@neologist,
I think you don't see it because this forum has few so-called strong atheists, and none of them are the proselytizing type of atheist. In my experience of this place, people who don't believe in god don't go around touting their lack of belief, and urging it on others. Most atheists here making statements are being reactive, such as in response to those theists who claim that atheists are amoral or immoral.
I found this summation from Religious-Tolerance-dot-org very interesting:
Quote:"Atheism" has many meanings, all of which are related to an absence of belief in the existence of a god, a goddess, gods, goddesses, or combinations of supernatural entities. The term "Atheism" is ambiguous by itself; it really requires a modifier -- as in "strong Atheist," "weak Atheist," "apathetic Atheist." etc. in order to accurately refer to a specific belief.
Among the general population, the most common meaning of the word "Atheist" describes what many would call "a strong Atheist:" a person who definitely asserts that all the thousands or tens of thousands of god(s), goddess(es), ghosts, demons, Satans, angels, etc. do not exist. The concept of such deities and semi-deities are all created by humans.
The most common meaning among Atheists themselves refers to a weak, negative, soft, or skeptical Atheist: one who simply lacks a belief in and knowledge of any supernatural entities whatsoever.
A common belief among conservative Christians is that a person chooses to be an Atheist for only one reason: if they were to believe in a God they would need to follow that God's moral code as he/she has revealed to humanity. That may be a true assessment for some Atheists, but I have never met any who would fit that description. Most are offended by the suggestion. All the Atheists that I have communicated with, including my spouse, assert that they have been forced to become Atheists on purely logical grounds. They see no evidence for such being(s) and they see many indicators that such beings do not exist. To be true to themselves, they cannot accept the existence of God, just as the average Christian cannot accept the existence of Thor, Venus, Baal, and other goddesses and gods of antiquity.
The beginning of the last paragraph suggests both that there can be no "moral" or ethical conduct without a god, and that atheists are atheists because they would avoid the restraint of a moral code. I also found interesting the assertion that the majority of atheists are the so-called "weak" atheists--those who do not assert that there is no god, but who just don't believe it.
