That’s not really a question.
Anyway, it can have several different meanings. One is the common “atheists worship science / Satan / Darwin / themselves”, which I’ll address a couple of FAQ answers from now.
Another meaning is that atheism is a religion, that is, it’s got a lot in common with one. That’s what this FAQ entry is about.
What defines a “religion”? Mostly, a religion is a belief system, which includes rules of behavior, rituals, and, in many cases, an element of the supernatural (e.g. miracles), some claims about the origin of the universe, why we are here, and what happens after we die. (note that I said “many cases”, not “all cases”: some religions don’t include supernatural / metaphysical elements at all).
Well, atheism is nothing like that. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a god or gods; there are no rules of conduct, no rituals, no claims about why we’re here or what we’re supposed to do. In fact, there’s not even such a thing as “atheistic beliefs”, since the only thing we have in common is that we don’t believe in something that many other people do. In fact, as someone said before, “atheist” shouldn’t even exist as a word, since we don’t have — or need — words for “people who don’t believe in astrology” or “people who don’t believe in Santa”.
While most religions tend to create some sort of homogeneity (because of a common holy book, a common set of beliefs, and so on), atheism isn’t like that at all. Some, but not all atheists are skeptics, and arrive at atheism simply because it’s the “default”; the existence of any gods has no evidence for it, so, until any such evidence appears, we go with the simpler explanation: the universe is natural. But, other than that, we may not have anything in common.
Do you think that “I don’t believe in unicorns” defines a person? I doubt it. Do you think such lack of belief in unicorns is a religion? Unlikely, to say the least.
Many theists, here, will say: “ah, but to say ‘there is no god’ you need as much faith as to say the opposite”. That’s the third possible meaning, which I’ll leave for the next FAQ answer.
(Note: please keep any comments related to the above question / answer, and not to other subjects, such as whether God exists or not. Thanks.)
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I thought Atheists believed in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Invisible Pink Unicorn ;-).
Shhh! That’s supposed to be a secret!
I didn’t know there was a final decision on that!
I must have missed a meeting.