Atheism is a Religion

Thanks for your skillful reply Atheism tends to have two main arguments shared among most maybe even all Atheist . The first would be that there is insufficient evidence of a God or Gods . The second would be that the idea of a God or Gods is a ridiculous notion . These ideas both express common ground between Atheist showing a system is evident . There are some other basic attributes I will list such . Along with there being no existence of a God there is no existence of a devil . The realm of the supernatural is non existence in the eyes of the common Atheist . Miracles are nothing an Atheist would concur with . Humanity does not "sin" because to sin you would offend a God and as such sin is not coexistent with Atheism . Atheist tend to argue evolution as fact and with such this is apart of Atheistic common ground. These common characteristics of Atheistic belief is proof of a set of ideas being contemporary . All religions are not the same and as such Atheism should not have to live up to the standards of the common religion but I will provide instances in which Atheism has religious characteristics . Taoism does not believe in a God just as Atheism does not . It is a school of thought held so deeply that it is religious . This same principle can be applied to true Atheist . Atheism is not only the disbelief in a God but the disbelief in almost any spiritual realm or thing thus allotting it to be a system held with ardor and faith .Ardor differs from person to person and as such the eagerness does not have to be to tell someone that is a poor generalization as a believer of Tengriism does not have an eagerness to tell someone of their beliefs neither does a Confucian but they do have an ardor to find out more just as most Atheist have . 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 . All religions do not Holy Days and prayers and things of such those ideas you provide are sweeping statements and example of this would be a Buddhist. Pray is not mandatory and as such can be excluded if a follower wished not to do so . Would he then not be considered a Buddhist ? According to the Huffington post at least 14% of non religious people prayed at least once a month . Yet they are still considered non religious . Atheism does not have to share the common characteristics you mentioned to be a religion .Atheism does share different common characteristics with religions which should show you its religious nature . You closing statement has proven to be false as Atheism surely does share the traits of a religion . If we are going to say that religion is to complex to be defined by the dictionary and that it changes from person to person we must come to common understanding of what a religion is to define it .MW an accredited source surely should be enough for us to use in this debate . Anything can be too complex if we decide it .Also this statement " Anybody can claim that something is very important to them, yet that doesn't usually compel them to instantly deem it as their religion. Besides, to use such broad terminology to define religion seems demeaning to people who are very religious. To people whose lives have been completely shaped by religion since their birth, telling them that their way of life is simply an important, shared belief seems a bit disrespectful and detracts a lot of meaning." Does not change the facts . There way of life being an important shared belief whether that hurts their feelings does not change it from being true . Atheism Surely is a religion and should be recognized as such . I hope for a resourceful reply