Is God irrelevant?

Between ‘New Atheism’ and believers, Apatheism forges a different path
By Davidson Loehr

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?

Even when people are reflexively tempted to thank God for saving them from a disaster that may have killed hundreds or thousands of other people, they don’t want to say it too loudly—because they know someone may ask them, rhetorically, what their God had against the thousands he let die. Even bromides about God have lost much of their usefulness.

Still, with or without gods, we cannot escape the existential questions that have underwritten all the religions—and most civil codes of law—throughout human history:

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/2711/is_god_irrelevant/

that's just people who don't understand what atheism is, or don't have the guts to completely let go of their early-childhood brainwashing.

Since when? Did I miss a complete reversal in public perception in the last couple days?

Advocates for apatheism as a 'third way' makes the same ignorant mistake that advocates for agnosticism as a 'third way' make:

Atheism is a question of belief, not of relevance. Whether or not you care is the answer to a different question.

they are still theists. If you ask them, most will still say they believe in God, but just don't practice. That is NOT atheism. That is theism.

It's like saying "I don't care about politics" is a political party.

you donate 10 cents to Big Yak each time :D

:scared:

Big Yak has enough funding that extreme measures aren't that necessary