What religion are you?

[Alcon]

Atheism is not a religion. 

That's not a defensible statement.  In fact, before monotheism and polytheism became all the rage thousands of years ago, most religions were animistic or featured ancestor worship.  Even now there are a few really old Asians who practice some atheistic form of religion.

Your brand of atheism, even, which purports to be anti-religious is filled with such fervor that it might even be classified as religious zealotry were it not for your lack of concern for any ultimate reality.

What does that have to do with atheism not being a religion?

Religion is the assertion of some metaphysical truth.  It's not merely a strong conviction in something, or even an irrational one.  Hard atheists assert the absence of a metaphysical truth of God, but that's a belief about metaphysics, not a belief in metaphysics.  But there are few hard atheists anyway -- even among the ranks of anti-religious zealots.  Most of them, even the Dawkins types, are soft atheists (agnostics).  They don't actively assert belief in the non-existence of God, but instead claim belief in the existence of God is completely unreasonable.  That's even further from a religion.  It's a belief about beliefs about metaphysics.  Again, definitely not a "religion" by any coherent definition I know.

tl;dr It may remind you of religious zealotry, but that doesn't make it a "religion."

[Alcon]

It may remind you of religious zealotry, but that doesn't make it a "religion."

I agree with that, and I said exactly as much.

Err...you replied to "atheism is not a religion" with "that's not a defensible statement."

To answer your question, I'd say that considering atheism to be a religion is rather like considering Christianity to be a religion, in a sense.  In a very specific sense.  Christianity, of course, is a broad umbrella term which includes many religions.  More, I'd argue, than even the OP included in his poll.  But, hey, you have to draw the line somewhere.  The term atheism works sort of that way as well.

It's true that atheism and Christianity both include subsets.  Including subsets doesn't make something a religion.

Of course one classification system for religions--but probably not the only one--is to group them by the number of deities supported.  Thus, a religion might be called mono-, poly-, or atheistic.  So in that sense atheism, while not specifically a term referring to a single religion, might be a characteristic of a large number of religions, mostly extinct I'd imagine.

There are religions that are compatible with an absence of belief in God.  That does not make the absence of belief in God a religion.  The fact that a belief is compatible with a religion does not make that belief a religion.

Atheism, of course, can also refer to the non-religious variety, and, increasingly, to the anti-religious variety.  Anyway, Hockeydude's schtick has always been more anti-religious rather than irreligious.  It's fine, of course.  I just think we should call it like it is.

OK, I can't really speak to Hockeydude's attitudes or beliefs.  But using "atheist" as shorthand for "anti-religious" seems like a bad idea.  They're different concepts, and most atheists in polls don't identify as anti-religious.

As for your definition of religion, it's not bad.  It used to be the three Cs  (and Hockeydude's brand of anti-religion certainly has all of those), but now it also includes something about Ultimate Reality, or what you call "metaphysical truth."  This, of course, is lacking in Hockeydude's on-line persona, although whether it exists in his real persona I can only speculate.  This is precisely why I used the subjunctive, and I would not argue with the statement you made that I quoted.

Sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying.  Hockeydude is not asserting a metaphysical truth.  He's either asserting a truth about metaphysics, or a truth about beliefs about metaphysics.  Neither of those things are religious belief.  It might be belief about religion, but that's different.  Understand?

[Alcon]

OK, I won't do the embedding thing, angus.  But "don't pick a fight where none exists"?  Read what you wrote again, dude (emphasis mine):

Atheism is not a religion.  

That's not a defensible statement. In fact, before monotheism and polytheism became all the rage thousands of years ago, most religions were animistic or featured ancestor worship.  Even now there are a few really old Asians who practice some atheistic form of religion.

Your brand of atheism, even, which purports to be anti-religious is filled with such fervor that it might even be classified as religious zealotry were it not for your lack of concern for any ultimate reality.

Were you trying to say it's indefensible to claim that atheism is a religion?*  Because, if so, yeah, we agree, but you wrote the opposite of what you meant.  I think you could also understand that most people will read it as written, and then take the digressions in your follow-up as trying to justify the statement.  That's why I kept reiterating things we agreed on (because they seemed to conflict with what you wrote), and expressed confusion about your digressions (because I wrongly assumed they were meant to justify what you wrote).  The use of "err," which you apparently took as hostile, was genuine confusion.

I wasn't being a prick -- I was confused, because of your writing error, dude.  Subsequent personal attacks were completely unjustified.

_{(* - If you were meaning to claim what you wrote, I have no idea what your argument is, or why you think we don't disagree, or why you're angry with my response.)}