What is Atheism?

[FatAndFaithless]

One minor gripe I have about the 'soft' and 'hard' uses of atheism is that the hard position adds something additional to atheism that it doesn't necessarily warrant.

Atheism is a response to the claim of theism, it addresses the theistic claim and that's it. It's simply saying that you do not accept the theist claim that a god exists. It says nothing about knowledge or the nature of knowledge (a/gnosticism), it just says that at this point, you do not believe the claim of theism. The "hard atheist" position is a step further though, and is no longer just a response to the theistic claim that a god exists. It makes its own, further claim that a given god(s) do not exist. This is why I think it would be nice for it to have its own label (though I'm not holding my breath). I'll try to put it in a word diagram thingy.

<A god or gods exist - theism> ---- <I do not accept this assertion - atheism> I am an atheist because I do not believe the claim of theism has met its burden of proof.
<A god or gods do not exist - "X"-ism> ---- <I do not accept this assertion - a-X-ism> I am an a-X-ist because I do not believe the claim of X-ism has met its burden of proof.

An atheist can be (and often is) an a-X-ist as well. It's just the neutral position. Now, one can be an atheist and an X-ist - someone who does not believe that god exists and also believes that no gods exist, but the latter is not required with the former.

Like I said, I don't really expect for a term to be suddenly created and accepted to describe the "hard atheist" position, I just wish it didn't use the word atheism in its name, because it both causes confusion and isn't really consistent with what a-theism means.