What is Atheism?

[Crossless2.0]

By redefining atheism as a "lack of belief" you mean non-theist and as such now encompass all the positions other than theism (atheists, agnostics, verificationists, babies, the impaired, my dog, and park benches). So 'atheism' ceases to have any meaning pertaining to a view of how the world is and simply becomes a psychological state.

Indeed. It trivializes the word.

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Well...that's because atheism isn't a way of viewing the world...it's literally one response to one claim.

Deliberately excluding the divine from consideration limits how you allow yourself to see the world.

Magic
Solipsism
ESP
Extraterrestrials among us
Doppelgangers
Reincarnation
Calculus
Creative arts
Participatory government

. . . the list of things I could insert into your sentence in place of 'the divine' is virtually endless. Your point?

Some of these things can be demonstrated to be real, some not, and some (solipsism and the divine, for example) cannot be disproven. You'd probably consider me a lunatic if I was a thoroughgoing solipsist in practice, and I think you'd be right. But that position strikes me as at least as defensible as theism. You seem to think that no atheists have experience of -- for lack of a better word -- the numinous. If so, you're wrong. It's just that most of us, I suppose, recognize the feelings associated with the experience as originating from within -- a byproduct of being a sentient being with a healthy human brain. The experience itself doesn't necessarily point to anything beyond that. You make a leap that seems unnecessary. Worse, you identify it with a character in a book.

Talk about limiting one's view of the world!