You all convinced me, I'm now an Atheist!!!

[Esquilax]

...That is unless you all can conceed that there are indeed rules to being affiliated with a given group, other than a verbal proclaimation stating that one is indeed apart of said group.

There are rules associated with being a part of some groups, but not others. Atheism, definitionally, requires disbelief in god, meaning that despite your breathtakingly inane thread, you aren't one.

Christianity, on the other hand, is defined by belief in the christian god, for which a statement of belief is sufficient for me, at least, to take the claimant at their word. You and so many other christians, enamored with the No True Scotsman fallacy, try to append additional rules onto the religion by way of your own personal interpretation of a book that has thousands of the damn things, never once considering that what you believe isn't the be all and end all of your religion, or even that you'd have to demonstrate that your proposed rules are a part of the author's original intent. Surprisingly, nobody else is required to assume your conclusions just on the basis that you hold them, out of convenience.

Lastly, those rules are very inconsistently applied, too; criminals don't follow the rules and are therefore out of the group, in your mind, but minor sins are just a part of being a human with a sinful nature, and no big deal. So, there's a threshold, which I assume you get to decide yourself, for whatever reason, of which sins get you disassociated from the group for convenience's sake, and which are just things that happen.

In short, the argument is based on special pleading, even if we accept it as true based on your assertions alone.