That's a great word, apatheism. I hadn't come across it until I read a recent New Scientist article, "Losing Our Religion." (On the magazine's web site it is called "God not-botherers: Religious apathy reigns.")
Of course, New Scientist is a British publication. The article says, "The UK is one of the least religious countries in the world, with around half of the population saying they don't belong to any religion."
However, there is good news for my country, which is a lot more religious.
Even in the US -- a deeply Christian country -- the number of people expressing "no religious affiliation" has risen from 5 per cent in 1972 to 20 per cent today; among people under 30, that number is closer to a third.
It seems that rather than people becoming more anti-religious, atheistic, they just don't care about religion. Hence the clever term, apatheism. Yawn... apathy reigns. Who cares whether God exists? I've got a life to live.
Wikipedia clues us in to what the word means.
Apatheism (/ˌæpəˈθiːɪzəm/ a portmanteau of apathy and theism/atheism), also known as pragmatic atheism or (critically) as practical atheism, is acting with apathy, disregard, or lack of interest towards belief or disbelief in a deity. Apatheism describes the manner of acting towards a belief or lack of a belief in a deity, so it applies to both theism and atheism. An apatheist is 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 meaningful nor relevant to their life.
I think I'm heading in the apatheistic direction. Might even have already arrived there. I've pretty much lost interest in reading books about the virtues of atheism and agnosticism, or the downside of believing in some religion.
Instead, before my morning meditation time I mainly read something scientific or related to urban design. Currently "Walkable City" and "Snakes, Sunrises, and Shakespeare" are what I'm reading in these genres.
It just makes less and less sense to me to waste time pondering why people believe in religious fantasies. Sure, this is important in the same way we need to understand why people deny the reality of global warming: believing in something that isn't true, and then acting on that belief, has real-world consequences.
So I'm very much in favor of trying to de-convert religious believers. However, I'm becoming rather apatheistic about this myself, figuring I can both do more good for the world, and be happier myself, by devoting myself to other forms of social activism.
(Like, researching and writing my tell-all report about how five large, healthy, beautiful trees in my home town, Salem, Oregon, were cut down for no good reason.)
Between theism and atheism... apatheism. Or maybe not between -- off to one side. Sort of like the third option between avidly debating the existence or non-existence of the Tooth Fairy: How about, who cares?
at 19:30 on this video - krishnamurti is stating the apatheism view.
everyone else wants to covert others, except the apatheist.
the link again is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1Op5a5DCJI
the athiest also has a belief - the belief there is no God.
the apathist says "I don't know and I don't care"
Posted by: osho Robbins | May 18, 2014 at 04:54 AM