In terminology, atheist is a person who does not believe in the existence of god or gods; and does not believe in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of man and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world. [1]

Atheist types
See main: Atheism types
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Non-metaphysical belief systems
A non-metaphysical belief system, is a belief system or belief state rooted in principles or creeds (see: atheist's creed) that are non-metaphysical.

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Atheistic belief systems | Types
See main: Godless belief systems
The typical "atheist" tends to fall in the 5 to 8 Dawkins scale number range. Once a person admits to being an atheist or thereabouts, the question that immediately comes to the fore, is what that person does believe in, i.e. what that person's non-deity based belief system is — being that “atheism”, by definition, is not a belief system, though some would like to conceive that it is. Some, such as as atheist Thomas Jefferson, who characterized himself in letter as an "Epicurean materialist" (1820), historically, have opened up publicly about their godless belief system. The following is a list of known belief systems or philosophies adhered to by atheists:

Belief system | Godless
Date
DescriptionExample Believer[s]
Basis





Spiritualism 2700BC"spirit" based
belief system		Imhotep
Heraclitean (Ѻ)475BC"flux and fire"
belief system		Heraclitus
Materialism460BC
Leucippus
Empedoclean 420BC4 elements + 2 forces
belief system		Empedocles (Ѻ)Standard model
Epicureanism270BC"pleasure principle"
belief system		Epicurus, Amafinius, Horace—whose famous statement Carpe Diem ("Seize the Day"), supposedly, illustrates the philosophy—Lucretius, Virgil, Julius Caesar, Pierre Gassendi, Denis Diderot, Jeremy Bentham, Christopher Hitchens, and Michel Onfray. (Ѻ) Atomic theory










Cartesian atheist1660
Franciscus van den Enden (Ѻ)
Spinozan1676"god or [=] nature" belief systemBenedict Spinoza, Albert Einstein
Newtonian atheist1686
Pierre Laplace
Epicurean materialist 1820
Thomas Jefferson
Existentialism1841
Soren Kierkegaard [technically, he was a Christian]
Darwinian1859


Nihilism1882
Friedrich Nietzsche
Carnotian1906
H.G. Wells | Quote: “He was a practical electrician fond of whiskey, a heavy, red-haired brute with irregular teeth. He doubted the existence of a Deity but accepted Carnot’s cycle, and he had read Shakespeare and found him weak in chemistry.” [3] Second law
Partetian (Ѻ) 1914
Lawrence Henderson, Bernard DeVoto
Gibbsian1935
Lawrence Henderson
Marxist-Leninist atheism (Ѻ) 1917 A "materialist" advocating understanding of nature Vladimir Lenin
Meaninglessness1937
Aldous HuxleySecond law
Existential nihilism (Ѻ) 1943
Jean-Paul Sartre (Ѻ), Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida
Objectivism1957
Ayn Rand (Ѻ)
Purposelessness1986
Peter Atkins (Ѻ)Second law
Pointlessness1988
Steven Weinberg (Ѻ)
Pastafarianism (Ѻ) 2005A [physics] creationism-parody
belief system		 Bobby Henderson
Ofer Po (Ѻ)
Goetheanism2011A one nature [physicochemical] humanism mixed with physicalism mixed with materialism belief systemLibb Thims (Ѻ) Atomic theory
+
Combined law

Other terms include: physicalism and (add) which need placement above, somewhere.

Many will vacillate on the question of atheism for "fear of death", as some have commented, hence maintaining some type of residual theistic belief system (e.g. spiritualism).

Some, as of late, in rejection of traditional religion, will self-describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious" (Ѻ) and or "spiritual atheist", the latter of which seems to be but a bend over backwards neoplasmic code variant for some type of spirit or soul based theism.

Notes
Some, will float in the gray area on the existence of god question: Albert Einstein, in response to this query, would always reply I do not believe in a "personal god", meaning that he held some type of Benedict Spinoza based "god = nature" conceptualization in his mind.

Quotes
The following are related quotes:

“Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.”
— Isaac Newton (c.1700), A Short Scheme of the True Religion (Ѻ) (Ѻ)

“The atheists are for the most part impudent and misguided scholars who reason badly, who, not being able to understand the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis of the eternity of things and of inevitability.”
— Voltaire (c.1780) [6]

“Atheists express their rage against god although in their view he does not exist.”
— C.S. Lewis (1950) (Ѻ)

See also
● Atheism timeline
● Creationism scientists ranked by idiocy
● Famous atheists

References
1. Theism (-a) + atheism – Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 2000.
2. God – OnlineEtymologyDictionary.com.
3. Buchner, Ludwig. (1884). Force and Matter: Principles of the Natural Order of the Universe, with a System of Morality Based Thereon (15th German edition; 4th English edition) (Heraclitus, Moleschott, pg. 1). London: Asher and Co.
3. (a) Wells, H.G. (1906). The Door in the Wall, and Other Stories, Lord of the Dynamos, Chapter 7; The Daily Chronicle, Summer No. July 14th.
(b) Gaither, Carl C. and Cavazos-Gaither, Alma E. (2002). Chemically Speaking: a Dictionary of Quotations (pg. 125). CRC Press.
4. Buckley, Michael J. (1990). At the Origins of Modern Atheism (GBa) (pg. 69) Yale University Press.
5. d’Holbach, Baron. (1772). Good Sense without God: or Freethoughts Opposed to Supernatural Ideas (Ѻ). Amsterdam.
6. Voltaire. (1764). Philosophical Dictionary (translator: H.I. Woolf) (Ѻ)(Ѻ). Knopf, 1924.

External links
● 50 Top Atheists in the World (2011) – TheBestSchools.com.
● Category: American atheists – Wikipedia.

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