Category talk:Atheists

This category was nominated for deletion on 18 June 2008. The result of the discussion was keep.

This category was nominated for renaming on 20 April 2010. The result of the discussion was keep.

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State atheism needs a reassessment of its Importance level, as it has little to do with atheism and is instead an article about anti-theist/anti-religious actions of governments.
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Comment

This category is potentially a POV problem category - see Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#New category policy and various discussions under Wikipedia:Categories for deletion

I think it should only be used to label people who are 'first and foremost atheists', or are important in the development of atheism. It should not be used to label people who 'happen to be atheists' as that just dilutes the usefulness of categories. -- Solipsist 11:18, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In fact I see this cat has been added to Wikipedia:Categories for deletion today. -- Solipsist 11:20, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

erm, why is Dave Barry a sub-category? —Preceding unsigned comment added by MBlume (talk • contribs)

Lee Strobel is NOT an atheist. The first line of his article on this site describes him as a christian apologist. He may have formerly been an atheist, but listing him as an atheist now is incorrect. I'm removing him from the list. If someone has a good reason why he should be on, please explain here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hewn (talk • contribs)

Richard Dawkins is one atheist who is well known for his views at least in UK/Ireland and further afield who is not currently listed. I have made cosmetic edits to Wikipedia articles directly in the past but can't figure out how to do this one! Sorry...

Question

What does "and of whom it is known how they define their atheism" mean and why does it matter for the purpose of inclustion? -Rrius (talk) 01:22, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Its there to define the cat so that people don't get put in the category without a degree of understanding of what their Atheism means to them, I imagine that this is there due to the fact that there are a lot of different ideas as to what atheism actually means, some call it a religion and some say it is the absence of religion, you can easily find around the web many discussions of this kind, so the definition of their atheism is simply to clarify what is a word with differing interpretations. This is of course especially important when dealing with living people.Off2riorob (talk) 01:39, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That still doesn't answer why it matters. If the person says "I'm an atheist" or "I don't believe in God", then they're an atheist. How they "define their atheism" is immaterial to whether they in fact are atheists and so can be included. -Rrius (talk) 20:11, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't just comment and revert to your opinion, allow discussion, thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 20:20, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am none the wiser on what this category means! So one example would be Gary Kemp. He's said that he's an atheist in no uncertain terms in two different interviews. However, unlike say Ricky Gervais the subject hasn't particularly become an important part of his public persona. Does he go into this category? I'll add him for now but I'm interested in hearing opinions. ciphergoth (talk) 11:08, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]