Atheism and vegetarianism

[Existentialist]

There's an interesting parallel for me in terms of atheism and vegetarianism. For me, atheism means believing there is no God, a stance that the majority of rationalistic atheists insist on correcting me on. Their problem, from my point of view, is that they are agnostics in denial about their agnosticism, not atheists. These arguments get quite heated. But I also call myself a vegetarian - I eat only vegetation, not animal fats like milk or eggs. The majority of vegetarians also insist on correcting me, saying that I should call myself a vegan. I think they are lacto-vegetarians, ovo-vegetarians and lacto-ovo-vegetarians in denial, and they should get off my turf and stop using the word Vegetarian to describe a diet that isn't vegetation. I tend to take the etymologically purist line: atheo was already the greek word, the Romance languages added the -ism; vegetarian means of vegetation, not milk or eggs. The world is full of people nicking other people's identities: the Dawkins website has purloined the gay Coming Out slogan. I also seem to have a lot of Tories in my life disguising themselves as Liberal Democrats. Everybody seems to want to be something other than what they really are. Why's that?