Why do religious people desperately want to class Atheism as a religion?

[Kingpin]

They do it so that they can simply dismiss it as "just another flavor of belief" as apposed to the real insufficient supporting evidence. When someone says that there isn't any ghosts because of "facts" it shits on the paranormalist's parade as opposed to "Not your ghost but my goblin."

That is  a really good comparison. It boggles my mind how they will convince us to be Christian if we hypothetically accept their viewpoint that atheism is a religion. It does not really help them convert us in any way! Like what sort of new arguments can they use?

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It's a tactic.  The argument goes something like this:

Atheism is a religion in that it is a worldview and a belief that no God's exist.  Atheists claim that it is simply a lack of belief in the existence of any God and then Theists will define it as believing there are no Gods.

Honestly, both definitions are correct in my opinion, but for a theists to argue that Atheism is a religion it is important for them to classify atheism as a belief.  Because then they can use the common quip, "Oh I thought you believed it to be true?"  It's a word game honestly.  Do i believe Atheism is a religion?  By the definition of religion, no.  Is Atheism a belief system?  No (system being the qualifier).  Is Atheism a belief?  That can be argued.

I will argue that it is not a belief. It is the lack of a belief. 
This does not however mean that atheists are not free to believe in other things.

Again, it depends on the confidence and stance of the self-identifying Atheist.  There is Gnostic Atheism which certainly can be described as a belief because they are making a definitive statement.  Agnostic Atheism or Ignostic Atheism, can not really be classified as "belief".  Really it's not important to me personally because I don't use my beliefs to try and convert others.  I'm concerned with myself and those around me and live my life through my own belief and worldview just as I expect others to do.  however, some have a goal of forcing their belief or wanting to prove others wrong so it's important to them to phrase, contextualize, twist, skew, whatever works just as in any argument you are trying to win regardless of the subject matter.  It's a tactic.