Talk:Apatheism
Many people have come up with "apatheism" independently, years before Mr. Rauch wrote his article. John Cooper, who wrote the Church Of Apatheism web page, came up with the word years before he wrote the page in August 2000. A glossary of secular terms on another site <http://www.eclipse.co.uk/thoughts/glossary.htm> may have added "apatheism" as early as 1998.
"no clear basis for this page is evident"
The article says:
- There is also a web page with the title "The Church of Apatheism," but no clear basis for this page is evident.
What does the phrase "but no clear basis for this page is evident" mean? Does it mean "there is no evidence that such a church actually exists"? -- samuel katinsky
Apathyism - contrast to Apatheism
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)
- Replied on user's Talk page. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 18:21, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- 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)
How much apathy is required to be an apatheist?
I have been an Apatheist for many years, well before I saw the word in print. I was raised an evangellical Christian, with a tolerant or apatheistic bias. I have been at many points on the scale of theisms, including a long stay at agnosticism. I am currently a practicing Roman Catholic. Throughout it all I have been and am still an Apatheist. This "attitude best described as 'apatheism'" in Mr. Rauch's words has served me well. It has kept me open to other ways of seeing the universe. However Apatheism is not intrinsically tied to, or "contrapositive to" any theistic stand.
If you wish to view the continuum of theistic belief from the far left of Atheism (100% disbelief in the existence of God) to the far right of any theism (100% belief in God), with the Agnostic position (0%) squarely in the middle. Apatheism is not on this scale at all. It would be 90 degrees to the theism axis and delimits a two dimensional plane for describing a person's position.
It is the Dominance vs. Submissive scale. At the top is the belief that I am 100% correct in my belief and you should believe the same way also. At the bottom is the belief that there is some 100% correct belief and I'm trying hard to find it and submit to it. Apatheism is the assertive middle position. The attitude that I have found my spot on the theism scale, and I will not submit to any attempt to dominate me away from that position, nor will I attempt to dominate you away from your position.
Mr Rauch, an atheist and an apatheist, supports this position when he writes, "And Agnostics? True most of them are apatheists, but most apatheists are not agnostics. Because--and this is an essential point--most apatheists are believers.", in the May 2003 Atlantic Monthly.
Mr. John Cooper also at least implies this relationship when he writes, "There is a common misconception that Apatheists don't care about anything. Apatheists might be interested - fascinated even - in all sorts of other questions of life and existence. General apathy is not necessarily an Apatheistic trait, but it admittedly provides a springboard for the 'leap of indifference'.", on his "The Church of Apatheism" web page.
This is one of the points I was trying to make with the "Apatheism vs. Apathyism" comment. Apatheism is an attitude about theisms, not a stand on the theistic scale.
I will attempt to cast this in a "neutral point of view" and expand the Apatheism stub to include this and the currently expressed point of view, but not until later. As a NUG I still have a lot of formatting to learn, but quoting from the earlier works of the Govenator of California, "I'll be back."
DrBobStirling 03:13, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
N/A-ism
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)