"Apatheism is the attitude of apathy towards the existence or non-existence of God. It is more of an attitude rather than a belief, claim, or belief system. The term was coined by Robert Nash in 2001. An apatheist is someone who is not interested in accepting or rejecting any claims that gods exist or do not exist."

-Wikipedia

The idea of "I don't care if there is a god or not" is one that is rarely talked about.

Different versions of this:

Egalitarian argument (Also known as heroical Apatheism)

The only legitimate power comes from the people through democratic processes. (Voting in representatives or direct voting through things like direct ballot initiatives). This is true regardless of who holds the power including a supernatural being(s) with ultimate power and the ability to wipe humanity out in a snap.

God is irrelevant then because his/her/it/them power is irrelevant as they should be held to the same standards as everyone else and is no more important than anyone else. In short this is the ultimate egalitarian response to the question of god.

Impossible nature argument:

It is impossible to discern God(s) nature even if he/she/it/them does exist therefore it is pointless to care about their existence or non existence as you can't do anything with this knowledge anyway.

It argues against Pascal's wager by arguing that God(s) would be equally likely to despise the act of worshipping it as love the act of worshipping and it is impossible to know either way.

Agnostic Apatheism:

It is impossible to know if God(s) exist or not so there is no point in caring about it.

This is different than the impossible nature argument because with the impossible nature argument you could 100% know that God(s) exist but be unable to know anything more about God(s) than that.

Materialist Apatheism:

Even if God(s) does exist it does not matter because all signs point to it not interfering in the material world and due to all the problems in the regular world all efforts should be focused on improving it and not wasted on what happens after you die.

I myself belief the impossible nature argument and the egalitarian apatheist argument.

(The only reference I found on the egalitarian argument called it heroical apatheism, but I think that is a stupid self serving name so I'm calling it the egalitarian argument or egalitarian apatheism)

So finally I've decided to be a apatheist, some people in this sub may call me a fake atheist but believe me I'm tired of arguing with these chaddis and musanghis, I think this is the best way now I just don't care about their beliefs or stupidity.

Read this if you do not know what apatheism is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism I have not posted here in a while, mostly because I have had ran out of arguments honestly, but today I am coming up with this....could you ever manage, in the future, to stop caring about this hypothetical god described in the Bible (Yahweh), if he exists or if you could end up in hell for not being a born again Christian? I know that such is difficult for those who have experienced toxicity and abuse from their fundamentalist families/circles, but I, since I never was indoctrinated like others (some attempts to bring me back at the church and the Christian belief were made but all were unsuccessful and even the pressure was not that big), I can claim that I am slowly proceeding towards approximate apatheism, as not only I see the existence of divinity or whatever created life pretty irrelevant at this point but also that one' sense of morality is predominantly independent from his/her religous beliefs (there are treasures and assholes of every kind, Atheist, Christian, Muslim etc.), even though I am aware of the fact that is frankly impossible to be 100% apatheist as long as you are outraged by some principles from the Bible that are promoted amidst the youth (like the whole "salvation" thing and the hell doctrine). Maybe I am solely selfish for wishing to stop caring about the toxic consequences that religion had upon humans or I am just tired? Obviously, I am not saying that people should stop fighting oppression from religious organisations or the religions themselves, but I think that doing that constantly may be also incredibly exhausting for one's mind. One example that has inspired me to write this post is this event (https://religionnews.com/2013/10/25/atheists-step-help-ohio-pastor-assaulted-militant-atheist/), in which the son of the assaulted pastor seemed to be grateful for the donations of the atheists (unlike others who refused donations from atheist/humanist organisations), and also Hermant Mehta, the guy who offered to raise money for covering the attacked man's medical bills, said this “I think it is a nice gesture to say we feel horrible for what you went through. This shouldn’t have happened. We disagree with Christians all the time but that is not how we resolve our debate.” Anyways, I feel that this post has been too long already, just like most of mine on this sub. I am even anxious to post it honestly, and I do not even know if I delivered my

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As you've read in the title, I don't feel motivated at all, I feel depressed, I have trouble falling asleep at night and the only feelings that bring me joy are feelings of nostalgia. At the moment I do not feel like I want to die nor do I think I will in the near future but I do not know what might change that. I feel like taking a year off so I can work with a therapist, a psychologist or a psychiatrist ( I dont know really which one could help me, or even any of them). I have hope ( which is dwindling) that I could be cured of these feelings and maybe get to enjoy and live life once more but I do not know if that is possible. I've been living like this for a couple of year, around 6-7. Please let me know if any of you are going through this and share your experiences with me. Also please tell me if I should care about what my mom thinks or if I should just follow my heart and what it tells me, what it's telling me is that it wants to get rid of these feelings asap. Thank you.

What do you guys think about apatheistic approach to God's existence/nonexistence?

Atheism and theism have strong forms (gnostic) and weak forms (agnostic). I'm pretty sure we have that too. In this case, strong is a measure of certainty.

So I guess weak form apathiesm would be "I don't really care whether or not God exists, but maybe I'm wrong and should care, but I don't."

And then strong form would be "I am certain that it doesn't matter whether or not God exists."

Thoughts?

It’s on the poem “the preacher: ruminates behind the sermon.” Ignoring the idea that god doesn’t need a shoulder to lean on or that he understands us in a more complex way that “sharing a coke” could never live up to*, this poem reminds me of this subreddit. Stumbled upon you guys the other day and the concept caught my attention. In this poem he seems like a lonely CEO that could never relate to the worker bee and that just made me think of him as irrelevant to life. So I thought some of you in this sub might appreciate the poem. Of course, it may be interpreted other ways.

*leaving these out because they tie into the paradox of if god is all-knowing and all that Jazz

After lot's and lot's of thinking I decided I really couldn't care less if there was a God or not, so I converted to an Apatheist.

Ever since then, I have been happier than ever before in my life.

When I see arguments about religion I just guffaw and cruise past them, you guys should really try it, not trying to convert you or anything but, Apatheism is the way to go!

Fellow Apatheist's regularily do not bring up religion, they do not even think about it, which takes so much stress off of you, with less stress you are more concentrated and agile.

I never used to be able to run a marathon, or write a book, but now that I am an Apatheist, I am positive I could do both, if not both as the same time.

Apatheism is great, see ya around Apatheist Redditor's!

P.S. APATHEISTS CAN SUCESSFULLY TROLL ANY OTHER BELIEF! NO OTHER BELIEF CAN DO THIS! JOIN US!

Edit: Spelling

For anyone who does not know:

An Apatheist is someone who considers the question of the existence of gods as neither meaningful nor relevant to his or her life.

I think there are effectively 3 dimensions that affect how people approach religion in general:

Atheism/theism is whether or not the person believes there is or is not a higher power.

Agnosticism/gnosticism is how sure the person is about their beliefs.

Apatheism/patheism???? is how much influence the person's peliefs have on their actions.

For example, I am an apatheistic agnostic atheist while a fundamentalist Christian pastor would be a patheistic gnostic theist. There are also plenty of people who are entirely certain that there is a god but don't really go to church or do anything differently because of that and those people would be apatheistic gnostic theists.

I was bored and scrolling through this sub and I kept seeing people looking at apatheism as a sort of middle ground between atheism and theism and I figured I might as well share what I think about it.

TLDR: apatheism isn't a middle ground between things or anything about belief really. It's just how much you let religion determine what you do

Is there a formal definition of apatheism? I was under impression that it was along the lines of: theist: What is the meaning of life when there is at least one god atheist: What is the meaning of life when no gods exist agnostic: What is the meaning of life if some god exists apatheist: This question has no meaning in these contexts

It seems to me that apathy is somewhat of a misnomer here.

I just found out I've been pronouncing the word wrong for months. And I don't care, because it doesn't matter.

Having trouble differentiating the two.

Sometimes labels are necessary. Some are infact a favorable descriptive. For the present, the necessity of accepting the label of Atheist is both the former and the latter. We live in a complicated world. The simplicity is available but typically overlooked. The ongoing need to improve our system of ethics requires engagement on battlefield of religious discussion.

Nothing disappoints more than an inadequate and uninformed definition of your debate challenger. It's little wonder that Atheist generally outscore the religious on factual knowledge of their books and histories. A desire to apply critical thinking is typical. We don't assert the nonexistence of gods , but see the disappointing and inadequate evidence behind the beliefs. On the surface , religion serves a purpose on an individual level as a source of psychological comfort and one can debate it's benefit. On the public issues, religion serves benefits in some public services , but it's inherit devisive nature leads to a great deal of bad feelings among individuals, bad laws, various forms of discrimination , and even conflicts.

If there was a god who was truly omnipresent, omnibenevolent and omnipotent, the conversation and debate would be unnecessary . We would all get it. There would be one understood right discription of reality and journey concerning our lives.

In truth, the god you worship reflects not the universe, but instead you and your culture. There is a god for every culture . The largest mass grave in history houses the corpses of thousands of gods . The chance that your group has discovered the real deal , is extremely improbable.

Nevertheless , is it necessary to discard the baby with the bathwater ? The important point is to remember that some questions will never be answered. People spend a lifetime in frustration and irrational cognitive dissonance attempting to overcome this fact. They lie to others and more importantly to themselves , convinced they know that which provides no evidence. Coincidence , happenchance and faith are mistaked for facts. But it would be just as ignorant to place ones disbelief on the back of faith. A lack of evidence is rationally not evidence of absence . Leave faith to those who refuse to engage critical thinking.

Looking at Europe, primary it's seemingly slow bleed of culture and civility , resulting from bad policy and political correctness , we see those in Islam who recognise a void and intend to fill it. A great deal of European cou

As an Apatheist myself, I've always heard from religious people about how odd it is that I just don't care about religion, how it's strange that I don't even wonder about if there is a creator, and about how I'm going to hell from walking away from my faith (former evangelical missionary... Yeah, I know. Glad I got away from it all).

But I haven't heard much from atheists, actually. I've heard some people liken us to either Closet Agnostics or Lazy Atheists, but in actuality, I genuinely just don't care. I'm not an Apathetic Agnostic, I'm not interested in even thinking if there may be a deity of some sort, I'm much closer to a Practical Atheist in that I'm completely indifferent to the discussion in it's entirety.

I guess that makes me an atheist, but I don't know. It feels like there's too much work involved in being an avowed atheist. I've no time for debate, I'd rather be doing something I enjoy than engaging in the old "is there/isn't there" discussion. I seriously don't care either way.

Thoughts?

I was just wondering if any of you guys relate more to apatheism than other religious beliefs. I considered myself an agnostic until I stumbled upon this, and it seems pretty interesting.

Here's a paragraph taken from Wikipedia's page: "...an apatheist is someone who considers the question of the existence of gods as neither meaningful nor relevant to their life. Some apatheists hold that if it were possible to prove that God does or does not exist, their behavior would not change."

Hi I found this text on wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Practical_atheism quote Apatheism

In practical or pragmatic atheism, also known as apatheism,

individuals live as if there are no gods and explain natural phenomena without resorting to the divine.

The existence of gods is not rejected, but may be designated unnecessary or useless; gods neither provide purpose to life, nor influence everyday life, according to this view /quote Personally I had heard of Apatheism but with another definition. That one don't care about gods and not about atheism either.

But the term Practical Atheism was new to me. seems they have given it its own entry too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism this link also list it as a viable position. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_atheism

What are your views on this way to relate to the issue? Do you accept it? If there is some philosophical error then what could that be formally named? Or is it an okay position?

Is apatheist a separate category or always an adjective to atheist? You are always an apatheistic theist or an apatheistic atheist? in same way that it is accepted there can be an agnostic theist and an agnostic atheists?

Edit. Thanks indeed for the positive response. Apatheism is an odd thing among active atheists on forums but in practice most atheists in population are very passive and don't try to voice their atheism in every situation so it is maybe a term to care about?

I like the Methodological Naturalism seen as Practical atheism best. We do want to be practical? :)

Incoming long post:

This is my first huge post on reddit, as I’m a longtime lurker. This community has, so far, been the most warm and inviting, with so many differing viewpoints being treated with the utmost respect. And so it’s here where I’ll let my presence be known.

My story seems to be in the minority in this subreddit where I was really only affiliated with Christianity through Younglife in my high school. My parents are both Christian but not strictly so at all. We almost never went to church during my childhood.

Background: In high school, a group of my more Christian friends started going to Younglife, a high school, Christian youth group where students from a neighboring college would come and lead Christian events every Thursday. There were games, activities, live music performed by my friends, and a light sermon that almost never lasted more than 45 minutes. I attended almost every week starting in my Freshman year and became majorly involved, becoming a junior leader for my last two years.

It’s important to understand that I hated organized religion and churches. The only time I’ve ever felt an immense amount of anxiety was at a church (other than marching, with a drum through the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with a back injury, but that’s another story).

With that being said, I loved Younglife because those college students were fucking real with us. They’d let us in on all their flaws and struggles with sin, whether it was porn addiction, sex, drugs, you name it. They didn’t deflect questions, and would answer honestly if they didn’t have an answer by just saying “I don’t know” instead of trying to save face and pull bullshit out of their asses.

But I think what resonated the most with me was that they always talked about how Jesus and the big guy always love you unconditionally, and that Jesus died for your sins because he loves you. It was a strong message for a kid with a mother he’d argue constantly with, trouble with finding a solid group of friends when I had felt I had to leave my last friend group because they fell hard into drugs and started just being straight up dicks to me, and really struggling to find my place in the world figuring out what my purpose is and what all this means.

During their sermons they always talked about the amazing things God and Jesus did for people in the Bible and how they will always unconditionally love each and every one of us and be there for us. The leaders also didn’t judge our shortco

What do you think causes apathy towards religion?

Apatheism is the attitude of apathy towards the existence or non-existence of God. It is more of an attitude rather than a belief, claim, or belief system.

And what do you think of Apatheism in general?