Linger around the threads of nairaland for a while, and you're bound to find some smart quips from the enlightened atheists lurking around. It's not just nairaland, atheism is now a global phenomenon. With millions of wise and rational minds dedicated to tearing down the foundations of religion.

But, if you look at things constructively, you could come to the conclusion that atheists, are in fact more religious than adherents of the religions that they detest. And you would be right, because atheism is actually a religion.

Now before the atheists on this thread, go down to the comments to call me an ignorant fool. Let me list out a couple definitions of religion that I found in dictionaries.

01. An organized set of beliefs about a deity or deities.

02. A personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.

03. A particular system of faith and worship.

04. The belief in and worship of a supernatural controlling power, especially a personal god or gods.

05. A cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.

Let's briefly take a look at the first definition, which talks about "an organized set of beliefs about a deity". Take note that it did not say in a deity.

Atheists claim to be non-religious by saying that they don't believe in God or gods. Well, lack of beliefs in God is a philosophy shared by all atheists. That makes atheism a religion, according to the first definition.

You should also note that you don't have to believe in a deity to be religious. There are such things as non-theistic religions. Buddhists don't believe in any particular god, but would you say Buddhism is not a religion?. Obviously not.

Non-theistic religion

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheistic_religion

Comparisons Between Atheism And Other Religions

01. An Organized Set Of Beliefs

Every religion, has a collection of principles and beliefs that are shared by adherents of that particular religion. These beliefs often form the foundations of the religion, and any sects that don't believe in them are considered heretics or unbelievers.

Christianity has God, Jesus, the resurrection, baptism etc

Islam has Allah, Sharia, Ramadan etc

Chapter 2 vs 1 to the end of the "Atheist Scriptural Handbook", states that "Thou shalt believe in"

a. The non-existence of God (there is no God, everything is an accident

b. The big bang (in the beginning nothing exploded and created everything)

c. Abiogenesis (non-living things gave life to living organisms)

d. Evolution (and everything arose as a result of countless accidents over billions of years)

e. Deep time (the Earth is billions of years old, if you think otherwise you must be madly ignorant)

02. Faith

All religions require faith, atheism included. Despite what the atheists wants us to believe, it does require a great deal of faith to believe that in the beginning nothing exploded and created something. And something expanded and one day created the Earth.

And someway, somehow for no reason whatsoever, the Earth happened to be in the right spot for life to thrive. And later on, non-living materials have birth to the first living cell. And this cell, mysteriously rearranged itself, became more complex and reproduced. And one day, these complex cells turned into fishes.

And one day these fishes decided to live on land. In time, the amphibious offspring of these fishes gave birth to reptiles, and these reptiles gave birth to mammals.


These mammals then gave birth to apes, and the apes have birth to your human ancestors, who have birth to you. I don't know about you, but for me the entire scenario above, sounds like a plot device from a terrible sci-fi novel.

Despite the odds stacked against it, atheists are still die hard believers of evolution. Despite the frequent dismissals of evolution for lack of evidence, despite the theory defying logic and common sense. Despite atheists not knowing all there is to know about evolution, they still believe that evolution is true.

Why?, you might ask. It's because of a feeling that's been with us since the beginning, a feeling that's part and parcel of every religion the world has as will ever know. That feeling is called faith.

03. A Promise Of A Reward

Every religion promises a reward to it's faithful followers.

Christianity promises salvation and heaven

Islam promises heaven, unlimited alcohol when you get there. 72 virgins etc

Scientology promises the world global peace if it were to follow it's teachings

Buddhism promises enlightenment, and achieving higher states of consciousness

Atheism promise a wise, logical and rational mind. Which is a step above the ignorant masses who still believe in God, gods, and other delusions

04. The Presence Of Spiritual Leaders

Every religion, has it's great philosophers or spiritual leaders whose ideas shaped the religion. In some cases, the religion would not exist or enjoy mass appeal without that particular leader.

Christianity has Jesus

Islam has Mohammed

Judaism has Moses

Buddhism has Siddharta Gautama (the Buddha)

Scientology has L. Ron Hubbard

Atheism has Richard Dawkins

05. The Creation Of Organizations

In the course of spreading their religion, atheists have created a number of tools to assist them. They have websites, forums, blogs, YouTube channels, they've written books on theology etc. Every other major religion makes use of these same tools.

06. Evangelism

All major religions evangelize, atheism included. Atheists make financial contributions to spread their message, they hold rallies. They used the internet to get their beliefs across, they publish books on atheism.

They try to influence society and governments, to pass laws that favour their belief system. They are actively trying to convert the works to atheism. These actions are mirrored by all religions with the intention of spreading.

07. Behavioral Changes

Followers, or new converts to a religion tend to change their behaviour in order to match the teachings of their religion.

A man converted to Christianity would start praying, reading the Bible, attending church etc.

A man converted to Islam would read the Koran, pray 5 times a day, grow a beard etc.

A man converted to Atheism would stop attending churches, adopt nihilism, join an atheist forum, blame God for the world's problems etc.

Religion As A Pillar Of Society

According to legend, Rome was founded by Romulus. A distant descendant of Aeneas, who sailed the Mediterranean with a tiny band of survivors after the fall of Troy. These survivors settled at Latium, where they established a settlement and intermingled with the Latin population.

After defeating a tyrant King and learning of their royal heritage, Romulus and his twin brother Remus decided to found a city in the land where they were raised. A heated argument broke out between the brother's regarding the naming of the city. After a bloody duel, Romulus triumphed killing his twin brother.

Romulus and his followers worked to organize the government of the newly created city. One of the first things Romulus did was to establish the religious rights of Rome.

Romulus identified a constellation of gods and set a rough spiritual course for his tribe, before advertising Rome as an asylum for all men to start a new life.

Lacking women, the Romans waged war and made deals with their neighbours to acquire wives for themselves, thereby ensuring the survival of Rome.

The creation story of Rome makes it clear that religion and family are two fundamental pillars of society. There is no civilization that has or can exist properly, without these foundational pillars.

Every human being with the ability to think and reason is religious. Any misguided atheistic attempt at destroying religion, is nothing more than an attack on the pillars of civilization.

Wise, rational minds build instead of destroy civilizations. Barbarians on the other hand burnt down Rome.

Conclusion

Now that we've established the fact that atheism is nothing more than a religion, I would like to talk about tolerance. Personally I've got nothing against a Christian going to church, putting his arms in the air and saying "thank you Jesus".

I've also got nothing against a Muslim knelling in a mosque and saying "Allah Akbar". I'm also cool with an atheist not subscribing to a higher power, believing his ancestors are apes, and viewing his/her existence as a purposeless, meaningless accident.

But, the thing is you can do all that without being so obnoxious about it. News flash people: you can be an atheist without bashing other religions!.

I know that for some people I'm preaching to the wind, I know that I've angered some atheists with this article. I know that some of you will go down to the comments and call me an ignorant buffoon.

But it doesn't matter. I'm religious, you're religious and whether you like it or not, that's the truth. We were all religious in the beginning, we are religious now, and we will be religious at the end. Get used to it.

Happy New year everyone (this is my first article of 2018)

Seun:
I don’t care to debate this. If atheism is a religion, then it is the best religion. If it’s a religion, then it’s the only religion that is likely to be true based on the evidence that we have.

Calling atheism a religion doesn’t win any points for religion. If you think being called a religion discredits atheism, the fact that Christianity and Islam are actually religions should also discredit them.

yanabasee:
What evidence do you have?

Seun:
I don’t care to debate this. If atheism is a religion, then it is the best religion. If it’s a religion, then it’s the only religion that is likely to be true based on the evidence that we have.

Calling atheism a religion doesn’t win any points for religion. If you think being called a religion discredits atheism, the fact that Christianity and Islam are actually religions should also discredit them.

Seun:

The utter lack of objective evidence for the existence of God suggests that he probably don’t exist. If God existed and wanted to be worshipped, he would not hide himself to such an extent that there would be no objective evidence of his existence whatsoever. What for?

I don’t care to debate this. If atheism is a religion, then it is the best religion. If it’s a religion, then it’s the only religion that is likely to be true based on the evidence that we have.

Calling atheism a religion doesn’t win any points for religion. If you think being called a religion discredits atheism, the fact that Christianity and Islam are actually religions should also discredit them.

Atheism 0 : Other religions 0

johnydon22:
God, people are dumb

yanabasee:
They're never smart quips!!

What's smart about atheist always criticizing Christianity?

We've got many religions out there but Atheist to me seems like its a practice of christian-criticism.

They do not criticize Islam,Hindus or Buddhism, Taoism or even the Shinto....


Atheistism is more of Protestantism and Confucianism... Take it or leave it!!!

tartar9:

Of course,adherents of a religion call theirs the best

Seun:

Whether atheism is a religion or not, the fact is that there is no objective evidence for the existence of God, therefore it makes sense to refrain from believing in any God that people preach to you about until they provide you with some objective evidence that the God actually exists.

Martinez19:
Olodo rabata, here is what religion is.

Seun:

The utter lack of objective evidence for the existence of God suggests that he probably doesn’t exist. If God existed and wanted to be worshipped, he would not hide himself to such an extent that there would be no objective evidence of his existence whatsoever. What for?

vaxx:


waiting for objective evidence of GOD will steal your future,objective evidence is a subjective process, hence the rely on objective evidence to substantiate the reality of GOD is an invalid logic . Instead, try to measure consistency and experience. Consistent reality is experienced.

only you can experience the real truth.....butterfly1ion ,you are rightly on point.....

“The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.”
― George Carlin

hakeem4:
Wow I’ve never seen someone so dumb. Lack of belief is now religion.

yanabasee:

God do exist and it's my personal cognitive content which I uphold to be true...