Oh where to start. You must have aced "missing the point"-class.
First off, you put words in my mouth. No, an atheist is not someone who "instantly dismisses". An atheist is someone who either
concludes from the lack of observable evidence - so beyond and more specific than a skeptic who questions everything - that
a god doesn't exist OR has no knowledge of something to believe in and therefore
cannot believe in something. An agnostic has heard the argument, but didn't decide to disbelieve or believe yet.
SKEPTICS question everything. ATHEISTS may not question everything, they disbelieve in (specific) god(s). Period.
That is something you fundamentally do not wish to comprehend, because you're too attached to your definition that combines naturalism, humanism, atheism, skepticism and a few more things INTO ONE thing you call
"Real" 'Atheism'.
You are unable to separate the definitions and confuse them continuously while pulling a "True Scotsman" (only those fitting YOUR definition are "real" and anyone else is a fraud). And don't want to realise this or admit this because your ego gets in your way.
Instead you argue that only your definition is right and this is the "real deal", everyone else has it wrong as long as they do not commit to your definition or they must be something else. You've made this type of argumentation a few times already and it's getting old.
To go back to what I said, I stated it matters WHEN this conclusion is drawn, before or after hearing the evidence and doing an analysis and evaluation. Because that makes the difference between an agnostic and an atheist stance to something: concluding. Again, demanding evidence is skepticism and can be applied to both agnostic and atheist thinking. But they don't NEED to be. Someone may have very different than scientific arguments to disbelief in a god. Maybe they don't like the chap enough.
There certainly are overlaps, but the fine print means something else and you go way out of line with your definition and you try to make it more than what it is. I think the words you are actually looking for is secular humanism. A lot of people like you confuse this with Atheism as if Atheism is some sort of way of life. Hence why you keep bringing up you apply it to everything. Again, this is called SKEPTICISM.
The thing is, I and everyone else here but you and a couple of theists (!), try to prevent changing the actual definition of "atheist" (lack of belief) to "Atheist" (lack of belief + several philosophies on life, morals and ethics). You don't get that we stick to "atheist" to keep the definition pure and simple, whereas you don't, possibly because you want people to group around you, whether consciously or not.
You're probably more secular humanist than you think.
I also like how you confuse monotheism with Christianity (or rather, the Abrahamic religions with their branches Judaism, Christianity and Islam - and all their off-spring).
One of the first monotheisms was actually Egyptian and it involved enforcing atheism with respect to all the other gods of the Egyptian pantheon: the enforcing of
disbelief in (other) gods. It didn't work because it tried exactly that: create monotheism out of a polytheist community by telling them they should drop and reject their beliefs on pretty much everything (basically forced, specific, biased and limited atheism within a theist community without any scientific rationale).
That you don't understand that atheism is being abused by you and others (typically theists) to create groups of people that in reality don't exist as a group is your problem. Not mine.
You also fail to understand that the reason I linked the naturalism wiki is that NATURALISM IS SEPARATE FROM ATHEISM. There is no direct link between the two and one can actually be a theist, in some rare forms even a creationist (deist) and
still have naturalistic tendencies because you'd argue no god is involved in the design of animals or the world and just created the universe and ignored it.
You say you listen to us, but you only listen to what you want to hear as you assume you're right.
Remember that pole and elephant claiming thing you made? The hypocrisy is that you do this:
1. An atheist doesn't believe in a god or gods
2. A skeptic doesn't believe in gods nor other supernatural claims without convincing argumentation
3. A methodological naturalist does not seek answers for the natural world in the supernatural
4. You conclude they are all part of the same thing called Atheism.
That's simply not true. They can be mutualy exclusive. Basically what you did is:
A cow is an animal, a bison is a similar animal, a buffalo is also a similar animal, all three are similar animals, therefore all three are a Cow.
(Note the capital letter).
That's where you miss the nail. All of those can have different overlaps too and the point where all three overlap might be large, but it's not all-encompassing, but certainly not a perfect match.
Otherwise there wouldn't be separate definitions and principles.
(but I digress). Those people are hypocrites that say they believe in one god but not another. Its a logical contradiction. What makes one god different than the others except for the belief system attached? In fact allah=yaweh=god, the big three are all the same god. Honestly though, when you flipped the argument and used pantheon gods compared to the Judeo-Christian god, it gave me a run for my money for a little there. (Im seriously not trying to patronize or be condescending. I really mean well done on that, since no one else has come close).
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