[split] Are Questions About God Important?

[The Grand Nudger]

I think you're conflating holds X to exist and prefers X to exist.

I'd prefer God to exist.  I don't think he does.  I'm not a theist.

-and I think gods are important.... also an atheist... even if I don't think they're important in the way that theists think they're important, or to the things that theists think they're important to.  What's the problem?  

If the problem was the ambiguity of your wording then, objectively, we need to work on that wording, no? Straight up free hanging preference is not subjective. It's non-cognitivist. You, or the person in your hypothetical, non cognitively assigns value to the objective. They're still stuck believing that the objective exists. Rightly or wrongly. Non cognitivism is automatic.

That might actually be what's up. Maybe, even though objectivism is false, we "do objectivism" like we do yuck and yum. It's actually pretty hard to combine the two positions in a valid way, ie any invocation will be internally inconsistent - but that doesn't mean we aren't doing it!