Defining "Atheism"

[Existentialist]

No, but in my experience, the usage by the atheist community (if such a thing exists) is to mean merely 'a lack of belief'. Certainly, the dictionary backs you up, but I think if you subscribe to a descriptivist, rather than a prescriptivist, view of language, you have to admit that 'a lack of belief' is the more common definition.

I do agree with you that the usage by the atheist community does favour the definition "a lack of belief" but I think, and I should stress this is a personal opinion at the time of writing, that this particular definition appears to me to have been in the ascendency in the last 5-10 years since atheists have been better able to congregate around websites. The number of atheists who prefer the "atheism is a lack of belief in god"-type of definition, as opposed to the number of atheists who prefer the "atheism is the belief that god doesn't exist" -type of definition (accepting for the sake of argument that inclusion of the concept of belief is necessary to make a comparison) seems to me to be about 20 to 1 at the moment. If I'm right I'd anticipate most standard dictionaries will catch up with this in the next decade or so, if they haven't already. In the meantime, though, I think I'm on reasonably firm ground in my arguments.

Obviously others are free to disagree with me - I thank all of you who have done so politely