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I accept the fact that you do not share my belief. I have simply asked for your reasons why you do not believe in God.

And I gave you my reason. Why should I believe in your God and not the gods of any other religion? Why should yours be given special consideration requiring special justification for lack of belief?

I must say, however, I find it encouraging that in this paragraph you mentioned that you are "not convinced" that God exists, rather then convinced that God does not exist. This makes you an agnostic, not an atheist.

No, it makes me an atheist. An agnostic is one who believes that it is impossible to know for certain whether or not gods exist. Agnosticism is orthagonal to atheism/theism.

If that is so, if, in fact, your mind is open to the possibility of existence of God, then yes, it would be up to me to justify my faith.

It's also up to Hindus to justify their faith, and Muslims to justify their faith. Once again, yours isn't the only religion out there and to me, an atheist, your religion is no more "special" than any other.

This definition may be silly, but it is the commonly accepted one. Merriam-Webster dictionary (available on-line) defines atheist as "one who denies the existence of God". Please note - denies, not merely lacks belief. Please also note the capitalization of God.

I've seen that definition. It's crap. Try the American Heritage dictionary for a better definition (it encompasses both lack of belief and outright denial of both general gods and a named -- though not specifically defined -- God). Also look at the roots of the word: "a" means without, "theism" means "belief in a god or gods", therefore "atheism" means "without belief in a god or gods".

The same dictionary defines agnostic as ": a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and prob. unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god".

Well, that would actually be in line with the definition of agnostic, but it doesn't apply to me. I don't believe that all gods are ultimately unknowable, I believe that a god matching the right definition could make its existence absolutely known. I simply haven't seen evidence for any gods, thus I lack belief, making me an atheist (by the proper definition, not the Webster's begging-the-question one).

And I gave you my reason. Why should I believe in your God and not the gods of any other religion? Why should yours be given special consideration requiring special justification for lack of belief?

Your reason for not believing in God is because there are many different believes to choose from? So, if there are two people with different believes you will automatically choose to believe they are both wrong? How about creationism and evolution? By your argument you must believe that both creationism and evolution are equally wrong - after all there are people who believe in one and there are people who believe in the other.

No, it makes me an atheist. An agnostic is one who believes that it is impossible to know for certain whether or not gods exist. Agnosticism is orthagonal to atheism/theism.

Does your definition of atheism include a possibility that God may exist? If not, what is the meaning of your statement "not convinced"?

It's also up to Hindus to justify their faith, and Muslims to justify their faith. Once again, yours isn't the only religion out there and to me, an atheist, your religion is no more "special" than any other.

We have not, actually, been arguing about superiority of one faith over another. As far as I understand, we were talking about having faith in God and having faith that there is no God.

I've seen that definition. It's crap. Try the American Heritage dictionary for a better definition (it encompasses both lack of belief and outright denial of both general gods and a named -- though not specifically defined -- God). Also look at the roots of the word: "a" means without, "theism" means "belief in a god or gods", therefore "atheism" means "without belief in a god or gods".

I just did a search on the American Heritage web site (http://www.bartleby.com/61/). The definition for atheist came up as: "...One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods....". This is identical to Merriam-Webster's definition. There is nothing here about lack of proof, there is just an active believe that denies existence of God.