No Religion? 7 Types of Non-Believers

[dmallind]

19. I understand the appeal of this thinking, echoed in the article, but I disagree with it

I can't with intellectual honesty insist on a precise usage of the term atheism to make a point and then condone incorrect usage to make another point, however tempting or valid that latter point is.

'a' as a prefix from Greek roots means without or lacking. Without one or without a million is no difference because without means you have none at all. I'm not without shirts just because I don't own yours, as long as I have one or more of my own. A person with belief in any god cannot be an atheist properly defined. They can and usually do lack belief in all or almost all other gods than their own, but that does not make them without god belief, as long as they believe in one or more.

The key point is true. Whatever reasons theists have to find other god-claims but their own unconvincing are indeed the same reasons we find all of them unconvincing, including theirs (although the majority of them generally have one other reason we lack - the claim of ontological monotheism in their own faith) BUT that simply means they approach the claims of, say Scientologists the same way atheists do, not that they are atheists.