>>27 You seem to have a problem with understanding what atheism is. Agnostics are atheists by definition. The "a" in atheist is the same as the "a" in amoral. The agnostic is one who has no knowledge ("a"-gnosis) about something. An agnostic thus has no knowledge about the existence of god/whether it is reasonable to believe in one. If you are in a state of lack of knowledge, you are in a state of lack of belief. Therefore, the a-gnostic is an a-theist.

What is probably giving you trouble is the distinction between positive/strong atheism and negative/agnostic atheism. Positive/Strong includes the positive (hence the name) assertion that god does not exist. For the positive/strong atheist, god Cannot exist. A negative/agnostic (sometimes also called weak) atheist is just what we have stated, someone who lacks belief due to a lack of knowledge/convincing evidence. (Again, you can't believe in something that you aren't sure/don't know you can believe in.)

Now, one need not only lack sufficient evidence for god to be a negative atheist. Many, like myself, have things they point to as evidences for why it is plausible that god does not exist. However, we do not assert that god does not exist, because we are uncertain and are not willing ourselves to believe that a god does not exist.

This, I think, is where your "religion" part comes in. A strong atheist must believe that god does not exist without having definitive proof that it does not exist. Some would attempt to call this faith, and thus call atheism a religion. This is laughable. A will to believe (or higher order convincing evidentialism, depending on how you view the issue) is not a religious faith, it's a kind of faith no different from the same "faith" we use when we say something like "We haven't been visited by aliens." Some people believe we have, but a great amount of evidence points to the contrary, and all the evidence for it (that I know of) has been debunked.

Atheism is in no sense a religion.