If this were so, we would have good reason to regard Collins as an atheist.
If you tell parents or friends and they are upset take this as an opportunity to destroy some of the stereotypes regarding atheist that they might believe.
It's a subject that's bound to ruffle a few feathers, not least since the author isn't only a scientist, but also an atheist who regards religion in the same light as the UFOs and the paranormal - that is to say altogether unbelievable.
As an atheist gay who regards marriage as part of the baggage of heterosexual society which I have come to respect but can never fully share, I am tempted to say a plague on both your houses," he wrote in the Daily Telegraph in 2012.
If they say they don't, you can point out that they themselves are an atheist with regard to those deities, and that's precisely how you view their own deity.
Although the Jains, like the Buddhists, have often been regarded as atheists, their beliefs are actually more complicated.
The goal of the book, the authors say, is to encourage atheists and humanists to define what they believe so they can articulate it better, both to themselves and to a broader society that often regards atheists as immoral and untrustworthy.
Interviewed at his country house on Long Island, he proclaimed himself an atheist, an outsider and a nonbeliever in ballet, which he virtually regards as an un-American activity.
After the younger son, who's now declared himself an atheist, made his confirmation, we gave both boys some leeway in regard to attending Mass.
To this extent, therefore, polytheists and idolaters may be regarded as "superstitious atheists", as they plainly have no idea of a being that corresponds to our idea of God (NHR, 4.2).
