How do you define atheism?

[Beearewhyain]

59. To echo many previous responses

It is a lack of belief in god or gods. A non "thing" in much the same way that I don't believe in the Loch Ness Monster. I do find it rather frustrating that theist are constantly trying to make various atheist "define' what it means to be an atheist or as I suspect, what it means to be a "proper/good atheist", as if there ever was such a thing.

I believe that this is related to the average theist's belief that their ethics and lifestyle are dictated by their faith and as such they are making some inescapable logic trap from which an atheist will never escape if they don't define the nothing they don't believe. Strange because my ethics, ideology, and viewpoints are developed outside but informed by my atheism. My atheism is not the point from which I start to develop these philosophies and I imagine that is the scariest and most confusing part for them.

Ultimately, atheism is not something, in and of itself, that I apply a lot of thought to in much the same way I don't spend much time thinking about how the Loch Ness Monster doesn't exit.