What’s the Difference Between Atheism and Religion?
Other than the whole “not believing in God” thing
If you’ve spent enough time listening to religious apologists, you’ve probably heard one of them say “atheism is just another religion”.
As an atheist, it would be easy to pull up a few definitions of the word “religion” and make a case for why this claim isn’t true; or, I could use a quick rebuttal like “if atheism is a religion, bald is a hairstyle.”
However, I want to examine the logic behind this claim instead of dismissing it outright, because glossing over criticism is a sign of dogmatic thinking.
To gain a better sense of what this “atheism is a religion” logic is all about, I read some articles written by religious folks. Many of them, from websites such as Answers in Genesis and Conservapedia, were poorly organized and full of baseless assertions. I won’t spend time on these articles (even though they might be entertaining to tear apart) because I don’t think they represent the strongest version of the argument.
Any reasonable exploration of this question must recognize the importance of how we define the words “atheism” and “religion”. It’s tricky because definitions can be a slippery thing — who decides them, and what makes one definition the “official” one? They…
