Maybe you've lost the point of religion. Any religious belief ultimately boils down to a leap of faith. And yes, I've had the displeasure of talking to individuals so smug in their beliefs that they "know" for a fact their god is real and in this respect, they are just as annoying and aggravating as those who know for a fact that there is no god when the objective reality is no one can truthfully say they know one way or the other.

But if one needs "proof" to believe, then faith is something that is simply beyond their capability.

Even if one had a personal, non drug/alchohol/severe head trauma related encounter with something claiming to be The god with a demonstration of creating a world or dimension or universe with a thought and then destroying it with another, the non-believer is still going to say it's an illusion, it's faulty perception, a dream or you may be a god, but not The god. 

And on the other end of the spectrum, someone will see the face of Jesus in a stain in the toilet and suddenly it's a life and faith affirming miracle that proves they've been personally touched by god and objective proof that god exists. 

But if one feels obligated to justify and defend their belief in some sort of higher power responsible for the creation and governing of everything, that's something of a personal limitation as well. 

Ultimately it's a choice. 

I was unlucky and was born in a shitty, little European country where ~90% people are Catholic and being Catholic is a part of national identity. Just as everybody else I was "raised" Catholic and wen't to Church, ahd religion in school and all that nonsence. I went along with everything because the path of less resistance was easir to go. When I started with high school i dropped religion for ethics, told my gram that I don't give a damn for either Hypocritical Money Grabbing institution called Church or the nonsence called God who according to Bible has at least split personality disorder, if not something more serious. 

So I've been agnostic atheist for 10 years now. For those confused by both terms I believe that all those Gods to whom delusional people of this word pray don't exist, but as a person that has devoted his life to science I simply "have to be" agnostic about possibility that there may be a God. 

Accepting your existence as pure chance, and living your life with your full lungs simply because you know that's all you'll ever get is extremely rewarding and terrifying. 

I've be accused that I'm "atheist" because I'm gay, but that's actually not the case. Since I've been atheist before I actually "came out" to myself. 

HOLY CRAP! The irony of this post is amazing.

After 30 seconds on that site atheists.org, look what I found:

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What Is Atheism?

No one asks this question enough.

The reason no one asks this question a lot is because most people have preconceived ideas and notions about what an Atheist is and is not. Where these preconceived ideas come from varies, but they tend to evolve from theistic influences or other sources.

Atheism is usually defined incorrectly as a belief system. Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods. Older dictionaries define atheism as "a belief that there is no God." Some dictionaries even go so far as to define Atheism as "wickedness," "sinfulness," and other derogatory adjectives. Clearly, theistic influence taints dictionaries. People cannot trust these dictionaries to define atheism. The fact that dictionaries define Atheism as "there is no God" betrays the (mono)theistic influence. Without the (mono)theistic influence, the definition would at least read "there are no gods."

Why should atheists allow theists to define who atheists are? Do other minorities allow the majority to define their character, views, and opinions? No, they do not. So why does everyone expect atheists to lie down and accept the definition placed upon them by the world’s theists? Atheists will define themselves.

Atheism is not a belief system nor is it a religion. While there are some religions that are atheistic (certain sects of Buddhism, for example), that does not mean that atheism is a religion. Two commonly used funny retorts to the nonsense that atheism is a religion are: 1) If atheism is a religion then bald is a hair color, and 2) If atheism is a religion then health is a disease. A new one introduced in 2012 by Bill Maher is, "If atheism is a religion, then abstinence is a sexual position."

The only common thread that ties all atheists together is a lack of belief in gods and supernatural beings. Some of the best debates we have ever had have been with fellow atheists. This is because atheists do not have a common belief system, sacred scripture or atheist Pope. This means atheists often disagree on many issues and ideas. Atheists come in a variety of shapes, colors, beliefs, convictions, and backgrounds. We are as unique as our fingerprints.

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http://atheists.org/content/about-atheism

LOL, thank you for supplying your own counter-evidence.

Damn, didn't know them... Maybe I should join them! Thanks!

Well, to be fair it's very possible to be a devout atheist, in a sense.

but the phrase "devout atheist" gets thrown around very liberally by some people. I've never encountered anyone IRL or otherwise that I would describe as a "devout atheist". I would describe hardly any religious people as "devout" in their religious beliefs either... it's a very strong word.

Yeah, come to think about it I guess Richard Dawkins and Cristopher Hitchen is/was devouted atheists...

That might not be necessarily true, even from a strictly logical and scientific point of view.

In some sense we are born with "beliefs" ingrained in our brain, because having some basic tool for knowledge proved useful and was selected in Darwinian terms. For example we basically are all born empiricists, and we basically by default believe that tomorrow the world will work by the same basic rules as today.

On the subject, see Dennet's "Breaking the spell: religion as a natural phenomenon". Basic idea: we evolved with brains that are finally attuned to understanding the intentions of conscious agents, as it is greatly useful to have predictive capacities about their future behavior. Just as our great innate ability in reading facial expressions leads us to mistakingly see faces in the patterns of clouds, rock shapes and wood knots, so this ability of ours to infer conscious intentions might have been misused, and led us to see agents in inanimate natural phenomena. A thunderstorm becomes an expression of anger, the sun loves us if it useful for our needs and so on... We populate the world with spirits, and then with gods.

It's a really great book, check it out. Point being, though, that it's not true that we are born as tabula rasa... We actually have to work and educate ourselves to logical, abstract and scientific reasoning.

Jay, what is ironic?  As you said, theism, atheism is about what a person believes.  American Atheists can right whatever they want on their website, but atheism is by definition a belief that their is no God.  I'm not getting into right or wrong or correct or anything else, but that is what it is.  And many people are devout in that belief. I have a friend who posts on facebook every day an atheist quote or something bad about religion.  That's his way of being an atheist and he is very devout to his cause. American Atheists is a lobby group which pressures government to make atheist friendly decisions.  They spend moeny to do it.  They are devout atheists.  There is nothing ironic in my post.  The only thing ironic is saying that being atheist is not part of your belief set, or that some atheists are not devout in their cause.