Except there is no word "without belief"
the -ism is still belief, the atheos is godless or without god.
you seem to believe the word atheism is a label to describe atheist as a group of believers, which we are not, so you can disregard the "ism" bit. We are simply atheists, we do have a similar mind set, but we don't follow any doctrine, or beliefs, we are atheists, not a group of people who go to a church to follow atheism, It is the natural state of being, it is just a word to describe us, as you would a herd of cattle a flock of sheep etc... Atheism is not something you are. it's a word coined to mean the opposite to theism, it's that simple. the fact it ends in an ism, is irrelevant, it is just to show it as the yang, to theisms ying.
an atheist has no belief I repeat that no believe in god/gods, he also has no belief in fairies and elves etc.., thats not to say that any of those things couldn't exist, it is just simply unreasonable to have a belief in such things. atheist, simply lack belief.
atheists do not invoke any concept of god to explain any phenomenon or solve any philosophical conundrum, and they see no compelling reason to.
atheist do not profess to have the truth, it is simply that it is unreasonable, without further qualifying evidence.
an atheist is simply someone who does not posit a god-concept to explain anything or solve any problem, it is not mutually exclusive with agnostic. You can be agnostic with respect to some god-concepts while maintaining an atheistic nature toward them all.
It would be extremely foolish to say they believe god doesn't exist
below are few famous atheist names, read there descriptions of what an atheist is.
I've also puts some links at the bottom for your perusal
Dan Barker:
A former fundamentalist preacher who has become an activist for atheism, freethought, and the separation of church and state. He wrote in his 1992 book Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist that,
It turns out that the word atheism means much less than I had thought.
It is merely the lack of theism [...] Basic atheism is not a belief. It is the lack of belief. There is a difference between believing there is no god and not believing there is a god — both are atheistic, though popular usage has ignored the latter.
B.C. Johnson:
The author of The Atheist Debater's Handbook, Johnson explains why the theist has the initial burden of proof in any argument by explaining that, "The atheist, for his part, does not necessarily offer an explanation; he simply does not accept the theist's explanation. Therefore, the atheist need only demonstrate that the theist has failed to justify his position."
Antony G. N. Flew:
An atheist philosopher from Britain, Flew has written quite a lot on the nature of atheism and theism. In his 1984 book God, Freedom and Immortality, he said that
The word 'atheism,' however, has in this contention to be construed unusually. Whereas nowadays the usual meaning of 'atheist' in English is 'someone who asserts there is no such being as God,' I want the word to be understood not positively but negatively. I want the originally Greek prefix 'a' to be read in the same way in 'atheist' as it customarily is read in such other Greco-English words as 'amoral,' 'atypical,' and 'asymmetrical'. In this interpretation an atheist becomes: someone who is simply not a theist. Let us, for future ready reference, introduce the labels 'positive atheist' for the former and 'negative atheist' for the latter.
Valerii A. Kuvakin:
Professor and chair of the Department of Russian Philosophy at Moscow State University, Kuvakin writes in his book In Search of our Humanity:
Atheism ... goes back to the Ancient Greek (a — a negative prefix, theos — god), evidencing the antiquity of the outlook of those who saw no presence of God (or gods) in their everyday lives, or who even denied the very existence of God (or gods). There are different types of atheism, but atheism in one form or another has existed in every civilization.
The concept "atheist" partially coincides with such notions as "skeptic," "agnostic," and "rationalist" and it borders with such notions as "anticlerical," "God fighter" (theomachist), and "God abuser" (blasphemer).
It is wrong to identify an atheist as one who denies God, though this is what opponents of atheism usually claim. If such people exist, it would probably be more correct to call them the "verbal" murderers of God, for the prefix a- means denying as elimination. ... I would like to stress that the prefix a- does not necessarily mean rejection. It can mean "absence of." For example, "apathy" means "absence of passion." Thus, the concept "atheist" does not necessarily mean nihilism.
Michael Martin:
The author of one of the most extensive and detailed books on the philosophy of atheism. He states in Atheism: A Philosophical Introduction that,
If you look up 'atheism' in the dictionary, you will probably find it defined as the belief that there is no God. Certainly many people understand atheism in this way. Yet many atheists do not, and this is not what the term means if one considers it from the point of view of its Greek roots. In Greek 'a' means 'without' or 'not' and 'theos' means 'god.' From this standpoint an atheist would simply be someone without a belief in God, not necessarily someone who believes that God does not exist. According to its Greek roots, then, atheism is a negative veiew, characterized by the absence of belief in God.
George Smith:
The author of one of the most popular books about atheism, Atheism: The Case Against God, stated in a speech:
Atheism, properly considered, is simply the absence or lack of theistic belief.
In other words, to the question, "Do you believe in God?", if you answer, "No," for whatever reason, you are an atheist. You will often hear it said that an atheist actually denies the existence of a god or gods. This is true; many atheists do but not all. This kind of overt denial of the existence of a god or gods is a sub-category of a broader kind of approach which should in a general sense be known as atheism. This gets quite complex to go into all of the reasons why some atheists would not wish to deny that any gods exist.
In his aforementioned book, Smith wrote:
Atheism in its basic form is not a belief: it is the absence of belief. An atheist is not primarily a person who believes that god does not exist; rather, he does not believe in the existence of a god.
Gordon Stein:
A prolific writer on atheism, humanism, freethought, and philosophy, who described atheism in his An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism:
The average theologian (there are exceptions, of course) uses 'atheist' to mean a person who denies the existence of a God. Even an atheist would agree that some atheists (a small minority) would fit this definition. However, most atheists would stongly dispute the adequacy of this definition. Rather, they would hold that an atheist is a person without a belief in God. The distinction is small but important. Denying something means that you have knowledge of what it is that you are being asked to affirm, but that you have rejected that particular concept. To be without a belief in God merely means that the term 'god' has no importance or possibly no meaning to you. Belief in God is not a factor in your life. Surely this is quite different from denying the existence of God. Atheism is not a belief as such. It is the lack of belief.
When we examine the components of the word 'atheism,' we can see this distinction more clearly. The word is made up of 'a-' and '-theism.' Theism, we will all agree, is a belief in a God or gods. The prefix 'a-' can mean 'not' (or 'no') or 'without.' If it means 'not,' then we have as an atheist someone who is not a theist (i.e., someone who does not have a belief in a God or gods). If it means 'without,' then an atheist is someone without theism, or without a belief in God.
belief or disbelief
http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismquestions/a/beliefdisbelief.htm
dictionary definition of atheism
http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/a/dict_standard.htm
atheism vs agnosticism
http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutagnosticism/a/atheism.htm
what is atheism? strong vs weak
http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/a/whatisatheism.htm
