Thanks for creating a forum with real debate!

[Jackalope]

I am referring to that claim, but I reject your definition, as it appears to be custom-crafted to support your claim. It isn't even remotely close to any definition that's used around here or anywhere else I have seen.

I defined atheism that way to support the claim that atheism is not only the words "I do not believe God exists"

Wait. Full stop again. Atheism isn't words. An atheist is a person who lacks a belief in deity. That can be the person who says "I do not believe gods exist" as well as the person who says "No gods exist".

Your definition attempts to exclude the former, and as I am not one who holds to the latter, if you're going to insist on such a definition, I'm going to insist on discontinuing my involvement in this thread, as I am in no mood to play devil's advocate and argue from a viewpoint that I do not subscribe to.

it is, in fact, all symbols, verbal or nonverbal that are aimed at creating the representation of God not existing in peoples minds. I think it is trivial to define atheism as peoples words which are directed towards atheism, because people are not only what they claim to be, they are what they do.

Would you at least agree with this, that people are not only what they claim to be, but what they do?

I would agree that people are the sum total of their thoughts and actions, and more.

"Without theism" will do nicely, which encompasses both active denial of existence as well as more provisional beliefs.

To define atheism as "without theism" will fail to describe the telos of statements made about atheism that are aimed at other ends.

But the fact remains that the telos of atheism commonly is not "without theism" but "God does not exist", as you mentioned earlier. I want to do philosophy that is practical and accessible to all and for the benefit of all, a philosophy that lives in the real world and not the world of the scholar or the propagandist.

No, it isn't. Some atheists may subscribe to that, but many (such as myself) do not.

You are intentionally weakening the requirement to believe atheism in order to make it easier to accept.

Really. And you know this how? Perhaps you can read minds.

As you've now gone off the rails, and attempted to ascribe motives to me which do not exist, and seem to have a fundamental disagreement as to whether I really ought to be continuing with this discussion (as you appear to want me to argue a position that I do not hold) I'm going to refrain from addressing the rest of your argument until you can reframe it.

...because as I said, I have no interest in arguing from a viewpoint that you ascribe to me that I do not hold. Nor do I have an interest with bandying words with a sophist.

You're awful quite to tell us what we believe, and assign motives to us - and you are wrong to do so. In my case, you're just plain wrong.

---

(Oh, and I'll stick this in here, since it's been weighing on my mind. My assessment of you is that you're essentially channeling other authors' arguments. This in itself might not be fatal, but you appear to have poor taste in authors, an inability to assess the credibility of the authors whom you choose to channel, an inability to profitably assess the merits of the arguments you read, and a general inability to faithfully represent those arguments without making them far less credible than they likely were in the original. You don't even appear fully capable of understanding them, period. As such, I have almost zero interest in substantively replying to your arguments because they aren't your arguments, and I would be replying to a ghost who isn't here.)

Pretty much this. I strongly suspect he's been cribbing material from other sources. If that's the case, at least it would be nice if he cited his sources- if for no other reason than knowing exactly who is being argued against. Then there's intellectual honesty.