Materialism, theism and atheism are all religions.
This is a feature, not a bug? Otherwise what's the point?
This is dogma preached by materialists, of course. The fact is that opposites are of the same nature. Theism and its opposite, atheism, are both belief systems. Neither of them is scientific. Vociferous denials notwithstanding.
No, it doesn't.
OTOH, it does require that “evidence” be understood more broadly than just empiricism.
> Almost all religions make demands on the actions of their adherents, atheism almost by definition does not
Specific atheisms often do, though atheism as such (like theism as such) does not.
Atheism is indeed the religion of man, who has set himself on his own throne, denied the existence of a Creator, and crowned himself god - deciding that HE will be the arbiter of right and wrong. The same forms of worship (investments of time, energy, money, etc) that can be devoted to the Divine are simply channeled inward in a self-righteous pursuit of independence.
Most organisations promoting atheism tends to explicitly associate with ideologies that sometimes pre-suppose atheism, but are not just atheism, such as humanism. E.g. the biggest "atheist" organizations in most countries tends to be the Humanist Associations.
To the extent that there are organizations etc. "just for atheism" rather than humanism, this tends to either be tied to ideologies that either encompass just small parts of atheists, e.g. "hard" atheists who express absolute certainty in the non-belief of God, or "radical" atheists who see theism as actively damaging and something to be fought. Those you could very well consider ideologies.
Another category are groups that band together not over atheism per se, but against religiously motivated discrimination, but most of these tends to focus on secularism, not atheism per se.
Calling atheism itself an ideology because of any of the above is ascribing far more to atheism than is actually there.
Saying that there are atheist ideologies where the absence of belief in a God is an important principle is true. But atheism on it's own is the simple absence of belief.
Please don't confuse "community" with "religion." Bronies also have those things you mentioned but not a single person would classify being a Brony as a religion.
(If you aren't familiar with the term, a Brony is an adult or teenaged male fan of the children's show My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Little_Pony:_Friendship_Is_... )
Same with ideology, not all ideologies are religions. Believe that the Earth is flat is an ideology but not a religion even though personally having that ideology may be based on religious beliefs. Same with veganism.
When I google "religion", I get: "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods."
It reminds me of when a friend once said, "World War II just happened", and I said, "Me tying my shoe just happened, World War II happened 70 years ago". It was both our faults for arguing about the definition of a word instead of both trying to understand each other. What my friend meant was that, since WWII, culture and education hasn't changed much, and another such disastrous event could happen again. Which is why I'm now asking you to rephrase your statement in a way I can understand your intent better.
Modern atheists came up with that definition. The fact is that opposites are of the same nature. Theism and its opposite, atheism, are both belief systems. Neither of them is scientific. At least, not yet.
Religion: The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. [1]
Atheism: Disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods. [2]
[1] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/religion [2] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/atheism
You would do well to argue against the authors ideas rather than their words.
Bastardizing words, particularly those that have a prior established meaning to a minority community like atheists, is tyranny of the majority. It's not their fault that people don't know what atheist means and interpret the word incorrectly. If you reject that notion then I think you a) endorse a recursive loop where ignorant people never have to learn new vocabulary (or worse, get to make up definitions matching what they want to believe the other person is saying) and b) the bar to exchanging information gets set unreasonably high because speakers have to constantly define terms for their audience. There is some duty to learn and understand in a conversation. If you don't know what the words mean, look them up or don't get upset when corrected. That's how you have a conversation that progresses past semantics.
Nudity is not a set of clothing.
He's welcome to style what hair he has left.
Nudity is wearing the empty set of clothing.
To try to stay on the subject of the article, I find it interesting that it's Protestants who are abandoning their faith which is most of the downward trend in the graphs presented. I find that makes sense as Protestants are generally less dogmatic and more questioning (at least historically they were from my understanding) than their Catholic brethren.
Another way to put it, I feel there are some structural differences between Protestants and Catholics which help to explain the downward trend in one, and less so in the other.
edits: bad grammar
Some atheists do have ideologies that are related to their atheism, many others do not.
Certainty of non-existence of God is Ideology.
Maybe, but that's not what atheism means to most atheists.
Atheism is not believing in God(s). This is different from both saying "I don't know", like agnostics do and actively denying the possibility of existence in God.
Most of us, when we say "I don't believe in X" are not saying "I have absolute certainty that X does not exist". We're saying "I've not seen any reason to believe in X, so I don't". I'm not agnostic about the existence of Santa Claus - I don't believe in Santa Claus. But maybe there really is some guy living in some secret compound on the North Pole -- it is however so exceedingly unlikely that I'm not going to go around answering "I don't know" if someone ask.
Most atheists are "soft atheists" who fall in the category above, who if asked will say "God does not exist," but who if pushed will concede that just like I can't know for absolute certain that Russell's infamous teapot or Santa Claus doesn't exist, I can't absolutely rule out the existence of every conceivable definition of a God.
And this is not an ideology any more than the non-existence of Santa Claus is.
There are also "hard" atheists that insists that God 100% certainly does not, or can not, exist, and in those instances you might be right to call it an ideology. But they're a fringe - personally despite growing up among atheists I've never met one in person.
This is nonsense, of course. It shows a definite predilection among atheists to deceive themselves and others. Atheism is definitely a belief. But go ahead and believe otherwise, if you know what I mean.
I'll also point out this is a novelty account with negative karma.
In all seriousness though Atheism is still a belief system. It makes an assertion without the necessary evidence to fully back it up (which is both true and weirdly ridiculous). On the other hand Agnosticism is in itself removed from a specific belief system. It is an epistemological doctrine of sorts with both religious and non-religious applications.
I find that most people use the word atheism completely wrong and accidentally get caught in stupid semantic debates they themselves are responsible for falling into. If you believe their is no god, then your making some pretty wild jumps.
If you don't think we have sufficient evidence to disprove a God, but would totally bet it all that there isn't, then you should just say your agnostic and explain how that applies if necessary.