I suppose if your definition of religion is stripped down to something like "a belief system about the origin of man, or his purpose to which one is devoted" then atheism could probably be considered a religion.

But in my experience most atheists fall into the category by default, as a function of their refusal to accept the existence and worship of any deity, higher being or creator currently on the market. They are not devoted to this belief nor do they spend a sizable portion of their lives dwelling on the fact.

Mind you the same could be said for some people who align themselves with a particular religion too.

Atheism listed as a religion? Isn't that an oxymoron?

Personally I have a hard time buying any of the arguments that God does not exist. Just like the physical body needs food, water and shelter to survive, our spirit needs God to subsist. Humanity doesn't come down to materialist notions, there are other things that go into the equation, things that separate us from the animals, that make us uniquely human.

God is absolute truth, justice and goodness. Given this, how should that reflect upon us here on Earth? People tend to misunderstand who God is. The ancient texts like the Bible give us a clue: "God is a spirit and we must worship Him in Spirit and Truth"--John 4:24. "Be ye therefore perfect as God, as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect"--Matthew 5:48.

Atheists blame God, or those who profess to speak for Him, for evil in the world. And looking back through history, there's no doubt that many atrocities have been committed in God's name. Those are the failures of man, not of God. We need to separate the acts of man and their quest for power from those actions that come from God. We only have ourselves to blame for our failures. God gave us FREE WILL to act accordingly.

How do we then know that God exists? How do we know that food exists? We get hungry and desire food. Just as we have a desire for physical nourishment, we all have certain spiritual needs that want to be satiated. Primarily, our souls yearn for perfection, yet we always fall short. The problem comes down to sin and a denial of these constructive impulses. When we deny our spiritual needs (as defined by Truth, Beauty, Order, Justice and Love), we lose a bit of our humanity. More profoundly, such sin causes us to live our lives in rebellion to natural law, to God's law. You either act to accordance with these principles or you act in rebellion to them. Rebellion has clear consequences, which we see everyday in the world around us. Sin permeates everything. It destroys otherwise good works, infects institutions, and acts as a barrier to human advancement.

In short, we either behave morally or don't. This might be a simple truth that everyone should be learned when they were very young, but yet most don't bother to even consider it later in life. Rather than building up, many of us live to tear down.

For me, a belief in God satisfies a deep hunger: for love, order, peace and purpose in this world. It makes me a happier, healthier person who lives for ideals bigger than myself. This is what God desires for all of us and if we apply ourselves to these goals, it can happen. These principles can't exist separate from God.

One's aim should not be physical attainment so much as spiritual perfection. It is living life correctly, respecting everyone equally and not acting with a mean spirit. Unfortunately this isn't the way of the world as it currently stands.

Amen!

Take more faith to believe that things happen ( ed ) because there was no reasonm for them not to happen ( ed )
The other thing is that when one is an Atheist one runs the risk that one has bought into the devil's lie. I don't think it is a good hedge. Agnosticism is more center.

Might as well be agnostic, because you can't prove that there isn't a god. To be an atheist is to know for a fact that there isn't a god right? Eh, well, I'm not far off. HOWEVER! Never rule out the possibility that he does not exist because he might just, though highly unlikely.

Why does the Pope need a bullet-proof vehicle?

I don't say it is true or false. But absence of a god (or essence or monad -or whatever else) would be really very sad and depressing for the universe.

This is not a religion and does not belong here.
All atheists believe is that the real world around us should be evaluated by repeatable evidence.  Theories should be extrapolations from such evidence.
Atheists have no argument with religion, per se, but only when they interfere with the measurable universe around us and when their religions interfere with the political system which governs all people, not only those of one or two religions which are in the majority.
Some atheists think some religions in the US have been hijacked by unscrupulous people with alternate intent to build a power base of a population that can be manipulated into moving the country into their agenda.  So, they see danger in religion when people are discouraged in the peaceful aspects in their religion to live and let live, to live their own lives in what they believe to be the right path, but not to expect that their neighbor will have the same inclinations.  

Knowtice how Chyrstics are grat spelerz when posting argumants aganst Athesits?

I choose not to believe in the big magic genie. 

Go free thinkers

I don't believe this can be properly called a religion.  They don't have places of worship, and they don't have a system of faith.   Three stars for the temerity (or ignorance) of including it, but someone needs a dictionary.

Is lack of religion a religion? No more than lack of evidense is evidense, which Atheism is largely based on.

(OM)Atheists spend their whole lives fighting against something that they say doesn't exist. Why are they threatened or why do they waste their time on something that is not there?

"Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning."

"Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable."

"A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere -- 'Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,' as Herbert says, 'fine nets and stratagems.' God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous."

Quotes by C.S. Lewis

  "Christ is Lord"....

Aren't you forgetting Muhammed, Zoroaster, Lao Zi, Buddha, Krishna, Moses, Zeus, Odin, Ra, Quetzalcoatl, Viracocha, Vainamoinen, Vishnu, Avalokitesvara, Yu Huang, Mithras, Huitzilopochtli, and countless other.

Point is, they are all either fictional or embellished accounts of Deities. Why you would would consider your personal deity superior is blatantly ignorant.

Who am I to judge a person who is merely following empirical evidence? Although I personally believe in God, I am no more knowledgeable than the next man, therefore I have no right to preach or judge about something that I can only justify with my faith. Atheism is a perfectly logical system of belief which I happen to disagree with.

Atheism is a hard thing to rate. It's not a religion in itself. But it is something completely logical in my personal experience. I've constantly found it hard to believe ideas merely out of faith. Atheism is the most natural state of being IMO because it simply has a person focusing on what is real in this world alone and not if certain deities exist. Just think of it this way: what irrefutable proof is there to say there's a God or gods? If you can't think of any real proof (and not that the universe is so complex that there must be a God), then that is why there is atheism.

If you don't believe in something, you'll fall for anything.

Lets see...an all knowing it that by intelligent design created living creatures that never become more than single cells and multiply by division(no sex's), insects that imitate the opposite sex(cross dressers), can become either sex based on the need, live their lives with mates of the same sex(homosexuals) but when it created adam it didn't think to create eve at the same time and then, rather than taking more dirt to create eve decided it would be fun to operate on adam and take a rib to create eve with(a form of stem cell usage). Hmmm seems to me it messed up right from the start of this creation. THANK GOD FOR GENOCIDE. Killed almost a whole planet with a flood. So much for free will. Killed all those people for exercising their "free will" and what did all those animals do wrong anyway. Babies are guilty until baptized and if they die before then will go to hell. Talk about ruling by guilt and fear. If you believe that we are the children of God, then you have to believe that god for thousands of years was an abusive parent and now is a deadbeat because when was the last time it did anything to support you? Cancer, Child abuse, Rape, Starvation, Torture, etc. are all creations of "god". If you believe that all things good are because of god then you have to believe all things bad are from god as well. No, you can't blame the devil unless you believe that the devil is stronger than god. The devil only exists because god allows it to exist if you believe that god created everything and is all power full. God had no problem killing thousands of its children but it made a choice to keep the devil alive. Would you be a good parent if you knew that someone was abusing your children and you did nothing about it? Then why do you not only accept it when god does it but you praise and worship it. I'm sure you will say...that I am angry or sad or evil or hate or attacking or...any of the labels or names you use to describe anyone who does not believe. I am none of the above. I do not have to fear a god to keep me from stealing or hurting other people. I don't do those things because I respect others and have no desire to see them suffer. That is how I was raised. I know more people who are believers that have been in trouble than I know atheists who have been in trouble. Mainly because, once you accept that there is no after life(heaven), you appreciate the one shot you have to make the most of the time you have. Think about this....I think the last number I saw was that 85% of americans believe in god. We now have over 300 million americans. Roughly 255 million are believers. Divorce is about 50%, mostly believers. How many crimes are committed every year by believers? How is that god thing working out? Just like that "christian" guy on big brother...he said being a christian allows him to do what ever he needs to so that he can win money because he will confess his sins and all will be forgiven. Does that make sense to you? It does to him and I'll bet to many others. What kind of belief system is that? If you mess someone up to benefit yourself, kind of like most people in big business and government, it's ok because you can always get into heaven anyway. Kill someone and confess, god will welcome you. Live in the jungle, never kill anyone but never get exposed to god so you never accept it as your saviour and go to hell...hmmmm Thats ok, I don't expect to tear anyone away from their faith. Just as others have pointed out better than I, the bible is full of nasty things done by god or with gods approval. If people can accept that and still think that "god" is real and actually cares about them, nothing I say will change their belief in the fantasy.

they have to believe in something to believe in nothing. lol. think about it.

Probably the most sane and realistic people

ok but its pretty much not a religion hahaha

how does this even happen, try looking around at the creation maybe that will change your mind

bbbbbbbbbooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Your lost!!!!!!!!!!!!

Umm no...had an atheist friend.

BOOO

I'm gonna say terrible, cause Athiesism aint a religion!
However, I don't have a problem with it :)

Flies in the face of everything I believe, but that doesn't make it a horrible thing...to each his own.

NOOOO!!!!

most atheists are as bad as the people they are against

Again, people are free to believe what they like. It just seems that a lot of atheists are incredibly annoying and negative.

If there were no religions, there would certainly be more peace on Earth.

Atheism doesn't mean you don't believe in Jesus, just that he can't be the son of God. What a dumb description.

I was a Christian for 20 years.  Die hard evangelical for 5 of those 20.  I studied greek so that I could better understand the bible.  I went to Liberty University for theology.  I spoke in front of crowds of thousands on creationism and apologetics.  I studied the bible backwards and forwards.  Because of my studies, I am now a die hard evangelical atheist.  It was the bible itself which made me realize that there was no god.  There are too many problems with the bible.  The horrors and atrocities commited by "god" or by the command of "god" in the Old Testament are despicable examples of morality.  The discontinuity of the resurrection accounts, the obvious lie that ALL prayers will be granted, Jesus promising his followers that they would witness things that did not come to pass (Mark 13:24-30), the contradictory geneologies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, the fact that the bible does not give any indication that children or the mentally handicapeed go to heaven, all the contradicitions in verses, scientific abnormalities (flat earth, stopping earth's rotation, rabbits do not chew their cud, animals do not get stripes from looking at stripes while mating, bats are not birds, star of Bethleham, setting of the sun back 10 degrees, unicorns, giants, wizards, witches, sea monsters, dragons, fire breathing birds, talking donkeys, talking serpants, etc.), the simple fact that the bible is not clear on redemption (there are hundreds of different sects of Christianity and they all have a different opinion on this), the fact that none of the ancient manuscripts (especially the two oldest; Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus) agree with each other are but some of the problems with Christianity that caused me to see it for what it really is: A made up religion just like all of them.  My eyes were finally wide open and I could see the world for what it really is - spectacular.  With my religion glasses off I finally realized that "faith in god" is equivilant to believing in Santa Clause.

Yer gonna fry like a sausage in hell!!

I think its ok as a start on the seekers journey to clear your mind of the conditioning of others..but I should hope that it would lead the seeker to truth and serve to open their mind rather than close it. Realizing reality exists and is governed by systems streaming from a point of origion, and thus not a random sequence of events,The athiest seeker should observe life,nature,and reality kind've scientifically to see if there are patterns that lead to higher truths.

psalm 14:1

ok how do u explain life then? I know I didn't come from some kinda sonic boom

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO there is a God!!!

For some people it is the best religion, for others not so much....

How else do you explain how you got here.

my disclaimer 1st-my husband is an athesist- the reason I rated this as "bad" is cuz I think that it is very sad that ppl believe that there really is no God, no Creator, etc.

Baptist!

thats me

Well, what most people have yet to understand that atheism is the belief that a god does not exist, it does not mean these people have no faith.  Buddhists can be considered atheists since they themselves do not worship a god.  Also what people have to realize is that atheism in NOT denying faith but the existence of a god.  Atheists, unlike most people, have the guts to ask questions, no one has ever seen god, so how can we prove that he is real?  Unlike religion, Scientology provides facts and evidence on how the world was created.  Though most uneducated people turn to god in a last attempt to ease their suffering.  It considered the opiate of the masses, and if you think about it, mostly poorer people believe in it to ease the pain.  They raised to believe only in god and will never open their minds and ask questions.  Also, the bible is defiantly not proof of god considering it was written by men, and that is fact you cannot deny.  What I cannot stress the most is that atheism is the rejection of god, NOT religion.

Most people I know who are like this (with some exceptions) are angry, sick, or messed up somehow else.

omg! who could ever believe this lie! there is a god and jesus and he created us! he loves us and offers the gift of forgivness!

u pepole suck

In the purist sense of what religion is Atheism hits the mark.
Religion means different things to many people, but when scrutinized we come to one definition: "Link back to the self," or self reflection. While every "God" or "deity" believing person is still looking for them, an Atheist is talking to themself.

I have a problem with the people of this religion too.
Mostly made up of people who have been wronged and blame God, or people who are emo and need to have something happen to them so they realize that they have no idea what suffering truely is yet. But will soon find out.
How can Atheism be a religion? Isn't it techniclly believing in no religion? How does that work...?