For me, it is just a label defining a person who don't believed in supernatual beings. Fine with me.

I can understand this perspective. However, religion is important to a lot of people and the label exists as a consequence of this. I don't take it personally. People are raised with a certain way of thinking and label people outside of that thinking as a result.

I have considered myself to be athesist for past 20 odd years. Earnestly for the last 11 years fighting and debating theists who would attempt to make us fear an unreal God. Recently I have described myself as an agnostic atheist. That does not mean I have gone soft. If a God appeared in front of me (extremely unlikely) then I would have to believe. However, I don't believe as there is no good reason to believe so..there is no credible evidence. As for the term Atheist itself I like to think I am a freethinker, but I do read philosophy and would recommend Dennet and Harris whose ideas have influenced me. Does that make me a freethinker?.

I have never believed in Gods since childhood and have always been firm and comfortable with the term Atheist and referring to myself as such . Are you uncomfortable because maybe you still have some belief that their is a God?

I've recently had an epiphany about this, similar to your conclusion: "Why should I define myself in contrast to what doesn't exist?" It ultimately presents the idea that religious people have a sort of monopoly on worldviews and I have to state that I am apart from that. People 'round my way, within the Mexican culture, will more-than-assume that I adhere to their belief systems - not even considering that I might be an entirely different religion, which, from their perspective, is the least they could do.

I was talking with a girl and at some point she said, "Go confess to the 'padre.'" It's a colloquialism, joke thing they say. At no point did we ever talk about religion, and at no point did I ever say I was a part of their shenanigans. To her - to them - it is a given.

Plus, I don't like labels. It's a "function over form" kind of thing, not like a "don't label me, blah blah blah" thing. A label is something that is efficient and coarse. My friends and I had a discussion about what makes a "gamer" a "gamer." It involved data points like amount of different games played and amount of hours etc. But in reality, calling someone a "gamer" wasn't the important part. It was the purpose of that label within any given context and the data point that was important at the time.

All this to say that I no longer call myself an atheist. When the topic arises I simply say, "There are no such thing as supernatural deities or forces - this includes ghosts and the Hindu mysticism concept known as karma." That is the function that the label, atheist, is supposed to serve anyway. I don't even mention the word, "god," just so they know I'm on that hunde'd, ya dig?

you raise an interesting point, but I really do not care one way or the other

Just because we are not believe the lies about religions I do not think that should be labelled any name However since people call us Atheists, I call my self also, I am an Athiest and I am proud.

I really haven't spent much time on it. I have my own self labels that I like. What others think of my using aethiest to identify myself doesn't concern me.

I don't believe in absolutes.

I like the word a lot. It gives a sense of identity and social communion with others who also choose the label. Yeah, it'd be nice not to have to use the label, but when (esp here in the US) we're still a minority, wearing the label helps to de-stigmatize it.

Any negative connotation the word has for other people should not influence how we as atheists/antitheists feel towards it. It's a benign word.

Atheism is a broad church. Literally it means without God. That includes Agnostics, those ignorant of the idea of God and anyone that for whatever reason choses not the believe in God.
The negative connotations of the word are fading away, and will continue to do so the more people adopt the word and are not afraid to say so.
Me big happy

I am fie with it If someone doesnt like the fact I am an atheist I would politely advise them to go look somewhere else for converstation or whatever they were looking forIf you can't be adult enough to realize ppl have many differences including ideaolical then you are obviosly not adult enough to hang with me..their problem not mine

I guess I am ok with being different as I have been my whole life. I always liked things that my friends found to be different like music (Classical) art, science of all kinds, history and political theory. I loved all of these from a very young age and my friends could not relate to them.

I have no problem with it. It is unfortunate that it carries a negative connotation for some, but I'm not to surprised there. If we didn't use a term, others would come up with a negative slur anyway.

I just don't believe but if other people do I don't knock them their choice

I agree with you. It is unfortunate that the word Atheist has such a negative connotation to so many. It really does mean...A theist or the opposite of being a theist, thus why I think it is negative to many. I like to call myself an humanist because as you say non belief in a mystical being in this age is denying reality imho and thus it is the natural order of things. There are so many people in the community I would like to meet and make friends and living where I do it is very hard and I think many give in to Religion for the comfort of having more friends. For me, due to my conviction of the facts, I have to stand by what I know to be factual even if it means just having cyber friends like on here. Still not optimal, maybe that will change one day Tyssina.

I love the word atheist, take pride in being one. I grew up in and currently live dead center bible belt so religion has spent a lifetime trying to drown me in it. I was in my early 20s before I was able to officially break away from church. Saying, "Yes, I'm an atheist." despite the backlash from those around me makes me realize exactly how strong I am.

A history search would be interesting. Was this word first coined with intent of using it as an insult or to label a group in a negative way or did it come about just to have reference word. This is one reason why we do not like the N word because we know it was meant as a put down.

If you view the word Atheist as an inadequate description of your beliefs or perceive it as a hostile attack against believers you have many other ways of communicating your disbelief when the situation arises. I would use the term non-believer or secularist or just say I don't believe in God because of the lack of evidence. But remember this, I call myself a Democrat, but there are significant aspects of this party I loathe. In many ways, I'm a conservative. I'm not for higher taxes. I'm for fair taxation, but I don't think of other ways to describe my political party. What I do is voice my concerns. If what you see in any group that represents you as being in some way harmful be that voice that says, this should stop, just as you have in this post. Get descriptive with examples and post something about how you feel and ask others what they think.

I use it all of the time. I'm a proud Atheist. I also have a necklace and T-Shirt that I wear on the weekends so not to offend my co workers...LOL

I'm not always comfortable with it, in part because it doesn't adequately define me, but also because many "atheist" groups seem to use their forum to aggressively attack religious people, and I don't want to be associated with that mentality.

Very comfortable. My father was as well.

More and more so. I think we need to take back the word as much as we can.

Have nothing against the word but the definition used for the word by those who believe is wrong. There is no way to prove the non-existence of a god or for that matter the existence of a god. I call myself an Atheist because I have seen no evidence of any god. I am 99.999999% sure that no gods exist. Should that 0.000001% prove to be true I would have to ask god why he/she/it didn't provide evidence to base a belief on.