Is Atheism a Religious type belief system?

The following are two answers I gave to students concerning whether or not atheism is a belief system.


It is a popular thing to say that atheism is not a religion because not believing in something is not a belief system.  But does the atheist not believe in something or just have a different belief system then the theist?
 Does the atheist know how the universe began, what sparked the Big Bang?  Does the atheist know what eternal cause, caused everything?  Does the atheist believe that the universe is eternal?  Or that a multiverse is eternal?  Does an atheist believe that our ideas of society, morality, ethics and the like are a part of the evolutionary process that this eternal beginner allowed for us to become?  How does everything come into being without an eternal something?  Absolute nothing cannot cause everything.  If absolute nothing did cause everything, absolute nothing would be what most have defined as God.  So all we have done is change the definition of terms.
This does not look like absence of belief, but, more like difference in belief.  The atheists higher may not be an outside the universe creator god, but an inside the multiverse evolutionary process.  This is not too unlike the ancient Hindu concept of the gods being a part of the universe, or even the ancient Greeks.  In these belief systems the gods were not all powerful and completely independent.  They were inside the universe and if the universe did not exist neither would these gods.  But this is leading to a rabbit trail.

The point is that atheism is not the absence of belief.  It is just a difference of belief. 

When an atheist says they believe in science they are either making science a religion or they are saying they do not have any reason to believe in morality and ethics.  Science that deals with empirical data cannot give us morals.  But if one tries to use science as a reason for their morality they then make science something not science but religious. 

The arguments sound very logical until you actually think about them.  How can science tell us right from wrong when science is only dealing with mathematical data? Science at its foundation is mathematical communication. And all it can give us is empirical physical data.  Once we start to theorize, hypothesize, believe in something we are no longer dealing with facts but beliefs.  Once we start to believe in something without empirical data we start to be religious.  Thus love, hate, evil, good and the like for the atheist are physical things considered to be physical things.  But in reality we cannot see something and call it love, or hate etc… like we can point to a tree and call it a tree.  I am not saying we do not see actions of love , hate etc..… but actions are responses to something, not the something itself.  So no one sees love, hate, evil, good etc… again, they see acts of these things.

Concerning man creating metaphysics; if man created metaphysics then metaphysics are only what is in each individual mind.  Thus each mind has a different standard of morality based on individual preference.  If society or anyone wants to tell an individual how to behave then that society/anyone is attempting to be god like to each individual.  If society/anyone attempts to punish individuals they are playing god to anyone punished.  Thus an atheist who attempts to stand on morals, believes in society and personal beliefs as god for all.  So they are now religious again because they are propping something other than god up as reason to make people behave in a certain way.

But if an atheist states they do not believe society has the right to punish individual behavior they are being more logically sound in their beliefs because metaphysics is basically personal preference.  Stating anything else makes them religious about two things, science and society/individual metaphysics.

This now touches on why atheism is religious and thus should not be taught in schools if religion should not be taught; because it is a belief system that goes into metaphysics. Or it is amoral and dangerous to society.

Great job!  If you are interested in furthering the conversation please feel free to do so or even ask your atheist friend their opinion about what I said above.  If they are logically sound they will recognize atheism to be a religion.  If they continue to state that it is not a religion then they are stating they can prove their beliefs empirically. If they say that, then they are saying everything they say cannot be argued against.  If they say that, they are saying they are god.  If that is the case they just started another religion.

But if they say we can argue against their statement, then it is only a belief.  And if it is only a belief, they are religious.