Practical atheism

A practical atheist is a person who nominally belongs to a religion, but whose decisions and activities are not affected by religion. Such a person might, for instance, attend a Catholic church, but ignore the church's prohibition on contraception.

In his 1949 article, On the Meaning of Contemporary Atheism, Jacques Maritain (a theist) writes (pp. 267-268): "[...]there are practical atheists, who believe that they believ in God, but who in reality deny His existence by each one of their deeds&mdash;they worship the world, and power, and money."

and (p. 279): "It is not nonsense to reproach the many people in modern times who pay lip-service to the God in whom they believe themselves to believe, for having been in actual fact practical atheists."