Talk:Apatheism

message: 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)
replies: text: I agree.  I'm going to remove this sentence as uncited and possibly non-NPOV. Doctormatt 18:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

text: agreed i hope its gone --Gu3Miles (talk) 23:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Doesn't sound very apathetic

message: 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)
thread_title:  statement does not make sense

message: 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)
replies: text: Replied on user's Talk page. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 18:21, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: I restored some of the content you removed and altered some of your additions.  You've limited the scope of apatheism to "judging actions", thereby reducing a broad set of beliefs about metaphysics in general into one solely about morality.  Also, I disagre with the claim that all apatheists come to the conclusion that a belief in gods is irrelevant as a consequence of the belief that the existence of gods is unprovable.  I have therefore refactored your additions against the previous contents of the article to restore a more accurate representation of what, I at least, understand apatheism to be.  Kelly Martin 20:30, Mar 28, 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)
thread_title:  Apathyism—contrast to Apatheism 

message: 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)
thread_title:  N/A-ism 

message: 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)
thread_title: Ambiguous definition

message: 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)
: It is. Just because Austin Cline (a non-reliable source) defined it on his about.com blog does not make it a notable term (I've had troubles with the guy, in far too many instances have I met people who were misinformed on the terminology of certain things, which was traced back to him several times, end of tangent). "Apatheism" is just ignosticism with a catchy title. I am not in a wiki-experienced enough position to suggest this article be deleted, or merged, but do something.GravityExNihilo 07:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major Edit 

message: 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)
thread_title: Viable Neologism

message: 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)
replies: text: I thought I was an apatheist, but after reading all this I don't want to think about it and I don't care one way or the other, so I guess I'm not one after all.Atomota (talk) 02:29, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

text: gnostic -lysdexia 09:58, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: How do you say, "I don't care"

message: 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)
thread_title:  One more Apatheism 

message: 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)
replies: text: Learn how to spell. -lysdexia 09:58, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  ApaDeism 

message: 	
Just wanted to share. If you have any suggestions, please visit my talk page. TechBear 23:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: whether or not = whether or not whether -lysdexia 09:58, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apatheist userbox 

message: 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)
thread_title:  "Gods" in general rather than "God" 

message: 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)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: why does apathetic agnosticism redirect to this page? it's not the same. -76.27.231.192 (talk) 14:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  redirect from apathetic agnosticism 

message: 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)
thread_title: New Format

message: 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...)
:Now yes: Momergil (talk) 18:26, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding the part "Not In My Power" 

message: 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 ended up adding them, anyway. DudelRok (talk) 13:41, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  If agnostic neutralism was deleted because its not a recognized (or even necessary) term, why would it be added to this article? I'm deleting it, because it's unnecessary as was discussed on the agnostic neutralism page. If you'd like to provide a rationale or explanation of why it should be recognized as a term, please do so. GManNickG (talk) 20:01, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Clarification? Boundaries of agnosticism and apatheism? 

message: "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)
thread_title:  Karl Marx Apatheism? 

message: "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)
thread_title:  Active Exclusion 

message: "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)
replies: text: We have a Catholic opinion because "Indifferentism" as a thing is limited to RC theology. Other uses of the term aren't codified in the same way. Check out the main article. eldamorie (talk) 17:05, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Why do we have a Catholic opinion in "Types of apatheism: Indifference"?

message: 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)
thread_title: Is an apatheist an atheist?

message: The definition section seems to be OR. Ditto "Common apatheistic arguments". Doug Weller talk 14:05, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Get rid of redirect to apatheism 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Reasons for Apatheism, expand tag 

message: ..because Wikipedia is not a dictionary of jargon, neo-academic or otherwise. -Booksnarky (talk) 03:35, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delete or merge into atheism 

message: 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)
replies: text: Here's this. Agnosticism = I don't know if gods exist or not. Apatheism = I don't care if gods exist or not. CommanderOzEvolved (talk) (contribs) 17:03, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Okay seriously, this is just another name for Agnosticism

message: An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect :Pragmatic atheist and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at  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)
thread_title:  "Pragmatic atheist" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect :Uctaa and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at  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)
thread_title:  "Uctaa" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: 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)
thread_title:  'Coined by...'