Athiest is a religion. Reading further into the stats on that site they
say 15% of the world's population have no religion and that number is
falling, which I find surprising.

Probably so. Religion and revolution always rise when existence becomes too
harsh to rationally accept.

I also am curious about your assertion that "atheism is a religion".

As far as I know, there are no atheistic altars, no stone buildings,no
holy books, no wailing walls, no ceremonies, no prayers, no hymns,
indeed, none of the things that are generally associated with
religion..

If one were to define religion as a "belief a theory which cannot be proven
by scientific inquiry (i.e.. a faith) then atheism would qualify as a
religion since you can no more prove the absence of GOD then one can prove
the existence of GOD.

Now agnosticism is not a religion especially if the agnostic doesn't know
and doesn't care.

Couple of quotes to top off this IFR discussion:

"Are you familiar with the theory that mankind has invented myths of all
kinds - romantic, religious, transcendental, and mystical - to deny the
bleak, unmitigated horror of biological life: that human beings no less than
other living creatures are simply part of an immense food chain."

"We hope that technological innovation will do what Western political and
social thought can no longer do -- rescue the Western world from its
spiritual and moral paralysis to prove its superiority in material terms.
Through technology the Western world is free to reinvent itself,
unfortunately we cannot reinvent the people."

"Not every god has to exist in order to do his job."

Cheers
Howard


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