I dont think that religious thought is obsolete but I do feel that with the advancements we have seen that "god" existing is no longer a given.
This is absolutely true. And there is an interesting parallel between this fact and the introduction of the words "atheist" and "atheism" into the English language. Before that time, there was no need of (or much use for) a word for a person who denied there was a God (uppercase G which indicates not only
which god we refer to but how monotheists understood every other god).
The origins (historically speaking) of words like "theist" and "deist" was
in response to the
already existing labels "atheist" and "atheism". In other words, it wasn't until
after the introduction of the term "atheism" that there became a need for a term like "theism". Historically speaking, "theist" meant "not atheist" far more than the reverse, as terms like "theist" were introduced into the language later and specifically to distinguish people from atheists.
Today things are different. We don't just have more non-believers, we have more believers in different religions/spiritualties who deny the Abrahamic God yet are religious. It is all the more important today to distinguish between the ways one can deny that God/gods exist. Before, when there were first "deists/theists", it was clear that such labels indicated centrally that one was not an atheist. Today, even if we use a loose definition of theism (i.e., belief in any god), there remain too many diverse ways of not being theistic.
Without someone thinking of a god concept first, there wouldn't ever be anything to reject.
And as there are many ways to deny gods exist, there is a need to distinguish the ways in which one does or does not do this. The reason for words like atheism, agnosticism, deism, polytheism, neopaganism, etc., is because there remain lots of worldviews that are different but religious, and lots of worldviews that are not religious but different nonetheless.
To subsume all who don't believe in any deity under the label "atheism", and further to include among such non-believers those who are incapable of belief, doesn't reflect modern culture or the far greater number of non-believers.
The rise of naturalism makes even a pantheist concept look more like atheism.
Which is one of the reasons it is not only pointless, but actually problematic to define atheism so broadly. Apart from the problems of calling all those who believe in gods "theists", we are saying that all of the falling have similar enough worldviews to be categorized as "atheists"
1) Infants
2) Animists
3) People who have never been exposed to the concept of "god"
4) People who believe there is likely a god or something similar but are not sure
5) People who have almost never thought about whether god or gods exist
6) People who have spent years reading theological and philosophical literature, years thinking about arguments for and against belief, and have decided that there is good reason not to believe in any god
7) Shamanists
etc.
And to define what they are not (theists), to include
1) deists who are called this specifically to distinguish themselves from theists
2) Pantheists who don't call themselves theists
3) Polytheists who define "theism" as it has traditionally been defined
4) People who believe use as their pantheon (which they treat as existent in a sense that is hard to describe) the pantheon from Tolkien's stories about middle earth
5) People who call humans "gods" if they have a particular state of mind and worldview without any supernatural beliefs
etc.
We can actually see how futile and useless it is define atheism as anyone who doesn't believe in anything they call gods (even infants). We have go then talk about "strong atheists" vs. "weak atheists" or categories of atheism to describe beliefs about gods for which we already have terms (like agnosticism). Strong atheism, positive atheism, & explicit atheism are all terms which are basically all identical. Even worse, it is not clear how we should treat their opposites (weak atheism, negative atheism, & implicit atheism) in relation to agnosticism, infidelism, nihilism, materialism, skepticism, etc.
In a world of increasingly diverse non-believers and spiritualties/religions, how does it make any sense at all to extend the definition of atheism (and theism) to make it more difficult to communicate what one's position is?
Unless atheists want to argue that theists are presenting an actual existing concept. Theists believe a concept of deity to exist but, by virtue of that belief, also have faith that all other concepts of god are not real and are fabrications even.
The concept of god is particular to each individual, and to the extent it is not (i.e., the way we can understand one another because our conceptions of the word are similar enough), atheists (at least as generally defined) have exactly the same concept.
However when atheists do not believe in a concept they are really saying that the concept of god, no matter which theist presents it, is pure fabrication or wishful thinking.
Not according to those advocate that an atheist is defined solely and wholly as "not a theist". Infants are certainly not saying that no matter what concept of god a theist has, it is fabrication. Neither are most people who are "not theists" because this includes agnostics, those who don't know about any concept of god, those who don't care, those who don't deny what some theists believe in simply that these things (like the sun) aren't gods, etc.
In fact, it only defines the only type of atheism that matters: the one that constitutes a denial of all gods.
If we are truly in a world without god(s) then there is not and never was anything to reject.
There is: the belief that gods exist.
