What exactly is an Atheist.

[JustAJ]

U could try checking google or wikihow and just search what is an atheist.

[Davin]

The word atheist was first used in like the 1400's by adding the Greek 'a' to the front of the word "theist." Theist roughly means "with god" and the prefix 'a' means "without," "lack of," "absence of," "not" so when applied to the word "theist" it means "without god." The first usages of the word atheist didn't mean "non-believer" but just to describe anyone who wasn't Christian. However because this wasn't a very useful word because we already had definitions like "non-Christian" and "Christian" so the words theist and atheist changed to mean "one who believes in god" and "not one who believes in god" respectively.

Because of the Greek prefix of "a" at the start of atheist, all atheist means is really based on the definition of theist because whatever is defined as "theist" or "theism" an atheist is not that and atheism is not that, respectively.

Other than that, you'll find a lot diversity among atheists and this may seem a little weird at first. I think it would be good to get a perspective on the word theist for you get a little bit of a handle on the word atheist: most people assume that atheism and atheists are some kind of group and generally have this perspective that theism and theist means their religion. But let's look at the diversity of theism:
   1.  Christianity: 2.1 billion
   2. Islam: 1.5 billion
   [strike:13js0y2a]3. Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion[/strike:13js0y2a](ignore)
   4. Hinduism: 900 million
   5. Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
   6. Buddhism: 376 million
   7. primal-indigenous: 300 million
   8. African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
   9. Sikhism: 23 million
  10. Juche: 19 million
  11. Spiritism: 15 million
  12. Judaism: 14 million
  13. Baha'i: 7 million
  14. Jainism: 4.2 million
  15. Shinto: 4 million
  16. Cao Dai: 4 million
  17. Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
  18. Tenrikyo: 2 million
  19. Neo-Paganism: 1 million
  20. Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
  21. Rastafarianism: 600 thousand
Source

Those are just the top ones, not even all of them. This list of theistic religions, I doubt are all things that a theist believes in. So when looking at an atheist, remember that theism (while very diverse) is far more grouped than atheism.

tl;dr: An atheist is just a person that doesn't believe in god.

[EssejSllim]

If God exist as religion states, biblically and emotionally I find him to be racist, egotistical, unjust and cruel..and as I say that, those are the things man are, is it possible man made up God.

The God of the Bible is all those things.
 

I assume some of you've believed before. How do you  or by what process were you able to stop believing?  

Just for the record, I wouldn't consider myself an atheist, I just don't believe in any organized religions.

I stopped believing mainly because I didn't want to anymore. I couldn't justify to myself believing in something that is as you said racist, egotistical, cruel, sexist and in many cases just plain evil. Since then, I've realized just how pathetic some of the claims made by Christianity (which was my previous religion) were.

Do atheist sit there every night and doubt to the point of frustration?

I don't. I wonder if maybe there is a God who really screwed up creating this world. Sometimes I can get really into it with myself, but then I just think "Hey, if there is, it doesn't matter. Just be a good person and you'll find out when you die". If I ever do doubt that maybe I shouldn't have given up Christianity (which I don't really anymore) I just remember that I would rather burn in hell than go to the heaven of the Bible.

Do you really get to a point you can put belief aside and move on.

Yes. I have and it only took about a year and a half.

How do you deal with doubt?  I know many atheist seem to be 100% sure, but being human there must be doubts. In the end, neither side can prove one thing or the other, so some amout of reasoning must be part of the process and without proof, doubt must exist on some level.

As I said before, sometimes I have doubts that maybe I might be wrong. I know the evidence points to atheism being the most logical choice. I just really don't care about my doubts. I just tell myself to live the best way I can. As I said before, I just remember that I would rather burn in hell than go to the heaven of the Bible.

Do you ever get to the point you rid your mind of all doubt?

I still have doubts, they just no longer bother me.

[deekayfry]

What was odd for me is, as when I was religious I had overwhelming doubts about the existence of God.  The evidence is simply not there, no matter how much we or anyone else will try to spin it.  Yet, I have no doubts about the fact that there is no god.  I am quite comfortable with the latter.

When, I took time to look at ALL of it.  I saw that I cannot be a part of the whole system.  What turns me off, and even disgust me is that there is a sizable amount of Christians who are quick to judge, point fingers, preach, and stomp on anyone and everyone, but they do exactly the same or worst. You have these people who still lie, cheat, steal, sleep around, etc, but have no qualms pointing that out in everyone else.

It is all of that that made me walk away from all of it in addition to all of the "faith" dogma that does not reconcile with reality.

[dogsmycopilot]

Do you ever get to the point you rid your mind of all doubt?

No. I remain somewhat unsure there isn't an evil god plucking the wings of any special people he can find. I handle this by being up on christian theology and battle tactics of people like Alexander the Great so if I get the chance I can assassinate god or at least lead the soldiers in hell to a victory. God's a bad dude. If he exists he's an asshole and needs to be dethroned. Although I wouldn't mind keeping Micheal around- he was the only one really loves mankind you know. The rest of them including god could care less about us.

[Filanthropod]

I've heard conflicting opinions, from atheists, as to what atheism is. Some say that atheism is not a belief that there's no god, others maintain that it is, and other say that it can be either. The best way of looking at it in my opinion is to take a look at the word itself. The A in atheism effectively means "no...", the Theism refers to god, and the Ism indicates a doctrine or belief. So you could say that the word Atheism means : A belief that there is no god, or, {no-god}-belief. Of course, the literal meaning of the word and atheists' different views on what atheism is, differs.

[Tank]

I've heard conflicting opinions, from atheists, as to what atheism is. Some say that atheism is not a belief that there's no god, others maintain that it is, and other say that it can be either. The best way of looking at it in my opinion is to take a look at the word itself. The A in atheism effectively means "no...", the Theism refers to god, and the Ism indicates a doctrine or belief. So you could say that the word Atheism means : A belief that there is no god, or, {no-god}-belief. Of course, the literal meaning of the word and atheists' different views on what atheism is, differs.

Attempting to define the word to suit yourself is a highly disingenuous behaviour, it's called creating a straw man, but you know that anyway.

[Filanthropod]

I've heard conflicting opinions, from atheists, as to what atheism is. Some say that atheism is not a belief that there's no god, others maintain that it is, and other say that it can be either. The best way of looking at it in my opinion is to take a look at the word itself. The A in atheism effectively means "no...", the Theism refers to god, and the Ism indicates a doctrine or belief. So you could say that the word Atheism means : A belief that there is no god, or, {no-god}-belief. Of course, the literal meaning of the word and atheists' different views on what atheism is, differs.

Attempting to define the word to suit yourself is a highly disingenuous behaviour, it's called creating a straw man, but you know that anyway.

I'm just looking at the word, and what its constituent parts mean, and therefore what the word means. I don't really understand why there's disagreement among atheists as to what atheism means, when all you have to do is check out the word. If you don't agree with the word, just use another one that more closely describes your view.

[Tank]

Atheists have no trouble defining the word in terms of it's current usage. In the past it may have mean 'doesn't believe in God' but currently it gets defined more often than not as 'Insufficient proof of God exists to convince one of God existance' which is not the same. One can not prove a negative so one can't prove the assertion that there is no God. So the word atheist is going through a bit of a usage change/re-qualification. This was a real hot topic at Richard Dawkins forum and what tended to happen is the theists would try to use a semantic argument that because atheists didn't 'believe' in God their word view was simply a 'Faith' and therefore an illogical position. Somewhat ironic considering the theistic interlocutors based their own world view on Faith!  

[Filanthropod]

And you say I'm redefining the word? That's ironic. I think there should be different words, used correctly, to apply to different views, such as :

- I believe that no god exists
- I don't have a belief either way

If we had separate words which clearly meant different things, it would prevent some from playing semantic games with a word which has a very specific meaning.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I simply add the modifier "agnostic" to my admission of atheism, to denote that I am not claiming that "there is no god" but rather "I don't know if there is or isn't, but I am currently unconvinced and live as if there isn't."

[Filanthropod]

Surely an agnostic atheist is either :

I don't know whether or not I believe in nogod
I believe in nogod, but I don't know for sure if there isn't one

Putting "I don't know" in front of a word that means "belief in nogod" doesn't change much. Of course you don't know.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Surely an agnostic atheist is either :

I don't know whether or not I believe in nogod
I believe in nogod, but I don't know for sure if there isn't one

Putting "I don't know" in front of a word that means "belief in nogod" doesn't change much. Of course you don't know.

No.  An agnostic atheist is one who says, "I don't know whether or not god(s) exist, but I have no faith in them; nor do I see sufficient reason to believe."

But don't let me interrupt your strawman-bashing, it looks like you're having a regular rave-up.

[Tank]

Surely an agnostic atheist is either :

I don't know whether or not I believe in nogod
I believe in nogod, but I don't know for sure if there isn't one

Putting "I don't know" in front of a word that means "belief in nogod" doesn't change much. Of course you don't know.

No.  An agnostic atheist is one who says, "I don't know whether or not god(s) exist, but I have no faith in them; nor do I see sufficient reason to believe."

But don't let me interrupt your strawman-bashing, it looks like you're having a regular rave-up.

Quite so, a rare example of La Petite Mort!

[Davin]

I've heard conflicting opinions, from atheists, as to what atheism is. Some say that atheism is not a belief that there's no god, others maintain that it is, and other say that it can be either. The best way of looking at it in my opinion is to take a look at the word itself. The A in atheism effectively means "no...", the Theism refers to god, and the Ism indicates a doctrine or belief. So you could say that the word Atheism means : A belief that there is no god, or, {no-god}-belief. Of course, the literal meaning of the word and atheists' different views on what atheism is, differs.

The word atheism is derived from Greek. The main word is "theos", which has a prefix of "a" and a suffix of "ism".
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0907013.html
http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/Wordpower/handouts/gkaffix.pdf
a (not, absence of, without) - theos (god) - ism (act, state, belief in or theory of)

So we combine them: without belief in god.

While the "a" could be translated from Greek as the word "no" it can only be done so in the correct context with something meaning the same thing as "having" which means instead of just "no" it must mean "having no" which means that your translation is very incorrect not only in changing the meaning of the "a" but also moving that incorrect meaning to a place it doesn't belong.

Of course we can argue what the meaning of the word is all day for weeks, however, no matter how you define the word: it won't change the opinions and/or view points of anyone by just changing the definition of the word. Even if you changed the word rational to mean "those who accept anything told to them as true" I will still not accept anything as true without sufficient reasonable evidence. So all you're really doing is taking a perfectly good and useful word, and destroying the meaning.