Well that is fine with me. If your atheism is just merely a personal opinion then by no means should any one mistake it for religious conviction because mere opinion does not equal conviction. But if you certain beyond a shadow of doubt that the absolute truth is that God does not exist and all other opinions regarding this matter are wrong then you are being a bit more than religious. You personally might not be this way but I have certainly seen atheist who are that way. To them atheism is the only right answer to the question whether God exists or not.
I think it's important to define our various gawds here. Most references to the gawds are directed to the judeo- christian gawds for no other reason than those are the culturally correct gawds. Your references to the gawds do not represent a generic, one size fits all gawds but a very specific configuration of gawds. I would argue that you can select science, history, art, etc with abandon but you cannot do the same with gawds. I can only accept a claim of regeneration as an inarguable position (unsupported, but not debatable) on behalf of the religionist for their gawds, and that means there is no possibility of interpretation on the part of the theist.
As to whether gawds exist, which gawds are you referring to?
As to which Gods exist or not is not the point of this thread. We are discussing whether atheists can be religious or not and if atheism is a religion to some atheists.
That's been addressed previously. Atheism is no more a religion than you disbelieving in Odin as the one true gawd is a religion.
Except when atheists are being doctrinaire and dogmatic about their atheism. And by the way atheism equals not believing in god or gods, atheism does not equal not religious hence the reason we have non-theistic religions such some forms of Buddhism, Jainism, Raelism and Satanism
I don't see christian non-believers as being doctrinaire and dogmatic about their non-belief. And I think it's important to point out that the "Atheism is a religion" comments come exclusively from the more excitable component of the Christians on the board, at least in my experience. I get a sense of real anger coming from the more dogmatic Christians who take any criticism or critique of their dogma as an affront to their religious beliefs.
Although this has been gone over both repeatedly and tediously, Atheism has no practices, customs, beliefs or “ideologies.” To claim a conclusion as to the non-existence of something is a religion is nonsense. To be A-theistic belief is not a religion. There is no religion of A-Bigfoot'ism or A-Santa'Clausism. In reality, there is no real A-theist asserted philosophy, all of atheism tends to be a critique of theistic claims. Atheism is simply the rejection of the Theistic model as undemonstrated, unsupported and bereft substantiation not at all unlike the conclusion relative to Bigfoot and Nessie.
It appears to me that the visceral reaction of selected christian board members to rejection of their beliefs is a conclusion that they're intent to force their dogmatic opinions as "evidence" to fit into their particular world-view is flawed and untenable. The more excitable Christians apparently believe their entire world-view and existence breaks apart and collapses into nothingness if the fundamentalist interpretation of their creation fables aren't upheld (you know what, they're right-- if any part of any of the bibles is not
literally true, then the whole thing is suspect, so they have every reason to be in panic mode).
