when I was Atheist ( question for Atheists )?

Atheism is really only a factor when I object to faith-based laws and faith-based social standards. Well, at least it has been for me.

For others, it's a factor when it comes to employment. Some people aren't comfortable working around people who are "faithless". This country is positively DRENCHED in the Christian mentality, so it's sometimes tough to be an "out atheist" in a predominantly Christian workplace or if you work with overly religious clientele.

It's also an issue for people who want to run for public office. Are you an atheist? Then you either don't admit it if you're aiming for Mayor, Governor, Senator, President, etc, or you DO admit it and fail miserably.

It's ALSO an issue when it comes to overall trust. It's been shown by a national survey that atheists are THE most distrusted minority in the U.S.

Being American, I suppose I do feel the need to label myself. The problem is I don't really know what label that would be. I guess I could be an Atheist as I do not believe in "God" and the bible. I see that as merely a fairytale with life lessons, much like Grimm's' fairy-tales if you will. But I do believe in certain, well a lot of, Pagan beliefs. And I am very scientific in my thinking as well. I think things would be better without the labels but everyone wants to categorize everyone so maybe there could be an "undetermined" section for people like me.

You may have been a de facto atheist, that is, someone who wasnt religious per se, and thus had no theism, or was a-theistic, but generally speaking, when someone calls themselves an atheist, we mean something different.

Someone who intellecually arrives at atheism, stays there. For example, most people claim they understand evolution, but few people really do. If you can go into detail about evolution, and understand exactly how hominds arouse from environmental changes, then you understand evolution and, consequently, soon discrad any silly notions of creationism or "in God's Image".

So, when one has a fair foundation of science, understands evolution and the history of religion, and becomes atheist, theres just no returning to the fiction...it like a college student wanting to go back to kindergarden.

I do sometimes find it necessary to identify myself as an atheist. It is widely assumed one is Christian in the US, and in the area in which I reside, the overwhelming majority are Catholic. I am asked where I go to church, would I pray for someone and so forth. I doesn't happen a great deal -- perhaps once a month. The idea of being an atheist is so foreign to some of the people I work with that one woman burst out laughing -- she though I was making a joke. She had to ask me again later if I was actually serious. Believers can laugh at me, but if I *dare* ridicule them... I am guilty of a hate crime.

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I don't really call myself an atheist (let alone capitalize the term), but if someone were to analyze what I believe, they might well call me an atheist or a pantheist or an agnostic. I'm probably more agnostic than anything, although I'm currently reading a book that makes a good point: there's a difference between faith and a spiritual point of view or a spiritual quest. Faith is belief in the absence of evidence, or even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Spiritual, as an adjective, just means being willing to postulate that there's more to life than mere materialism. That's me: I'm a non-materialist agnostic.

I have never been an Atheist.

That means that someone does not believe there is a higher or Divine Power controlling everything.

I am more of an Agnostic. Grind down the Universe and sieve it through the finest molecular seive, then show me a grain of a Deity.

Then I'll believe.

Until then, may the Lord strike me dead before I finish this sente

Speaking for myself, no, my "atheism" as such isn't a vital part of my life, any more than my disbelief in Santa is. I'm not simply the opposite of a theist, viz. he wakes up and thanks God for another beautiful day, and I wake up and thank No-God.

When asked, I'm an atheist; and even then I have to qualify it. I'm the first to admit that I don't actually "know" anything. Technically, I'm an agnostic. But morally, I'm an atheist, because I happen to have been born into a theistic culture, and I've had to suffer and see other people suffer on behalf of totally imaginary ideas. My atheism is a reaction against (what I perceive to be) the evils of theism.

It's also a statement of my skepticism; although, again, the statement only makes sense within the context of a theistic culture. It's true that we can't prove OR disprove the existence of God; but it doesn't follow that it's just as rational to believe in God as to not. The concept of "God" is so ingrained that we have to think of metaphors to explain this, e.g. the "teapot orbiting Pluto," or the FSM. If somebody suggests that there's a teapot orbiting Pluto, we can laugh, but we can't actually disprove his assertion any more than he can prove it (in our present state of knowledge). But that doesn't mean it's just as likely there as not.

In my real life, atheism doesn't come up much. If people ask me my opinion on a religious matter or ask if I'm Christian, I will declare my nonbelief. But I don't just go around announcing my atheism to everybody...why would I??

I will use the term atheist if someone asks, because it is pretty straightforward and lets them know I am definitely nonreligious. However, if I think someone will react badly to that word, I will soften it and say I am agnostic (which is also true) because that term is generally more acceptable to religious people than the word atheist is.

Generally I prefer no label. Although in this country it's kind of unspoken anyhow because we were raised to stay quiet about our beliefs...too much hate out there from the mainstream religion.

In a country that has the assumption that everyone is Christian and your own close friends regularly forget that you are a non believer... a person is always left with having to explain themselves and remind people that yes, we do exist, this place is full of people other then just them too.

When I used to be an atheist (and it is quite common for atheists to find a path to the divine) it was most of the time from a natural feeling of opposing injustice: as in being opposed to the church apparatus, rules and books. And naturally, once you are opposed to one religion it is easy to generalize - especially when you notice that other churches have the same kind of apparatus.