Perhaps apatheists are pointing to something more important. It’s not clear to me that Jesus of Nazareth, or Siddhartha Gautama, would want us to spend a significant amount of our time trying to believe in their existence. To do so is to miss the relevance of their messages. The point is to develop wisdom, to live fully, to do well by others. If anything, a rational re-framing might allow us to see more deeply into the beauty of the seminal art and texts which act as the formative bedrock of our cultures.

Supernatural belief is the legacy sideshow of consumer religion, and I’m glad that the scientific revolution has dealt the hammer blow to it. We need science and rationality to remind us of the true depth of Religion: to commune and connect, to live well and fully, to cultivate wisdom, and to build thriving systems that far outlive our species. To miss that is to lose the plot entirely.