I before E except after C. Except in Atheist?

"Atheos" is from the Greeks. Like the word Theist, Atheist means without theism. The use of A at the beginning of a word meaning "not" is not uncommon in English. Amoral is one.

To be honest that I before E rule is bunk, so many exceptions to it that it's really not even worth remembering. About the only uniform rule is that if a Q appears at the beginning of a word or in it, it will be preceded by a U.

Their, atheist, theist, neither.

I could go on but I think you get the point.

In the English language, there are more exceptions to the "I before E except after C" rule than examples of it.

This is actually even smarter than you seem to have realised.

The 'i before e' rule is junk: their, neither, atheist, icier, science ....

But you don't realise that until you think about it.

Atheists are people who think about it: so the rule doesn't apply to them.

People of faith just repeat any old nonsense they hear: they are the kind of folk who keep such stupid ideas going.

yup. English is based on both Saxon, and Latin. And the rules for each of those languages don't really play nicely, which is why it's such a difficult language to teach.

Glacier.

That's a rule for diphthongs, ("ie",(as in piece) "oa",(as in boat) "ea",(as in peach) etc) and atheist does not have a diphthong but a ending like "ing" or "ed" or "ion" or "ism"

It's like that.

for example anthropolog-ist or rap-ist or ego-ist or ideal-ist

I know that's why I always spell the word wrong.

And theist too. Weird.

Seems you are ignorant of the huge number of exceptions to that rule?!

Have you not completed your education yet?!