, as well as pluralist religious philosophy, such as that espoused by Rousseau." I think we should either have a broader range of opinions (why there are any at all here, I don't understand), or none at all. What is the purpose of this entry? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.55.214.116 (talk) 16:32, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Is apatheism = atheist who doesn't care about the topic or an agnostic who doesn't care about the topic? If latter, then please mention the word for atheists who doesn't care about the whole discussion on the topic of god. To be precise, what would you call a person who thinks that the concept of god is stupid and has no significance to their life? Aravind V R (talk) 19:30, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
The definition section seems to be OR. Ditto "Common apatheistic arguments". Doug Weller talk 14:05, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
apatheism is NOT the same as practical atheism. They are similar bur not the same.
"This definition of practical atheism focuses on the idea that one disregards belief in gods and the existence of gods in day-to-day living but doesn't necessarily reject the existence of gods when it comes to professed beliefs." http://atheism.about.com/od/Atheist-Dictionary/g/Definition-Practical-Atheism.htm
Note that it says "but doesn't necessarily reject the existence of gods when it comes to professed beliefs"
Apollo The Logician (talk) 09:02, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
I have added the "expand section" tag under the Reasons for Apatheism. It felt very sparse. The Lack of interest section, for example, was a single sentence. I'm not really sure what else could be said about the lack of interest, outside of a personal opinion, but I think the section should have more content added to it if it should remain as part of the article, which I think that it should. Sawta (talk) 17:10, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
..because Wikipedia is not a dictionary of jargon, neo-academic or otherwise. -Booksnarky (talk) 03:35, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Having that in mind, can we just merge this article as a sub-heading within Agnosticism? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.150.182.195 (talk) 12:10, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
As I have read in the posts, yes an apatheist can take all sorts of non-believer positions, atheist, agnostic, whatever. But I think it is an important distinction that as an apatheist you do not invest any energy in engaging in theological discussions. Strictly speaking I would probably call myself an Atheist. However there are people who would hold that therefore I think there is proof that there are no gods, which of course, you can not prove a negative. So anyway, to avoid that whole discussion I would call myself an agnostic, you can't prove or disprove the existence of gods, which is of course (to my mind, anyway) true. So taking that position opens me up to those who would bring me all kinds of arguments to prove that god exists. So to counter that I have to come up with another strategy: Put in plain language, simply telling the religious proselytizers to piss off. I'm not interested, I don't care about any of your aguments, just leave me alone. Your arguments are irrational, childish, subjective, I don't even want to talk with you about it, and don't try to sneak it in the back door in our conversations either! That is what apatheism is. It is purely pragmatic, not philosophical. You can not put it together with atheism or agnosticism - or not do so, for that matter. These are different classes of concepts. Are you a man or a woman? No, I'm a carpenter. Would you like your cereal hot or cold? No I would like it in a deep dish. That's the sort of discrepancy we're talking about here, not a philosophical one. This is simply about wanting to be left alone, not about what one actually think about the subject. Would like to refer everyone to a great site I just found: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer/P60/apatheism - which discusses this very issue very well, but from the other side: A frustrated person asks: How do I as a Christian proselytizer deal with an apatheist who doesn't want to talk with me and let me try to persuade him about all my irrational religious convictions (he didn't put it that way of course). Now, of course an apatheist also does not have any investment in convincing a religious person about their irrational ways. It is simply a non-issue either way. So I think we really need to have an explanation of it as a pragmatic, rather than a philosophical stance. OK, let a stickler tell me that pragmatism is also a philosophical stance, but that doesn't invalidate my point. Yesterday I tried to post the following as a reason for being an apatheist:
Unwillingness to engage in discussions with religious proselytizers
At least Christian and Moslem religions and possibly others have a strong tradition for attempting to convert non-believers. Apatheism may simply be a practical personal stance to counter such attempts. An excellent, directly related example of the mentioned conversion tradition may be found at https://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer/P60/apatheism
- and it appeared to post, but since I'm not real confident about navigating Wikipedia yet, I don't know if it did, or whether someone zealous about this removed it moments after I posted it. Nnnooottt (talk) 18:22, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
If that's the rules here, that's the rules here. So, I'll go back to only being a reader of Wikipedia. Wikipedia surely is an amazing place, and when I'm researching something, and there are links in every direction one might want to pursue. However I am realizing that the instructions for navigating as a contributor are of similarly astronomical proportions. That's ok, I'm going to have to be an apatheist about it, or something like that.Nnnooottt (talk) 05:09, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for the compliment. I do a fair amount of writing, which it is probably not ok to put in a link to here, but on a further personal note, I have stage 4 cancer, I have to consider the relation of my contributions to the effort it takes to make it. It is probably your strict and extensive rules that makes Wikipedia as good as it is, so it doesn't wind up with a whole bunch of BS, but it just takes too much effort for me to even navigate the system. And anyway I'm just an essayist of small note, not an encyclopedia builder. But thank you to all those who are. Nnnooottt (talk) 05:35, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Pragmatic atheist and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 December 15 § Pragmatic atheist until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 22:40, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Uctaa and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 December 15 § Uctaa until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 22:47, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
2nd sentence of introduction: 'The term was coined by Robert Nash, theology professor at Mercer University, in 2001.' cited to an academic paper published in 2001. 2nd sentence, 2nd section, Etymology: 'Apatheism was first coined by Canadian sociologist Stuart Johnson in his study of indifference to religion amid secularization.', cited to an article on Apatheism by Kyle Bashear in an issue of a theological journal published in 2019. Stuart Johnson is credited as the originator of the term in footnote 8, specifically in a paper published in The Canadian Journal of Criminology and Justice in 1972: "The Correctional Chaplaincy: Sociological Perspectives in a Time of Rapid Change”, Canadian Journal of Criminology and Justice 14 [1972]: 179. I am therefore editing the introduction to credit Stuart Johnson rather than Robert Nash. Robert P Connolly (talk) 16:09, 6 April 2024 (UTC)