Imagine A World Without Religion.

[Polaris]

We had a microcosm of what a world would be without religion in the 20th century. Half the violent deaths in history arose from that, but then again 75% of violent deaths happened in that century as well.

Communism was a religion as far as I'm concerned.

You had your prophecy, sacred scripture, holy mission, struggle of good vs. evil, iconic figures revered as saints, end-justifies-means ideological crusade, indoctrination, etc. In short, all the trappings of religion.

By contrast, in these despotic and bloody regimes, you had no encouragement of rational inquiry and freedom of thought, valued most highly by any atheist movement I'm aware of.

I actually argued for it being a religion in a college course titled Religion, Myth, and Magic based on the fact people sacrificed their lives for the ideals of Communism and it is a religion per one of the tertiary definitions of religion, which basically states setting supreme importance on an idea or way of living. In many ways, I see Atheism (capitalized to differentiate from just a lack of belief in a god or gods) moving towards that in the United States and the Commonwealth nations....not so much in the rest of the world though.