And that’s the fundamental point of contention. You treat atheism as something that can exist outside the mind, and thus continues to exist even if there is no concept for it. I argue that it exists entirely within the realm of ideas, and thus ceases to exist if the concept does not exist.
You define atheism as a lack of belief in gods. But the concept of lacking something can only exist if that something also exists as a concept. I can’t lack oqfkljadfs, because oqfkljadfs is not a concept. To lack a belief in god, the concept “belief in god” must exist. And for the concept “belief in god” to exist, the concept of “god” must exist.
The idea of the community who has never conceived of the concept of a god is instructive here. Yes, we can describe them as atheistic, as we have an idea of theism and therefore god. They, on the other hand, lack such a concept, and thus could never describe themselves as atheists. It isn’t merely the word that doesn’t exist to them, but the concept itself.
The thing is, our perspective is no more correct than their perspective in this. Unless there is some objective truth involved (like, say, the actual existence of God), we cannot argue that our perspective is objectively correct and their is objectively incorrect. Whether they are atheists or not depends entirely on who is saying it.
The hypothetical here was that the concept of god never arose at all*. No one believes in god. Thus no one has the concept of someone not believing in god. People don’t merely lack a word for atheism, but they the concept does not exist. Atheism has as much meaning as oqfkljadfs.
Though I continue to reiterate that this is a pointless philosophical diversion, in that it has no practical application. It isn’t special, it doesn’t show that theism (or atheism) is correct. It’s perfectly possible for someone else to have a different consistent philosophy where atheism does have some sort of objective truth, and it would change nothing about the world.
*And this is why I am able to argue from an atheistic perspective, as it is my belief as a theist that the concept of god arose due to god existing. So, in a universe where the concept of god did not arise, then God doesn’t exist in that universe. It’s a difficult universe to conceive of, as all our fictional universes have a god–the creator of said fictional universe–but it is possible.
I include this for clarification of those who might thing I’d become an atheist. I have made a decision that this will never happen. Going into it more would necessarily lead to witnessing, and I do not wish to engage in such outside of an audience who actually wants to be witnessed to.