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

[TheMonster]

This has been bugging me recently. Why do theists try to call atheism a religion? It makes no sense!

Religion is defined as the belief in and worship of a super-human controlling power, and atheism is precisely not that!!

When i come across websites like this (see below), I cannot just stop and shake my head at their infallible reasoning skills!

Why do religious people want atheism to be classed as religion? In a sense are they admitting that their views are idiotic?

http://debunkingatheists.blogspot.co.uk/...igion.html
http://creation.com/atheism-a-religion

[Longhorn]

Why do theists try to call atheism a religion? It makes no sense!

Not all do. Most don't, in my experience.

But the ones who do are usually engaged in actively taking a stance against atheism, and since in their view atheists are all also necessarily anti-theists, they try to equate atheism with religion to make them angry.

Pretty factually incorrect if you ask me

[Kingpin]

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.

[Brakeman]

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."

[robvalue]

Default atheism is not a belief, it's a lack of a belief. So it can't possibly be a worldview, or anything else. It is what it is, and nothing more.

The fact that default atheism makes no claims frustrates some people I think, so they have to build up pretend worldviews to attach to it in order to have something to attack.

Also, I think some people are so heavily invested in a religious worldview that they can't imagine any "replacement" being anything else.

[TheMonster]

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?

---

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.

[Chad32]

Because they want to put atheists in the same group as them. It's just another example of grasping at straws becayse theists don't have anything substantial to defend with. If they did, we wouldn't still be debating these things thousands of years after the religions started. We fight against putting religion in classrooms, so they claim atheism is a religion and accuse us of being hypocrites.

[Kingpin]

Default atheism is not a belief, it's a lack of a belief. So it can't possibly be a worldview, or anything else. It is what it is, and nothing more.

The fact that default atheism makes no claims frustrates some people I think, so they have to build up pretend worldviews to attach to it in order to have something to attack.

I wouldn't totally agree with that.  I do think Gnostic Atheism makes a claim.  There are certainly those that identify as atheist that definitively state "there is no God/Gods."  That is a claim.  Not all atheists, but there are those that are confident enough to make that statement.  It's an indefensible position, same with Gnostic Theism, but still we both know this view exists.  

But the default Atheism as you put it does not explicitly state there is not a God/Gods, just that they do not believe there is a God, it still leaves room for the possibility of a God entity existing, just not believing it.

[robvalue]

Yes, gnostic atheism does make a claim of knowledge. But I was referring only to default (weak) atheism.

Some people either can't or won't see the difference between these two, and attack any given atheist as if they are gnostic.

[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?

---

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.