What is an Atheist?

I have been and still am quite busy with my daughter and the grandchildren but I ran across this quote and wanted to post it for posterity.

"I look at everything around me like you do, with amazement, but the amazing circumstances of life on this planet are not justifiably answered with blind faith, science answers questions with evidence, religion raises questions with lack there of."

"YOUR PETITIONERS ARE ATHEISTS and they define their life-style as follows. An Atheist loves himself and his fellow man instead of a god. An Atheist knows that heaven is something for which we should work now -- here on earth -- for all men together to enjoy. An Atheist thinks that he can get no help through prayer but that he must find in himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue, and enjoy it. An Atheist thinks that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the under...standing that will help to a life of fulfillment.

Therefore, he seeks to know himself and his fellow man rather than to know a god. An Atheist knows that a hospital should be build instead of a church An Atheist knows that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said.

An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated. He wants man to understand and love man. He wants an ethical way of life. He knows that we cannot rely on a god nor channel action into prayer nor hope for an end to troubles in the hereafter. He knows that we are our brother's keeper and keepers of our lives; that we are responsible persons, that the job is here and the time is now."

Madalyn Murray (later O'Hair), preambleto Murray v. Curlett, April 27, 1961