> agreed and the world would be more navigable if they adopted distinct names, garb & beliefs the way the other religions did.
Athiesm is to religion what not collecting stamps is to a hobby. We aren't the ones creating an imagined reality. We're just saying until there's substantive evidence to support the existence of a deity we probably shouldn't assume one exists.
You imply from your comparison that atheism is [not belonging to a group with a shared belief] and then say "we" [belong to a group with a shared belief], which is clearly self-contradictory. I strongly agree with the first part, but not with the second. There are certainly atheists who wouldn't agree with what "we" (you) are "just saying".
We, the people who aren't interested in unicorns, are rarely mentioned on lists of fantasy fandom although we do share the same feelings about a particular element of the fantasy genre.
I don't see why some see the need to clump people together by what they don't believe in. Atheism isn't about "interest" or "feelings", so your comparison doesn't hold either. Different people arrive at the same conclusions via completely different paths, many not even rationally. It's really arrogant to assume atheists are superior in this regard (and I'm not saying you said that but it's not too hard to infer), and I say that as an atheist myself.
> We aren't the ones creating an imagined reality.
One problem I see with this line of thinking is that it's often faux intellectualism, in the sense of not even attempting to define what a deity is in the first place, instead taking the lazy approach of "whatever you think god is doesn't exist". What exactly is a deity in the first place anyways? Bearded guy in the clouds? A lot of christians don't believe in that either. Jesus (i.e. a human)? A certain north korean leader that had similar godlike fame among followers most definitely existed (godhood claims notwithstanding). The holy spirit? Read "spirit" as you read "spirit of the law". Some flavors of pantheism actually argue that the concept of "an omnipotent omnipresent entity that nevertheless grants us free will" can be perfectly explained if said entity is the laws of physics.
As we can see, there's a pretty big spectrum ranging anywhere from strawmen to things that do exist. IMHO, proper atheism needs to be able to argue against the entire body of theism, not just narrow set of christian beliefs, and as such it's a belief system that doesn't fit many people. There's agnosticism (basically, "I don't know if god exists because the evidence doesn't convince me"), which is a much easier belief system to actually defend, and which I think describes more accurately the belief system that a lot of self-proclaimed atheists actually subscribe to.
The problem with that text book definition of Atheism, or Anti-Theist is that the the label of Atheist has taken an a life of its own, and the majority of people publicly proclaiming themselves to be an "Atheist" do not simply seek "evidence to support the existence of a deity", no instead they adopt the so called Atheism+ movement that incorporates loads of other philosophical and political positions into the label of "Atheist". It has become decidedly Authoritarian Left in its political positioning, so much so that many libertarians that used to proudly use the Atheist Label has stopped referring to themselves as Atheist
agreed and the world would be more navigable if they adopted distinct names, garb & beliefs the way the other religions did.
If you think about it, every thanksgiving debate was really a religious debate among people who didn’t clarify their membership.