Atheism is a Religion

First off, I would like to address a subtle yet important mistake I made. I previously defined atheism as the "disbelief in gods." This is inaccurate. Disbelief is defined by MW as "a feeling that you do not or cannot believe or accept that something is true or real." This presumes that there is a god and atheists refuse to accept its existence. Many people, including myself, mistakenly interchange the words "disbelief" and "lack of belief." The latter is the accurate terminology I should have used. I apologize to any atheists who may have felt that I initially misrepresented your views. From now on I will use the correct terminology and properly define atheism as the lack of a belief in gods. Unless my opponent comments, I will assume we are in agreement. My opponent asserts that most if not all atheists believe "the idea of god is a ridiculous motion." Pro is applying a general attitude to a large group of people and thereby misinterpreting their views. The only objective statement one can make about atheists is that they lack a belief in gods. The idea of a god does not have to appear "ridiculous" to somebody in order to be an atheist. What if someone finds the idea of a god appealing, but they simply can't find any satisfying evidence or logical reason to support their belief? I believe my opponent has come to the conclusion that most atheists view the idea of god as "ridiculous" because of people like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, all known as atheists who were/are very open about their anti-religious views. They believed/believe that the idea of a god is ridiculous. But, it is imperative that people realize that not all atheists are like this. In fact, most aren't. Pro writes "Taoism does not believe in a God just as Atheism does not." Taoism/Daoism defined by MW is "a Chinese philosophy based on the writings of Lao-tzu..." and according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "In religious Daoism, Laozi is revered as a supreme deity" (http://plato.stanford.edu...). I felt this was a small fact worthy of acknowledgement. My opponent stated "Atheism is not only the disbelief in a God but the disbelief in almost any spiritual realm or thing..." This statement is simply false. It exemplifies a point I brought up earlier; people too often give new definitions to atheism and try making it so much more complicated than what it actually means. The word atheism has to do with one thing and one thing only: the existence of gods. Atheism alone has nothing to say about an afterlife or other spiritual realms. There are atheists who believe in a heaven. There are atheists who believe in ghosts. They simply do not believe that the presence of gods must coincide with their beliefs. I will say that most atheists do not believe in the supernatural, but one cannot assert that anybody who identifies as an atheist cannot believe in anything supernatural just because they do not believe in gods. Shortly after the previous statement, my opponent continues and says "Faith being the complete trust and confidence in something means that Atheist have to have the complete trust and confidence that there is no God[.] without the complete trust and confidence in that [(or faith)] they would simply be agnostic." Once again, my opponent is misusing the definition of atheism. Atheists say they do not believe in gods. The term atheism by itself, the crux of this debate, does not assert knowledge. It does not state there is definitely no god. The assertion of knowledge has to do with gnosticism. While theism pertains to the belief in gods, gnosticism pertains to knowledge, certainty someone claims to possess regarding their beliefs. Placing the prefix 'a' in front of each term signifies the lack of something, be it the lack of a belief in gods (atheism) or the lack of knowledge (agnosticism). From what I have observed, most atheists are agnostic atheists. These are people who don't believe in gods and admit they do not know for sure. There are also gnostic atheists who don't believe in gods and claim to know that there are no gods. Agnostic theists believe there are gods and admit they don't know for sure, and gnostic theists believe there are gods and claim to know for certain that there are gods. People may identify as either one or the other as well as a combination of both. But it is crucial to note that atheism does not assert knowledge, it is just a position on a belief. My opponent continuously assumes that common traits of atheists are expressed in the name of atheism, making it a religion. Atheists usually argue evolution as fact. Atheists usually do not believe in a supernatural realm. But these tendencies are not done for atheism, rather atheists just tend to like science and reason. Atheism has no doctrine or teachings that its adherents must follow. It is not a religion.