Yes, Atheism is a Religion

[Cyberman]

They tend to be the newly-hatched atheists. The ones who recently had their eyes opened and feel the urge to show off. It usually tapers off once they find their feet and hit their stride, but not always.

[Catholic_Lady]

^Yes, I have/had a friend like that, who in the past year became atheist. She just recently deleted me off facebook lol. I then saw on her profile that she wrote she was "purging all Christians" from her friends list, except for 2. I guess I did not make the cut lol.

[Mr.wizard]

I think if you make threads, do not respond to any posts, or make no effort to defend your position in anyway, your posting privileges should be suspended. I cant stand these threads where the OP just does a hit and run.

[Ravenshire]

Same shit, different thread.

Piss off, delicate

[Delicate]

It's really obvious when you think about it: When atheism critiques religion, it inevitably ends up being either religious or very much like a religion.

Before we begin, would you mind telling us why we should engage with you, since you never meaningfully engage back?

Take, for instance, what atheism purports to say. Any meaningful form of atheism says either that God doesn't exist, or that one ought not to believe in God. They don't just mean this for themselves ("Oh, I personally don't believe, but it's perfectly okay if you believe"). Instead, they take it that not a single person has a rational basis for believing in God. 

Yes, please do tell me more about what I believe. I do so love watching you lovingly paint bullseyes around your bullet holes.

These are very strong claims. There's no science to back it up. No empirical evidence for it. So on what basis are these claims made? 

The basis is the utter lack of evidence for gods, and the complete failure of the arguments made in favor of one. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence, in that if such a thing did not exist, absence of evidence is precisely what you'd expect to find. Theists are the ones making an ontologically positive claim, they need to back it up and until they do, not accepting the claim and the idea that there's a rational basis for believing it is exactly what one should do.

There's one clear explanation: Blind faith. Atheists have blind faith in some claims, and hence they form part of an atheist's belief system.

Yawn. Given how the claims you list aren't actually held by atheists, but by the strawman you find it convenient to hold, I don't see how your accusation of faith carries much merit. However, I'll take this as you accepting that faith is a bad thing?

We don't have to stop there. We can look at the definition of religion. Many scholars of world religions don't take religion to be defined as beliefs in God and the supernatural. This rules too many religions out. Instead, they look for one common ingredient in all religions, and that is the state of being ultimately concerned. Having a "most important thing" that you care about. And while, strictly speaking, atheism itself doesn't constitute all of one's religion, the broad pool of beliefs, of which atheism is a necessary and important feature. In that sense, atheism is a necessary part of one's religion. The transference of one's ultimate concern from God, to themselves. 

And you know what the "ultimate concern" of a group of people you've never met is... how?

Besides, wouldn't that make everything a religion, under your logic? By definition everyone must have some "most important thing," because you can't have a list of finite objects without an upper bound, so if simply having that qualifies one as religious, then everyone is religious. If your sole objective here was to redefine religion in such a way as to contain atheism within the new definition, in the process stripping out much of what makes religion religion, then fine: atheism is a religion. However, we'd need to be talking exclusively within the context of your new, non-standard definition, wherein absolutely everyone is religious, to make that statement true. You certainly couldn't, for example, make the redefinition and then switch back to the standard definition for the conclusion so you can go "ha ha, atheists are just as bad as I am!" You'd need to hold to one definition or the other, and in the case of your redefinition, where it's just "has a most important thing they care about," the actual objectionable parts of real religion are no longer applicable, which makes your accusation of hypocrisy a tad inaccurate. I can make the claim "left handed people are just right handed people too!" if I were allowed to redefine "left" to mean "right," it's not exactly hard to fit groups into categories if you empower yourself to decide what the categories mean.

But if we keep in mind your linguistic trick, it all falls apart, doesn't it?

There's a third way in which atheism does the job that religion does. Atheism itself, or as part of a larger worldview, informs our answers to the ultimate questions in life. If you find yourself an atheist, you are NOT ALLOWED to believe some set of answers to questions like "What is the meaning of life?" "Where did all of reality come from?" "What happens after we die?" "Are we more than just our bodies?". As such, atheism not only plays the role of dogma, in defining what we are not allowed to believe. It defines the range of answers we can take to be true.

You're wrong. I'll believe in a god the moment sufficient evidence is presented for one. I'm not barred from believing in god, I just choose to only believe in things which are rationally justified. So, again, factually in error. But hey, why bother asking people what they believe, when you can just make shit up to validate your own prejudices, right?  

For these reasons, I think it's OKAY for people to believe atheism is a religion, and for atheism to be treated like a religion, even by atheists.

I wonder how long you're gonna stick around before you hightail it out of here like a coward this time?

As you know the enormous quantities of unsubstantial garbage atheists post make responding uninteresting. But for substantial posts, why not?

Unfortunately your post doesn't start with much substance. You fail to describe where I'm mistaken about what you believe. In fact you all but admit I'm right when you say:

The basis is the utter lack of evidence for gods, and the complete failure of the arguments made in favor of one. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence, in that if such a thing did not exist, absence of evidence is precisely what you'd expect to find. Theists are the ones making an ontologically positive claim, they need to back it up and until they do, not accepting the claim and the idea that there's a rational basis for believing it is exactly what one should do.

The basis of what? What you believe as I correctly described, right? Let's get that out in the open and agreed on first, before I systematically refute your feeble defense for your beliefs.

How do you properly characterize what you believe, if you think I'm wrong?

Everything else you've posted is equally pointless. You (mistakenly) "know" I've never met atheists...how exactly? Is this another example of atheism's blind faith without evidence?

Take your response that "wouldn't that make everything a religion, under your logic?"

No it wouldn't because not everything is an ultimate concern. Perhaps more precisely you mean to say that everyone has a religion.  That would make more sense. And I think that might be true. So what? It makes more sense than excluding people who worship nature as not being religious because they lack supernatural elements in their beliefs. Wouldn't you agree?

You're wrong. I'll believe in a god the moment sufficient evidence is presented for one. I'm not barred from believing in god, I just choose to only believe in things which are rationally justified. So, again, factually in error. But hey, why bother asking people what they believe, when you can just make shit up to validate your own prejudices, right?

Uh-huh. Sure you would. There's no way in hell you'd move goalposts to dodge belief in God.

This is my gullible face, so I can believe the charade. ;

But you miss the point here. The point is that being an atheist bars you from believing certain things while you are an atheist. This is exactly what religions do.

PS- Don't mistake the numbskulls cheering for your post for its quality. A monkey on a typewriter would get atheists cheering if it was wearing a fedora and a neckbeard.

Seriously unimpressed with your response. I suggest you start smaller. Lay out what it is you believe about whether there can be someone in existence today with a rational basis for believing in God. 

[Delicate]

They tend to be the newly-hatched atheists. The ones who recently had their eyes opened and feel the urge to show off. It usually tapers off once they find their feet and hit their stride, but not always.

Is there something preventing the entire atheist population from finding their feet for some reason?

[Cyberman]

Atheists believe lots of things. The only criterion is that the set of those beliefs not include any gods.

[Delicate]

Atheists believe lots of things. The only criterion is that the set of those beliefs not include any gods.

That's exactly the assumption everything I've said is compatible with.

[Cato]

Is there something preventing the entire atheist population from finding their feet for some reason?

Dearth of evidence for God.

[Catholic_Lady]

Delicate, are you a theist, then?