Because even atheists like Tyson defame the label "atheist". It must become normal to be an atheist. And knowing what the label means helps a lot -- [authorpatrickhall.com]

@shanesgc Yep ... doesn't matter if you like / use the label publically, if you don't believe in any gods then by definition you are an atheist.

@jacpod, "At this time" suggests a departure from the original concept of atheism devised by Huxley, which says that since supernatural beings and realms are non-falsifiable / non-provable, there is no defensible knowledge position about the existence of such things that can be taken for OR against it. So seeing no evidence is going to be true in the past, present and future; there's no way to remedy the situation given the way that very concept of god is framed.

Until the religious can explain how you can objectively (or even intersubjectively) distinguish your beliefs about your god from your imagination, "at this time" is a superfluous qualification in my view.

But if you're a "soft" agnostic who thinks "at some future time" you might find some evidence for god -- it's fine by me. Why not? I just hope you're not holding your breath. Although sometime when you are up for it, I'd love to know what this future evidence would even look like, given that nothing about the supernatural is observable.

@mordant Having never, ever , ever, had a god I doubt very much (unless post 70 years old I will go gaga and get one) that you can ever reach me with diagrams of words and famous people who have used them - Part of what is interesting about never having a god is that I don't have to go through all that proof over and over because - I don't have a god never had one not interested - So many beautiful people on here with interesting things to say and you want me to join you in a quest for the reason why - there is no reason ,there is no god - words are always slippery but NO GOD says it all.What part of that is not sufficient?

@jacpod Even for this former Christer, "no god" is quite sufficient. It's just that the real world is rife with people who are always looking for some sort of semantic purchase in the service of their god, and I won't give them the satisfaction of even appearing to stake out a knowledge claim so they can call me "arrogant" and then say "checkmate atheist".

Of course there are many, many days where I don't even care about that. It's less about some specious concept of "winning an argument" that isn't even an argument; it's more about keeping the well relatively un-poisoned so that people groping their way out of the darkness of theism can find the breadcrumbs.