I still don’t understand how the lack of religion can be called a religion.
Yes, I know what you mean. But it depends on how you define religion. If you define it as the study of who we really are and our relationship to the cosmos, then one can have a religion that includes a diety or one that does not.
Atheism is a religion in that sense. It has a metaphysics, a meta-view of the universe, what it is, who we are, what is real and what is not - including and transcending tangible reality. Just like any other religion.
Thanks for your reply...