(December 5, 2018 at 3:34 pm)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote: No sorry, cherry picking definitions doesn't work on me. Try again.
You have religious claims, organization, protections, collect offerings that are tax exempt, and make claims beyond the scope of how said agency is defined. I live in the United States of America. Here you are both legally and empirically a "religion" with said protections. To discount the Chinese is also irrelevant because their definition differs from your said definition and their primary religion is atheism. Your opinion doesn't dictate anything beyond the scope of who you are. If you say you are an atheist, that's your opinion.
Atheism is only recognized to have the same religious protections as religions. Beyond religious protection, it is not a religion.
Again, how can a single position on a single claim be a religion?
What religious claims do I have?
Yes, there are atheist organizations with tax exempt status, that take donations. So what? There are 1000's of organizations with tax exempt status and take donations that are not religions.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.