Fail!
Eastern Orthodox. 
How wonderful of you to miss the point I was making so perfectly.
The point I was making that is that it is possible to make a definition for the word Catholic where the Popes are excluded. But to then assert that this is the
only possible true definition is ludicrous.
See what you did there? Are you seriously going to claim anyone who belongs to the Roman Catholic church is NOT a catholic?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheist -"one who believes that there is no deity"
Which brings me back to my point about the complete cluster**** of definitions for atheism compounded by the complete cluster**** of meanings for the word belief. That definition doesn't agree with the one on Wikipedia and Dictionary.com gives several competing definitions.
Certainly, a generic sense of atheism among the public is that it takes the position that god(s) do(es)n't exist. This would be why I typically call myself agnostic versus atheist because I simply believe that there is not (and probably never will be) enough data to make that determination on the principles of rationalism and science. There are a lot of people who call themselves atheists and take the same position, but that is not what the public at large typically thinks of atheism, which is why you see all these conflicting definitions of terms.
As I like to explain it to some religious friends and family members: I don't believe in [your] Judeo-Christian God and "His" creation of the universe, but I cannot rule out that something a human would view as a deity is responsible for the laws of physics as we know them, and the subsequent creation of the universe as we understand it.
That is a position I've always associated with agnosticism, but I'm willing to bit there are a fair number of self-proclaimed atheists even on HLP that agree with it.
I tend to disagree with that because I've always viewed theism/atheism with "a" having the same meaning as in moral/amoral. The "a" does not denote the exact opposite but a lack of something. An amoral person has no morals, he has a lack of morality both good and bad. It is an
immoral person goes out of his way to do things that are not moral.
In the same vein I'd view atheism as a lack of theism. A lack of belief in gods. It is an irreligious person who goes out of his way to disbelieve in God. And the truth is I suspect you'll find very few people who are actually irreligious. Most of the people who seem like it simply have a lack of belief when questioned on the fact.
Lumping yourself in with the agnostics leaves those who do have belief in gods but no actual belief in who they are with no word to describe themselves. So from a purely practical point of view I prefer the definition I'm using here because it gives the agnostics a word of their own and doesn't end up with the word Atheism belonging to a group of people who when questioned don't even hold that belief anyway.
for awhile i instead (likely erroneously, but who the **** cares) started to use the term nihilist.
Certainly any nihilist complaining is doing it all wrong.
