A challenge to Statler Waldorf

[Statler Waldorf]

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If my a-fairy-ist friends and I really did all of this, you'd be one of the first people calling us religious, and for good reason. So there you go.
I can point to many atheists who do all of these things and unless you can point to people who act like this when it comes to their “absence of belief” in fairies, the comparison to atheism really is not proper.

Actually, there is such a group, and they are numerous and relatively well organized. They are called skeptics, and have been disputing claims that fairies exist for a long time. The most prominently disputed case, that of the Cottingley Fairies (see: Wiki, below), first became public in 1920. A brief scan of Amazon.com reveals 91 items about the Cottingley Fairies, though no doubt not all are skeptically oriented. The popular skeptics message forum JREF reveals 103 posts, including the 24 who misspelled "Cottingley". Googling for skeptic or skeptical and the phrase "Cottingley Fairies" returns 5,410 results. Granted all those may not be skeptical or 'a-fairyist', but at the least it shows that the issue of the Cottingley Fairies is far from a dead issue. And that's not to address the question of skepticism about fairies generally -- I don't know whether you're American or not, but most Americans are unaware that the term "fairies" actually applies to a great range of creatures -- more commonly believed in Europe and Asia than the U.S -- and that there are still many people who believe in such creatures, and many likewise who dispute them.

Wikipedia: Cottingley Fairies

Another superficially plausible argument, self-exploding on closer examination.

ETA: Wikipedia notes that skepticism reaches as far back as the 5th century BC with the Sophists, so before you go arguing that skepticism isn't relevant, remember that skeptics have been around longer than your dear Christianity. Having met and talked to skeptics, read skeptical literature and debated the foundations of skepticism itself, I can assure you that it -- unfortunately -- can attract dogmatic proponents and those who act like it is a religion. However, that being said, skepticism attracts theist, atheists, agnostics, Buddhist and all stripe of religious persuasion. It does tend to attract agnostics and the non-religious somewhat preferentially, as those who are wont to be skeptical of earth-bound fairies are quite likely to be skeptical of fairies-in-the-sky as well. (I believe there was at one point a semi-serious proposal to have a holiday for Carl Sagan, a beloved hero of science and skepticism.)

See also, Wikipedia, Fairy

[end ETA]

Not to caricature your argument, but if commemorating the lives of great men is a sign of a religion, I guess celebrating Martin Luther King day is a sign that being black is a religion. While the theists may have no interest in pursuing the possibility of their beliefs not being a religion, you might have better luck selling your argument to the black man. I'm sure they would be delighted to be able to claim tax exemption simply on account of their being a negro.

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Are you even for real? lol. You just proved there are people who dispute the existence of fairies (something I never contested). You in no way proved that it resembles the "New Atheism" in the slightest (no pushing for legal rights, holidays, moral codes, seeking of converts, figure heads). You seem to always fall short of comprehending the point of the analogy. Atheism is a one of a kind "absence of belief" system, and you cannot and will never be able to point to one like it.