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Comment by cpt1138 | Hacker News Reader

Atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color

The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods. Details of belief as taught or discussed.

Atheism (movement regardless) is the strict belief that a god does not exist; hence a religion.

Agnosticism/Non-religious is more not a religion.

I think you'd find it pretty difficult to find an atheist who claims to strictly know with any kind of certainty that no gods/creators/things outside the universe exist (except maybe Hawking, but he's definitely not representative). Sure, plenty of people claim to know with certainty that specific religions are false, but there's a big difference between the two that is often confused and glossed over by people making the argument you're making.

By that argument, a belief that Santa Claus (as an actual being who lives at the North Pole and on Christmas Eve delivers toys to all the good children) does not exist is a religion.

Santa Claus is pre-determined to not exist; and as far as human culture is concerned Deities are not pre-determined to be non-existent.

Though yes, there is the strict belief that santa claus does not exist and that is a belief.

Atheism is a religion because people who self-declare atheism are normally people who strictly believe that no deities exist.

Either way, whether is a religion or non-religion, it is something people cite as their religious views, hence the inclusion of it in this form.

Correct, but the survey has to have some option to specify non-belief so I think it's valid to include it as a choice. It's like saying: "Religion: none" and null is technically a valid value in this case.

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