There's no such thing as an atheist baby

[LostOne4Ever]

96. I can understand where you are coming from

But I could also point to the word "theory" where a significant proportion of the population does not understand what the word actually means. Many people use it as a synonym for a guess, hunch or hypothesis, when it actually means far more than that.

Generally, in modern English language, the prefix a- means without. For instance, apolitical usually means that one is not interested in politics rather than opposed to politics in general. Usually the prefix anti- or contra- are used to indicate holding the opposite position. Similarly the suffix -ist means a person. Thus a-theism means lacking theism (belief in god) and atheist refers to a person who lacks theism. Thus, a jellyfish can not be considered an atheist as they do not count as persons.

If you use its historical or etymological origins you go back to the greek word atheos which meant godless. Also it should be noted that it was used by both the early Christians and Hellenist to negatively describe one and another. For most of history the word has been used as an insult and also meant immoral. As an atheist yourself I think you can understand why taking those definitions are problematic and flawed.

The main atheist organizations in my country, the American Atheists and Freedom From Religion Foundation, both hold the same positions. I have no clue what the position of similar organizations in your country might be (assuming you are British and still live in Britain from your userID).

To complicate things further, there are people who have motivations other than correctly describing us who want to distort the word for their own purposes. Whether to make the meaning so narrow as to marginalize us and our views, or to try and make atheism to be more than it appears so as to call it a religion unto itself. There are conservatives in the USA that try and claim this so as to say secularism is the promotion of atheism and demand that their theology be taught in public schools. And some just want to say atheism is just as flawed as theism in that both assert unprovable positions so as to make themselves feel superior to both groups.

So you understand where I am coming from, I hold neither position to be proven, that there is a god(s) nor that there are not any god(s). I suspect the latter but hold neither to be true. I identify as an implicit atheist, or agnostic atheist if you will.