Segev

20 hours ago, studiot said:

Surely what matters is what the user of the word aetheist think it means or, if you like, means by it ?

Of course. Unfortunately, most often, people "stick" their own meaning to others.

17 hours ago, beecee said:

Religion, belief in a particular deity offers comfort and solace to people.

It depends on the person in power of that religion.

Religion is (as many other things) can be easily abused.

20 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Actually, I've never heard an atheist claim that a god of some kind cannot exist

I have, more than you might think.

20 hours ago, Peterkin said:

I'll try not to confuse it, but I wonder:  How do we know what another person's unbelief relates to?  

Not sure I understand the question.

The only way to know what someone don't believe, is by him telling it.

Many confuse A-Theist as Anti-Theist.

This is not the case. Its A-Theist in the same sense as A-Gender, meaning one that does not hold a theistic belief.

There are two types of Atheists:

Strong atheists are ones who claim not only they don't believe there is a God, rather they actively claim God does not exist.
This, of course has no validation what so ever as one cannot claim for absence of non-measurable concept.

The more common form of atheism (Dawkins, Claus, Hitchens and more) is simply the lack of belief (or acceptance) of the idea of a God (or any spiritual concept for that matter).

Don't confuse that with the idea that religion is dangerous. This has got no relation to being an Atheist or not.