God as a variable is pertinent to being an "Atheist"

What might an Atheist say to you:

"I don't believe in God".

"God" is still part of the equation, you call him into being by asserting him as an entity, and then identify yourself as someone that does not believe in him.

Try to be an "Atheist" without God. You can't.

A good diagram of what I am talking about would be a triangle with "God" as the apex, the believer and non believer on the two opposing ends of the base. Both are reliant and dependent on the idea of God.

Keep in mind, this only works if you actually call yourself an "Atheist". People in my circles used to identify themselves as Atheist until they learned the term has become a label that carries a lot of weight with it. If you are going to take a label on, you should realize that there are thousands of people who share it. That can be dangerous as there are many asshole Atheist's out there that put as much time into promoting non belief as Christians put into pro-belief. They are two sides of the same coin and I always chuckle at people who think they stand on higher ground by calling themselves Atheists.

The safest bet is to say "I don't know" or "I don't believe in anything." You can't label someone who says that and it free's them from the burden of having to prove their point, which ultimately only leads to conflict anyway. A true non believer will not discuss the topic under the guise of a banner other's use in an evangelical or oppressive way.

>>Calling yourself an Atheist is akin to calling yourself a
>>Christian. You have just changed how you interpret a few
>>variables but they are all still there.
>>
>>Best not to label yourself as anything at all.
>>
>>There are lots of interesting articles about the nature of
>>Atheism as it's own religion.
>
>care to expound on this?