Gosai,

I can't narrow down the difference to a single word -- that would be oversimplifying -- but I can give you a definition that has really helped me understand why atheists claim we're all born atheists.

(Quick note:  I use "god" for one or many gods, and "he" or "him" when refering to said god only out of a desire to write simply.)

Theism is defined as a person who would make the following statement and consider it true:  "I do believe that a god does exist."

Atheism is defined as the opposite of this, and there are two ways to negate the statement:

1)  "I do NOT believe that a god does exist. "

2)  "I do believe that a god does NOT exist."

The first is what we're referring to when we say that everyone is born atheist, because everyone is born a-everything.  God is a concept (certainly a specific god, like the Christian God or Allah or Thor...), and so until someone teaches you that concept or you invent it yourself, you are implicitly atheistic with respect to that concept.  Theists sometimes like to call this Ignorance instead of Atheism, but the point is moot.  Whatever you want to call it, we are not born theist.  I think the easiest way to describe that is saying we're atheist.

Now, once you're introduced to the concept of god, you can STILL be implicitly atheistic if you don't think the evidence is credible enough.  Note here that this is different from rejecting the concept because you've proven otherwise -- this is simply "I don't believe you" as opposed to "I'm certain you're mistaken."  As an analogy, think if your friend came in and said "Your car was stolen!"  That's a concept he is trying to get you to accept, much like any other concept.  You basically have 3 categories of response:

1) Believe him.

2) Don't believe him, but hold out the possibility it might be true upon further evidence.

3)  Don't believe him, because you have enough evidence to know it's not true.  (i.e.  You can see your car.)

In this analogy, the latter two positions are positions of disbelief, and are analogous to the two basic varieties of atheism.  Most atheists are a mix of both varieties.  They are explicitly atheistic with respect to certain varieties of god (because those varieties are internally contradictory or irrelevant), and implicitly atheistic towards the god concept in general (if enough evidence came along to show, for example, a deistic god existed, I don't think many atheists would have a problem believing this).  

I don't want to speak for my fellow atheists, but that is my perception of things.

As for "natural tendency" -- the natural tendency of a child is to accept the culture (including religion or nonreligion) of his parents.  That's why religions can basically be geographically distinguished, and why religious folk need "missions" to foreign lands to convert people.  If it were natural to convert, you probably wouldn't need missions so much as you'd need to tend the flock at home.  So the question as you posed it has a third answer -- we are natural absorbers of culture, whatever that culture may be.

Naturally. 

Not quite. Real science starts with an idea, a "hypothesis". But rather than asking "how can we demonstrate that it is true?", the scientist should then ask "how could I prove that this is wrong?"

If they can't think of anything that would prove it wrong ("falsify" it), then the scientist marks the hypothesis as "unfalsifiable" nd moved to the next project. The hypothesis is moot because there's no way to prove it wrong or not.

The way to do this is make predictions about reality that would only be true if the theory is correct: such as, for testing the theory of relativity, that an atomic clock flown round the world as fast as possible would have a slightly different time than one left on the ground. Or that the orbits of the planets would

What could disprove young-earthism? Well, if all the dating methods showed the earth to be older than 10,000 years, that would be a bit of a tip-off.

What could disprove non-evolutionary creationism? Well, proving that stuff evolves in the lab would be a bit of a tip off; as would an unbroken chain of fossils for two species, all dated in chronological order, that met at a common ancestor; and ring species would be a pretty big clue too. And we have all these things, so it seems pretty disproven, or "falsified". But what other things could disprove it? I don't know, and this is what ID proponents should be working on.

What could disprove evolution? This is what ID proponents do instead, rather than trying to disprove ID. This is completely the wrong way round to do science: you should try to disprove your own theory. However, scientists already got to trying to disprove evolution first, because it's the right way to do science. And both scientists and ID came up with: the fossil record, where evolutionary changes should appear roughly in sequence according to the dating methods; the DNA record, ditto; "irreducible complexity", where if a feature could not have evolved by slowly co-opting features that already existed, then it could not possibly have evolved. So far, evolution has stood up well to these tests.

There are still flat-earthers in the 21st century - they have a meetup.com page somewhere. I am unsure if this is a silliness group though: I suspect it's just an excuse to meet up and have beer.

 

It's a good question and as can be seen from the number of response, it certainly elicits alot of opinions and commentary. 

But at the end of the day, that's all they are - opinions. Nothing more - nothing less..! 

I don't believe atheism is a natural tendancy no more than I believe that having "faith" is a natural tendency.

Each of us is provided with "information" and we base our beliefs on how we interpret this information..

How interesting, 4 pages and this thread is still going.

I have to agree with most everyone else, people are born without the knowledge of God.  I suppose that makes the definition of "atheist when you are born".

There is a verse however that explains how God comes to a person and it is not via "being taught" from another person (in accordance to the Christian belief in what it told by the bible)... 

Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV) For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.