Trying to Redefine Atheism Fails, Part 4

I stated my problem: your definition of atheist, though technically correct, is near-meaningless, because it is too broad and includes…those who have never heard a single (a)theist argument.

So if these people are not atheists or theists, what would you call them? Non-theist? If so, once they hear one argument and find a flaw, do they stop being a non-theist and become an atheist? Why?

Its seems silly using “hearing an argument” as criteria for describing someone’s position. “Have you ever heard an argument for theism?” Yea, some guy said trees are proof of god and that’s not a valid argument. “OK, you’re not a non-theist, you’re an atheist then.” The flaw of one argument does not give merit to the other position, so hearing one flawed argument is is irrelevant between differentiating between the positions of a non-theist and an atheist.

If someone goes through every theistic argument and finds none of them are sound and valid, do they become an atheist? According to the definition as someone who believes there are no deities, they don’t, which I find to be a little silly because I would suspect that most, if not all, people who has done that, would call themselves an atheist.

You’re basically trying to argue against its usage, which, to be honest, seems to be completely useless. Once you convince everyone that atheism “properly” means the belief that there are no deities, congratulations, you just renamed the atheist position to the agnostic position, or the non-theist position, or whatever label you come up with. What we’re called makes no difference, but to change the definition of a label to misattribute characteristics on a group is dishonest.

*using non-theist to describe someone who has never heard an argument for theism/atheism (and does not believe in a deity) and atheist to describe someone who has heard the arguments and does not believe in a deity.

If you really really want to differentiate between the people who don’t believe because they have never heard of any argument for or against and the people who have researched in depth on the subject, just add qualifiers onto the word atheist. For example, people who are ignorant of theism could be considered ignorant atheists and the people who are knowledgeable about theism but don’t believe could be considered intellectual atheists. See, you don’t need to butcher the word atheist in order to differentiate different schools of thought inside atheism. If you want to categorize people’s positions in a more specified group,there are labels such as humanist, Pearlist, etc., you don’t need to change the definition of atheist to do so.