How is the word Atheist defined?

You may have heard about Diana Nyad, the 64 year old swimmer who swam for 53 hours going from Cuba to Florida. She was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey recently and in the interview Nyad said, “I can stand at the beach’s edge with the most devout Christian, Jew, Buddhist, go on down the line, and weep with the beauty of this universe and be moved by all of humanity — all the billions of people who have lived before us, who have loved and hurt.” To which Oprah responded, “Well I don’t call you an atheist then.”

Winfrey went on, “I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery then that is what God is… It’s not a bearded guy in the sky.”  I think what Oprah was pushing on Nyad was that she may claim to be an atheist but if she has awe about the universe she lives in, then she must have some religiosity in her belief. Oprah missed the point that Nyad made and that is you can don’t need a belief in a God but still have awe and appreciation for the world we live in. You can be that way and still not be a religious person.

This all points out, to me, is the misunderstanding that people have about someone who calls themselves atheist. If you ask most devout Christians, they would tell you that an atheist is the worst person in the world, out to destroy everything, or at least atheists have no morals and just want to party until they drop. Or ask Pat Robertson and he will tell his sheep, excuse me followers, that atheists are a miserable bunch and they want everyone else to be miserable with them.

I think the word atheist has multiple meanings to many people just as the word God can have multiple meanings. Here's how I define atheist. If one is called an atheist it simply means that one does not believe in the existence of God or gods or a supernatural being because there is no evidence for its existence. You could say the same thing for someone who says they are a "a-unicorn-ist", who is a person who does not believe in the existence of unicorns because there is no evidence for unicorns. Once sufficient evidence is presented for the unicorns' existence, then one could accept that they do in fact exist.

When I claim that I am an atheist, I am simply saying that I don't have any reason to believe in the existence of a God or gods or any supernatural being because there isn't any evidence and that's all it is! It doesn't say anything about whether or not I'm liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, capitalist or communist, Mets fan or a Yankees fan.

Along the lines how Matt Dillahunty at Atheist Experience describes himself, I consider myself a skeptic first and from that I've arrived at being an atheist when you get around to the God question. But first and foremost I am a skeptic. That means I do not dismiss any assertion out of hand but withhold belief until I hear all sides, ask questions, investigate and gather evidence for or against the claim. Then I'll have provisional belief as evidence builds for the belief or counter evidence tears it down.

Also the word Atheism is bandied around a lot like it's some sort of world philosophy which, to me, it isn't. This is where I think we get into trouble because when you attach "ism" to a word it seems like it becomes something much more than it really is. This is when you hear from Christians who will say the atheism is a religion like Christianity. They say it's a "belief" and therefore it is no different than any other religion.

We need to go back and just assert that being an Atheist is just expressing no belief in a supernatural being. Period. Don’t read anything more into it.