Religious theists and apologists often have a lot invested in false definitions of atheism. Many of their arguments in defense of theism and against atheism are dependent upon misrepresentations of
what atheism is, so it's not hard to imagine why they would be desperate to find some basis for rejecting the truth when atheists explain to them what atheism really is. As a consequence, a number of myths about the
definition of atheism have developed; fortunately, they are easy to refute.
Christian objections to defining atheism broadly as the absence of belief in gods can extend to blatant misrepresentation of what should be a simple concept in order to divert attention from what atheism really is. In the case of this myth, we find that people inexplicably distort the simple nature of "not believing the truth of a proposition" in order to pretend that it's not possible to merely lack belief in the truth of someone's claims. This myth is easy to refute, though it's not always easy to get a person to acknowledge making an error here.
I've written a number of articles about how religious theists, but especially Christians, try to argue against the broad definition of atheism as simply the absence of belief in gods. This myth explains why this is so important to some theists: if atheism is just the absence of belief in gods, then it's not making any claims that all atheists must defend, and therefore the only
burden of proof lies with religious theists themselves. Too few Christians are prepared to provide a substance defense of the claims they are making.
When religious theists are informed that atheism is not "belief that God does not exist," as they previously assumed, but rather that atheism is really defined as the "lack of belief in the existence of any gods" or simply "disbelief in gods," many get defensive. Perhaps they cannot accept being mistaken about something, or perhaps they realize how many of their assumptions and arguments about atheism and atheists fall apart in light of the real definition. Either way, be prepared for a fight.
One popular tactic used by religious theists (usually Christians) is to confuse the differences between
agnosticism and atheism in order to insist that atheists aren't 'really' atheists, but agnostics. There seems to be the hope that by misrepresenting both as two points along a continuum with theism, then atheists can be convinced that they are 'closer' to theism than they realized, thus making the entire evangelization effort easier. Evangelization through deception is far too common.
The most common misunderstanding about atheism involves the definition. Many people insist that atheism is really the denial of the existence of God, but there are two errors here. First, it pretends that atheism is exclusively about their god, the god common to Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Second, it focuses on a narrow sub-set of atheism and atheists to the exclusion of all others. Standard dictionaries list 'disbelief in god or Gods' as the first and primary definition of atheism.
