Is God Irrelevant? Between ‘New Atheism’ and believers, Apatheism forges a different path.

While the media still milks the chattering and snarling between theists and atheists, most people are bored by this show, and many have quietly moved into a more productive position. Growing numbers of people don’t particularly care whether or not there are gods since, even if there are, they don’t seem able to do anything in our world. If they’re omnipotent, they appear to be indifferent to the small and large-scale wars, tragedies, and slaughters around us. If they’re impotent, who needs them?

A interesting article about the growing ranks of apatheists but I see a slight problem here with advancing apatheism as some sort of "third way"; a path that steers clear of both the Scylla and Charybdis of atheism and theism in the great culture wars.

I understand that desire to have nothing to do with either camp, but apatheism is not the middle path. Apatheism addresses the question of relevance, while atheism is an answer to the question of belief.

There are many questions one can ask in relation to religion and belief in the supernatural, and for the most part they are orthogonal and must be answered individually. For instance, it's possible to be an agnostic apatheistic theist or a person who doesn't know whether god exists who still believes yet finds god's influence on our lives to be nonexistent. Such a person might well be a deist.

There's also the problem that definitions of these terms are hotly contested and wildly variable even among non-believers. Many fundamentalists believers just might choose to view a self-described apatheist as someone who rejects god and is therefore an atheist anyway.

Thus I don't think it makes any sense to just adopt a singular label and expect that to sum up the entirety of your views on the matter. No matter what label you choose to use to refer to your religious views, be it atheist, agnostic, Baptist, Muslim, Buddhist or Jainist, the fact of the matter is you're telling the world remarkably little about yourself. Far better to engage in dialogue and try to forge a bond based on mutual respect and understanding.

You don't have to respect the other person's belief but you should at least give them the courtesy to assume that they are an intelligent, independent human being and respect that their knowledge and experiences have led them to their belief; that they don't believe blindly. At least until they prove otherwise.

Not that that will work all the time, and in these highly charged times it's impossible far too often. There are way too many people who will just grasp onto the labels and immediately apply a lifetime's worth of preconceptions and bigotry. Still, we've got to try. That's the only way the peace will ever be won in the culture wars.

Note: These days I prefer to call myself a secular humanist. It's just easier to start with a statement of what I believe rather than what I don't. I'm still very much an atheist and I don't shy away from the term at all but I'm tired of the loud and angry brigade coopting and defining it. I'm tired of all the excess baggage it has become loaded down with.

So let me say this very plainly...

"Hi, I'm Leo and I'm an atheist. I don't believe in any gods. Now, let's talk about something interesting."