The question of whether or not some sort of god exists is not one which should necessarily occupy the minds of atheists all of the time. Theists - especially Christians - regularly challenge us with arguments and ideas which supposedly demonstrate that their god definitely exists. But prior to that, there is an even more important issue to address: is a god really important in our lives?
If the existence of a god isn't important, we certainly needn't waste our time debating the issue. It should be expected that theists, and Christians in particular, will quickly say that the question of their god's existence is indeed vitally important. It would not be unusual to find them saying that this question eclipses all other questions which humanity might ask. But the skeptic or nonbeliever should not simply grant them this assumption.
Theists who try to argue that their god is indeed important will naturally support their position by reference to all its supposed characteristics - like perhaps that it offers eternal salvation for humanity. This seems like a reasonable direction to go, but is nevertheless flawed. Of course they think that their god is important, and of course this is closely related to what they think their god is and what it does.
However, if we accept this line of reasoning, then we are accepting a particular set of characteristics which have not yet been established to be true. It must be remembered that we didn't ask if their god with its supposed characteristics is important. Instead we asked if the existence of any god, generally speaking, was important.
These are very different questions, and theists who have never thought about the existence of a god outside of the sort of god they've been taught to believe in may fail to see the distinction. A skeptic might choose later to grant that if a particular god with certain characteristics exists, then that existence could be important; at that point we could move on to see if there are any good reasons to think that this alleged god exists.
On the other hand, we might also just as easily grant that if a particular elf with certain characteristics exists, then that existence would be important. That, however, begs the question of why we are talking about elves in the first place. Are we just bored? Are we practicing our debating skills? In a similar vein, it is justifiable to ask why we are talking about gods in the first place.
