Why do atheists insist that atheism is a 'non-belief'?

[Apollyon]

@Nzinga_Seated

You define what you think your own god is, and I will let you know that I’m not buying it.

I really like the way ataraxy22 put it in a previous poll / thread about belief:

@ataraxy22

I put agnostic, but I am atheist with regard to any religion I have ever heard of.

I’ve tended away from identifying as agnostic only because people seem so keen to argue that I *really *mean weak-atheist, or that agnostic mean apathetist.

Since agnostic was a term coined by a particular person to mean a particular philosophy it puzzles me that the term seems fuzzy to others.

But perhaps it’s a case of the technical use of a word differing from the casual use (rather like the meaning of “theory”). One of Bertrand Russel’s quotes sum it up well:

@Bertrand Russell

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God.

On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.