Definition of Atheism

[Whateverist]

This whole conversation seems ultimately useless, because the "lack belief" crowd is wrong anyway. There are good reasons to belive that the proposition "God does not exist" is true. If you don't believe that, you should.

Oh I do suspect that whatever it is the word 'gods' refers to probably does not exist in the physical sense. Of course, if it turns out that 'gods' are allegorical or aspects of consciousness produced by our brains then those may very well exist. If it is literal gods we are talking about then no those I dismiss without argument.

But my belief that literal gods do not exist is not the reason I identify as an atheist, and that seems to be what this conversation is about: what does it mean to say one is an atheist? As far as I'm concerned the term 'god' is too poorly defined to jump to any conclusions about the nature of their existence. As an element of the psyche I think they really do exist. Of course when those believers die, so does their on-board god. But until the last practitioner of that religion dies, the god carries on.

So for me it matters to say that I am an atheist in the sense that I don't harbor any, and that is true because I have no active belief in gods. But you go ahead and insist on making a literal argument for a literal god if that's entertains you. Not interested.