[h1]Apatheism[/h1][h3]From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/h3]
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Apatheism (a
portmanteau of
apathy and
theism/atheism), also known as
pragmatic or critically as practical atheism, is acting with apathy, disregard, or lack of interest towards belief, or lack of belief in adeity. Apatheism describes the
manner of acting towards a belief or lack of a belief in a deity; so applies to both theism and atheism. An apatheistis also someone who is not interested in accepting or denying any claims that
gods exist or do not exist. In other words, an apatheist is someone who considers the question of the existence of gods as neither meaningfulnor relevant to his or her life.
Apathetic agnosticism (also called pragmatic agnosticism) is the view that thousands of years of debate has neither proven, nor dis-proven,the existence of one or more deities (gods). This view concludes that even if one or more deities exist, they do not appear to be concerned about the fate ofhumans. Therefore, their existence has little impact on personal human affairs and should be of little theological interest.[sup]
[1][/sup]
Practical atheism can take various forms:
- Absence of religious motivation-belief in gods does not motivate moral action, religious action, or any other form of action;
- Active exclusion of the issue of gods and religion from intellectual pursuit and practical action; or
- Indifference-the absence of any interest in the problems of gods and religion;
Historically, practical atheism was considered by some people to be associated with moral failure, willful ignorance and impiety. Those considered practicalatheists were said to behave as though God, ethics and social responsibility did not exist; they abandoned duty and embraced
hedonism. According to the French Catholic philosopher
Étienne Borne, "Practical atheism is not the denial of the existence of God,but complete godlessness of action; it is a moral evil, implying not the denial of the absolute validity of the moral law but simply rebellion against thatlaw."[sup]
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The eighteenth century
French philosopher
Denis Diderot, when accused of being an atheist, replied that he simply did not carewhether God existed or not. In response to
Voltaire, he wrote:[sup]
[3][/sup]
| " | It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley; but not at all so to believe or not in God. | " |
Jonathan Rauch described apatheism as "a disinclination to care allthat much about one's own religion and even a stronger disinclination to care about other people's".[sup]
[4][/sup]
I would say I'm more of an apatheist than anything else. I'm confident that if a just god exists that I could reason with "it" to explainwhy I veered away from its faith in the first place. I was an extremely religious person when I was younger but once I realized the hypocrisy could notjustified, I found no other reason to hold on these beliefs. I live my life perfectly fine knowing that the burden of guilt the Church likes to place upon itsmembers no longer presides over me.
On the flip side, however, I'm not mad at people who do truly and devoutly belief in a higher power. If it works for you, then it works for you. Thoseanswers just didn't suit me, that's all. It is the extremists that really irritate me because they refuse to respect other people's rights to NOTbelieve in their doctrine. Belief, disguised and justified as rational discourse, is truly disturbing.
