A religion is a system of beliefs shared by a group strengthened in faith, two big things in that definition are system and faith. A system of beliefs in religion denotes ideas specific to a particular religion which would not apply another. My atheism could be for a very different reason than someone else's, we are not sharing the same beliefs. One may choose to believe they "know" there is no god, others such as myself choose to believe its existence is illogical and therefore unlikely, different belief systems. Faith is the blind belief of something, or claiming knowledge when that knowledge is in actuality unknowable. Faith is not required for atheism as by definition it is the rejection of a belief, plain and simple. Do you require faith to reject my proposal that the chapstick to my left is the creator of the universe, or are you able to conclude through reason that the unlikelyness of that situation is so absurd that it need not be considered a possibility? Because by your reasoning there IS faith required to say it is not the creator, and that your beliefs would be a religion.
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