Atheism shouldn't even be a word. Think about it. You don't go around defining yourself by the things you don't believe in, otherwise you might as well call yourself an aunicornist, an afairyist, or an asantaclausist. If the majority of the world's adults didn't identify so strongly as "theists", the rest of society would not have needed to come up with the term "atheist". Further, atheism is not a belief system (a common misapprehension, but a dangerous one); it is, indeed, the sheer lack or rejection of a belief system. It is the acceptance of truth and reason over faith and superstition (faith meaning belief without evidence, or belief based on poor, biased, untenable, nonsensical, invalid, or incoherent "evidence", which wouldn't be evidence at all by any scientific standard, or even any rational standard required in every other domain of discourse/knowledge other than religion). Just as there is no such thing as non-astrology, or a non-alchemist, so to atheism can be thought. If by some chance astrologers, alchemists, or unicornists became prominent in our society - or if their nonsensical preachings began to erode logic and reason, vitiate academic or corporate departments, or encroach on free society in any way - we would not need to invent words to counter these mythologies or superstitions. Nor would we even need to invent new disciplines of knowledge. We would only need to defer to logic, reason, and science to put these lunatics in their place. The same can be said for religion. An atheist simply rejects any superstitious or untenable claims - rejects any belief systems, but particularly organized religious belief systems and even deistic beliefs - and therefore cannot be categorized as dogmatic or fanatical. The nonexistence of something cannot be dogmatic or fanatical for the very thing it rejects or that is absent. A better word is "antitheist" or even "free-thinker" to be honest, if a word is required at all (which it isn't). An antitheist is someone who actively repudiates the encroachment of religion on free society in any way, shape, or form. Or, at the very least, an antitheist wouldn't want to live in a universe with a god - neither the megalomaniacal, hateful, unalterable, authoritative, celestial dictator as described by theists; nor the irrational, at the very best unsubstantiated, "prime-mover" that simply created the laws of physics but doesn't entertain human affairs, as described by deists. While the deist is objectively more likely to be correct than the theist, that does not speak a word to the truth or validity of deism. Importantly, lack of evidence is rarely, if ever, evidence in favor of the contrary, especially in these types of cases. Deism is at least partly explained by wishful thinking, but theism is better explained by the wish for subservience, the wish to be a slave, the wish for abject capitulation of one's critical faculties to an impotent or evil supervisor (a personal god). Antitheism is the opposition to these abhorrent sophisms and ideologies from primitive, medieval, barbaric societies and the ignorant peasants that wrote these supposedly inerrant scriptures - texts that could easily be improved in an instant by even a child of today's society thanks to secular intervention and advances in science and science education. Rejection of religion is merely to acknowledge that the onus falls on us to improve the world, that religion is manmade, morality and ethics are organism-based processes, and that the truth claims of religion and science and inherently incompatible, among others. Atheism neither claims a care to whether one would want to live under a divine totalitarian regime, nor is it concerned with fighting geopolitical, sociocultural, socioeconomic, or psychosocial invasion of religion. It simply is the absence of such concerns and the rejection of irrationality, and therefore is inapplicable under many linguistic and practical situations. However, if preceded by a qualifier such as "agnostic atheist" or "scientific atheist", many times euphemisms for one another, now takes on some meaning and has some value in conversation, dialectic, and rhetoric. Nevertheless, atheism in everyday speech still seems to encapsulate the diverse set of rational thinking approaches that are devoid of religious, or otherwise superstitious contexts. Notice that these classifications are merely conventional, and only necessitated by the persistence of pre-scientific mythologies ubiquitous in most societies and cultures, expectedly throughout history but disturbingly still present. What's more important is that those who stand against nonsense vitiating academics, research, and the educational system, as well as politics, international relations, cultures, and personal lives - the secularists, humanists, atheists, antitheists, agnostics (aka functional atheists), and others - should not be afraid to stand up and be heard in an attempt to edify the world and leave it a better place than when we found it. To conflate atheism with militant antitheism is erroneous (militant antitheism meaning vehement protest against religion, strongly supporting and protecting apostates, and significant time/effort spent to keep religion out of the public space; not violent or forced apostatizing). Those that attempt to sabotage rational discourse and rational criticism of poor and deleterious ideologies by projecting their own fundamentalism and fanaticism unto the atheist community is not only illogical and incoherent, but also decidedly unhelpful, evasive, and contrived obfuscation that has no basis in reality or pragmatism from the usage of the word to its definition to its members or to its goals, if any. As I maintain, atheism has no accurate definition or readily accessible applicability outside colloquialism. But make no mistake, those who identify as such, albeit linguistically mistaken perhaps, will still stand for freedom of speech, civil liberty, and the maintenance of a godless constitution, government, and society. Maybe for personal pleasure, but hopefully too for the betterment of mankind. Simply put, those purporting that atheists (or people who promote science and reason over faith) are just as dogmatic is an egregious misappropriation of the term, partly due to atheists playing theist's linguistic games. To even classify these as "belief systems" that contain liberals and moderates to conservatives and extremists is itself extremely distasteful, insulting, and again to misunderstand, misrepresent, or to confuse the term(s). Atheism isn't a word, albeit used colloquially: it is either agnostic/scientific atheists (agnostics because they think scientifically and know the disproval of a god is illogical or unknowable with accuracy at present; and atheist because they live lives as if it were known to be true); antitheists (as described above); or some other unneeded nomenclature for a rational free-thinker, skeptic, scholar, or scientific thinker. Those that oppose theocratic bullying and the erosion of morality and progress by religion have every right to express these concerns, no matter how we categorize them, as the concerns are directly related to the survival of human civilization. Scientific thinkers know that disproving the existence god is logically inconsistent presently, as is proving the nonexistence of unicorns; one can only ask whether there is sufficient evidence to believe unicorns exist - the answer is "no". The same is true for religion. But notice that science is open-minded to such evidence should it ever become available. As such, atheism may stay as a colloquial term, but recognize that this is merely conventional and the rejection of wishful thinking, self-deception, and dogmatism in favor of adult/mature, modern, humanist, and evidence-based views of the world is inevitable, and even admirable. Revered even. So, no need to evoke atheism as an "alternative" the next time you are confronted with theologic nonsense, numinous fallacies, or ecclesiastic intimidation; just defer to science, reason, and evidence.