An intresting read. There are several atheist philosophies, and there is no single definition but several conflict ones. Much of the confusion stems from a failure to recognise this diversity of traditions both amongst theists who believe they are criticising atheism as if it were a single doctorine, and amongst atheists themselves who wish to dissociate from each other often based on accusations of being too soft or too critical of religious beliefs.
Importantly, different groups of atheists approach the question of defining atheism in different ways. "sceptics" who profess atheism is a "lack of belief" often insist on agonising over lingustic definitions to exclude what atheism is not, reducing it further and further to a single component- the absence of theism.
the "strong atheists" will often take a different approach, viewing language- like a belief in god- as a product of human reason and therefore subjectively defined in relation to a wider historical, philosophical tradition which often expands rather than contracts the definition from a belief that atheism as the "conscious rejection of the existence of god".
religious and mystical atheists, often take a third view that religion represents some intrinsic quality of the mind and therefore that by intutition we can develop beliefs that are in accordance with our nature, even without the presence of a god. this does include some forms of buddhism, as well as atheistic satanism, and possibly existentialist and humanist philosophers.
however, each of these groups is also overlapping and there is no clear doctrinal division between them as would occur in a religion with a schism and denominations of belief. I'm comfortable recognising that there are at least three major varietes of atheism, but they could be further broken down into distinct philosophies of which "atheism" is only superfically a common denominator.
