Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
My first problem with this is that I don't understand what it means to "believe in" something. We believe something, or we don't believe it. I don't know what "believing in something" means.
Erm, okay - Atheist = absence of belief that there are god(s)
Secondly, the criteria at hand is not the belief, or disbelief "in" god/s, it believing that god/s exist or do not exist. The belief is not relative to the idea of god, it's relative to the actual existence of the god/s we idealize. The idea of god clearly exists. That's not the question. The question is does the idea we have of god have any actual correspondence in reality? Does our "god" exist?
Okay - Atheist = absence of belief that there are god(s)
So an atheist isn't someone who "lacks a belief in god", whatever that even means. An atheist is someone who believes that our idea of god has no actual correspondence in reality. Like the unicorn, it is a mythical ideal, only.
No problem - Atheist = absence of belief that there are god(s)