Seriously, should these words even exist? I don’t think so. I prefer to say “Normal” person over “Atheist” person or “Nonbeliever” person.
The word “Atheism” denotes a negation of theism, but in reality, that negation of theism is what all newborns start with. That is the default behavior; that is the normal behavior. I never saw a Chimp at zoo going to Sunday Schools.
It is us, the human society in general, who dump this theism BS on kids, at an age when they can't even reason by themselves (pretty convenient age to try to convince and convert eh?)
For context, my Dad has always been a skeptic, and as he became old, he started to be a hardcore agnostic - so I was never brought up in a family of faith (thankfully) - and so I never had to struggle with any “deconstruction”, as some of us had to. All my encounters with religion has been while interacting with my peers, colleagues and neighbors. To me, growing up without any faith was totally normal, because that's how I happened to be raised. And by the time I encountered religion, I already had enough cognitive capacity to recognize and reject that as BS.
Enough ramblings, but my point is that theists brought in a claim (about invisible Sky Daddy) that can't be proven, so the burden of proof stays with them. We don't have to “negate” a fiction. I dislike the word “Atheist” (although I respect the intended purpose of that in this present time), but I still prefer to say we are “normal”.
