 The next question, then, is why the standard metaphysical definition of “atheism” is especially useful for doing philosophy. One obvious reason is that it has the virtue of making atheism a direct answer to one of the most important metaphysical questions in philosophy of religion, namely, “Does God exist?” There are only two possible direct answers to this question: “yes”, which is theism, and “no”, which is atheism in the metaphysical sense. Answers like “I don’t know”, “no one knows”, “I don’t care”, “an affirmative answer has never been established”, and “the question is meaningless” are not direct answers to this question (cf. Le Poidevin 2010: 8). It is useful for philosophers to have a good name for this important metaphysical position, and “atheism” works beautifully for that purpose. Of course, it may also be useful on occasion to have a term to refer to all people who lack theistic belief, but as noted above philosophers already have such a term, namely, “nontheist”, so the term “atheist” is not needed for that purpose.