Some people insist that atheism is a religion in and of itself. The rational is that since God can neither be proven nor disproven, then the assertion of either viewpoints is unprovable (and thus a matter of ‘faith’); in other words since there is no way to prove that God exists, then there is no way to prove that ‘He’ doesn’t exist. Scientifically, it fails in a one key tenant: ‘great claims require great evidence’.
Since the main thrust of most religions is that an almighty ‘God’ is the creator of the universe and controls (or at least in some way effects) day to day occurrences in our world, it should follow that in order to accept this hypothesis one would need an abundance of evidence to prove the existence of God (also, there should be an abundant amount of evidence of ‘His’ existence, since the incidence of occurrence is allegedly so vast). However, the majority of religions not only offers no proof of God’s existence, but rejects all concepts of rational objectivity and instead invites their followers to devote their lives to God based solely on ‘faith’.
Atheism is also distinct from religion in that it lacks any sort of man-made hierarchies or divination of ‘laws’. There are no ‘leaders’ of atheism. There is no way to ‘follow’ atheism, except as a personal rejection of the concept of ‘God’ (or Gods) as a means to explaining morality or objective reality. This sets atheism apart from Satanism or any other cult which believes that ‘God’ is wrong; atheists simply believe that ‘God’ does not exist.
An important part of atheism to note is that it does not reject morality, self-improvement, or culturally important ceremonies. Indeed, one may be an atheist-Jew or an atheist-Buddhist. One can practice meditation and still be an atheist! Indeed many even believe that Christ was deeply influenced by Buddhism, and that when he said ‘I am man’ and ‘I am God’ he was introducing the idea that man himself is ‘God’.
So is atheism a religion? Unabashedly no. But atheist are not amoral. Nor do they reject human-lead self-improvement. They simply do not ascribe to the doctrine of ‘faith without reason’. They object to ‘In God We Trust’ and ‘Under God’ because they bring religion (as outlawed in the first amendment) into the everyday lives of their children. They reject ‘faith’ and embrace science and reason.