@Jeremy .. His beliefs are about God, but why he believes them is most assuredly about him.

@Fake ... No. Athiesm is about no God. Logically, it cannot be about something which does exist. Those who maintain that Athiesm is about God are implicitly acknowledging at least the possibility of a God.

Atheism is not a religion, nor is it based on faith.

@Hammar .. seriously? You don't hear passionate faith in those who are compelled to stand up and deny the existence of God? See the 4th item in the definition of religion ... thefreedictionary.com/religion

@tomjedrz: Not accepting a claim (that god(s) exists), is not the same as accepting the opposite claim (that god(s) definitely don't exist). Atheism is the former. The latter is sometimes called strong atheism.

@Marc ... I understand the reasoning. When I was young I shared it. Then I experienced the miracle of my daughter. My points are that "evangelical" athiests move beyond reasoning into faith, and that they frequently are "anti God" rather than convinced that there is no God.

@Hammar ... excellent distinction, although not entirely relevant. My points really only apply to those who feel compelled to challenge the claim.

@Marc: To be precise, the former is agnostic atheism and the latter is gnostic atheism. Theist-Atheist ("Are there any god(s)?") and Gnostic-Agnostic ("Can we be sure?") are like two orthogonal axis.

@tomjedrz: As stated, you don't have to claim the opposite to challenge a claim. I cannot say for 100% sure that there are no gods, but I can say that we have about as much reason to believe one exists, as we have to believe invisible flying spaghetti monsters exist. That is, there is no evidence for either.

My answer is not about athiesm .. it is about how the OP can avoid offending Christians when discussing athiesm. Context and phrasing are important, as is understand his own viewpoint better.

@hammar .. Exactly true. But a negative cannot be proven. So to say "there is no God" is just as much a statement of faith as to say that "God loves you."

@tomjedrz: And that is not a claim all atheists make. However, there is this concept called Occam's razor, which says that, when you have two competing hypotheses "there is definitely a god" and "there is definitely no god", which are otherwise equal (i.e. no evidence for either), one should prefer the one that makes the fewest new assumptions. The assumptions of the "god claim" are vastly more numerous and complex than those of the "no god claim", that somebody made it all up.

@Marc .. So you want to inflict athiesm on the world? Has governmental rejection of religion ever been good?

However, I think we went off on a tangent here. My point was that atheism is not a religion under any definition of religion that I know of, neither is it a position based on faith (although some sub-categories of atheism may be)

@tomjedrz: Atheism is simply the opposite of theism. Theism is not a religion either.

Heya; actually, most European politics is gradually excising religion; it is working quite nicely

I don't want to "inflict" atheism - but there are a lot of places where it is actively dangerous to suggest something that disagrees with the religious-right

I think the we could all live better without that

But the other problem is that some (not all) religious folk keep trying to push religion into places where it simply doesn't fit; science being the most obvious example. Is it anti-God to observe that pretty much all attempts to do so are bad science? Not really. The same as if any other bad science was suggested: it would be torn to shreds by the science community and discarded.

When you do that against a religious-based science it is somehow anti-God; er, no, just anti-bad-science.

I probably come across as anti-religion; actually I'm not. I come from a religious past and many close friends are religious. The other week I spent a few hours talking to a church leader I didn't previously know - no offence was had in any direction

I'm all for personal religion; I just get upset by prosetylizing (I alwas spell that word wrong). And I don't mean "only prosetylize atheism" - I say: educate people; show them all the options; let them decide

But teach things in the context of "this is what [this group] believe, and this is their history"

but I seem to be talking to myself, so shutting up now

@hammar And that is the sort of arrogance that is so off-putting. You guys make these insulting statements, and then are mystified when we are insulted. Lots of smart people believe, yet so many athiests speak as if no one with an IQ above 80 has any business believing.

@MarcGravell Who is more aggressive about forcing their agenda today, the religious or the anti-religious? Here in the USA, it is clearly those opposed to religion. The various battles about publicly visible crosses are pretty demonstrative.

@MarcGravell "... educate people; show them the options; ..." agreed. But today it is typically the athiests who are looking to keep things out of the classroom, not the other way around.

@tomjedrz: I'm not sure how you're seeing me as arrogant? When did I insult you?

@MarcGravell " it is working quite nicely" ... that is a matter of opinion ... the EU is not in the greatest of shape, and there is a ton of social unrest, rioting, etc. right now. Certainly, religion is not central to it, but Christians generally don't blame the government for their misfortunes, and don't look for opportunities to loot.

@hammar You really don't see how I might find your equating my God with an "invisible flying spaghetti monster" insulting? You don't see how it belittles my faith, and how I might interpret it as expressing a low opinion of my intelligence? Seriously?

@tomjedrz: I'm equating the claims, not the entities themselves.

And I did not mention your god in particular. Atheism is the non-belief in any gods, not just the Christian one.

@hammar You like Occam's Razor, I like Pascal's Wager. I also have a different take on the assumptions ... ~the world was created~ seems far simpler than ~the world evolved~.

@tomjedrz: Well there's where I respectfully disagree. First of all, Pascal's Wager relies on the false dichotomy that there being no gods, and there being the Christian god are the only two options.

Secondly, the world being created is just explaining away the complexity of the world by introducing something infinitely more complex as its creator. Whereas evolution shows how complexity can arise naturally from simplicity, by a process of random mutation combined with selection based on natural laws.

"keeping thing out of the classroom" - no, only out of the science room. Bad science should not be reinforced. As a matter of education on other's beliefs: go for it!

Indeed it it the religious right trying to suppress good quality sex education

Re looting: that is a cheap shot. Looting was criminality, nothing to do with religion or atheism.

And actually, as I was growing up some of the most notorious local trouble-makers would sit down at church on Sunday. There is no clear line on that; don't invent one.

To be fair; other local trouble-makers weren't religious: tw point I'm making: that divide is artificial

Also; in truth religious-right do create allot of bad news coverage when trying to enforce their version of morality. Abortion, homosexuality, etc.

These are divisive topics, sure, but even recently some very bad things have been done by people singing alleluias.

(my point there being: contribution to social division and unrest)

@tom as with @hammar I don't know when we supposedly insulted you or your intelligence. I'd love to know, so I can avoid such in the future. Just just because I have a different view that should be seen as an immediate insult.