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It’s impossible not to notice the marks of a religion in all that Taylor and Barber have written. They cite chapter and verse of their religion and expect everyone to bow down.

http://www.leagle.com/decision/20061438422FSupp2d1016_11349

The United States Supreme Court has never determined whether atheism qualifies as a religion. The Courts of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has answered the question in the affirmative, both in this case and in Reed v. Great Lakes Cos., 330 F.3d 931, 934 (7th Cir.2003), but it had not addressed the question in 2002, when defendants made their decision. Courts have defined religion to encompass both traditional theism and beliefs regarding matters of “ultimate concern” that “occupy a place parallel to that filled by God in traditionally religious persons.” Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 340, 90 S.Ct. 1792, 26 L.Ed.2d 308 (1970); Fleischfresser v. Directors of School Dist. 200, 15 F.3d 680, 688 (7th Cir.1994). Under these standards, courts have recognized that pacifism, secular humanism and other nontheistic belief systems are entitled to the protection of the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. See, e.g., Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 495, 81 S.Ct. 1680, 6 L.Ed.2d 982 (1961) (Buddhism, Secular Humanism, Taoism, Ethical Culture and other nontheistic philosophical systems qualify as “religions” within meaning of the First Amendment); Welsh, 398 U.S. at 342-43, 90 S.Ct. 1792 (moral, ethical, or religious beliefs about what is right and wrong held with the strength of traditional religious convictions qualify as “religious” beliefs).

It’s impossible not to notice the marks of a religion in all that Taylor and Barber have written. They cite chapter and verse of their religion and expect everyone to bow down.

Yes, dear brother in Christ; I noticed that, too.

Still, we can reasonably ask: Is atheism a “religion,” as the Plantiff insists in James J. KAUFMAN, Plaintiff, v. Gary R. McCAUGHTRY and Jamyi Witch, Defendants?

This seems to be a question of the same type as the question: Is gay marriage a “marriage?” The answer depends on how one defines “religion” and “marriage,” respectively. What is disturbing is the involvement of the federal courts in making such determinations at all.

Anyhoot, in the lawsuit you cite from U.S. District Court, W.D., Mr. Kaufman — who was trying to establish an “atheist study group” at a Wisconsin correctional facility on “free exercise” grounds — defines an atheist as <>

…someone who does not believe in the supernatural or in any gods, does not believe in rituals and prayer, basically believes in what you can see and test through science or through your own observations. He believes that atheism is a ‘communal type thing,’ with no hierarchy or power structure. Plaintiff believes that atheists have ethics derived from society, history and personal experience that help believers determine what is right and wrong.

Let’s have some fun and “deconstruct” atheism. As you noted, dear xzins, it has many outward features of religious commitment and practice. Certainly, it is a belief system, faithfully, passionately adhered to. It has its own “holy writ,” and “prophets” and “evangelists.”

Here’s the “holy writ” part — which also names a person who qualifies as an “evangelist” of the faith (this from Jeffery Tayler in the article at the top):

The universe, we now know, did create itself, arising out of a quantum event – a “singularity,” when time and space were wrapped into one — some 13.7 billion years ago, exploding from a tiny speck of unimaginably dense, hot matter to its present dimensions. (And it’s still expanding.) Some four billion years back, it is postulated that a still-unexplained chemical occurrence gave rise to the first self-replicating biological molecule from which began life on Earth and from which we evolved according to the (eminently comprehensible) process of Natural Selection. This renders God, as Richard Dawkins put it, “an excrescence, a carbuncle on the face of science,” unnecessary for any phase of “creation.”

My problem is, if you analyze this holy writ, you find that it is based on certain thoroughly unexamined (it seems to me) presuppositions: (1) That everything in the universe “supervenes on the physical” (i.e., on matter in its motions). (2) There are only two causes that operate in Nature: the material and the efficient. There are no formal (specifying) or final (purposive) causes in Nature. (3) Rather, the Nature we humans experience and observe is, at any given point in time, merely the outcome of purely random events. The only constraint operating on this randomness is Natural Selection, which itself is based on “accidental” events (random mutations).

To me, the most significant take-away in all of this is the complete denial of any and all metaphysical, cosmological, religious, or spiritual extensions of the natural world. That little maneuver deftly rids one of God; but it also seems to rid one of the human soul, not to mention the very foundations of human reason and human consciousness itself.

But if, as I believe, what we call “religion” is an encounter between God and human souls, then how can atheism be a religion, since it abolishes both?

Atheists tend to brag that they’re just being “scientific.” And since there is no “proof” of God to their satisfaction, it is therefore senseless to impute to such a fiction any role in the creation and unfoldment (evolution) of the universe.

At which point, I’d like to interject an observation that seems to lay out our present quandary very well, indeed:

The enormity of the differential between non-anthropic [i.e., non-life-supporting] and anthropic [i.e., life-supporting] values of our universe’s [fundamental] constants may be likened to a monkey typing out Hamlet (without any recourse to the play) by random tapping on the keys of a typewriter. Needless to say, it requires belief to explain this occurrence by pure chance.

If one were to come into a room where such a monkey had been typing randomly for a month, and were to discover twelve sheets of perfect Shakespearean prose, one could reasonably and responsibly believe that someone intelligent (possessing a fine knowledge of Shakespeare) had snuck into the room and helped the monkey. Alternatively, one might believe that the monkey had a random stroke of luck that allowed a conspiracy of coincidences unimaginably remote [see Penrose’s number] to occur by pure chance. In one case, one believes in an intellect that one did not see. In the other case, one believes that an unbelievably improbable occurrence took place by pure chance.

…I leave it to the reader to ascertain which kind of belief is more reasonable and responsible. — Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy, 2010; p. 65f.

In conclusion, it seems to me that, given the above considerations, atheism is not a religion, for all that it may want to be recognized as such.

To love God is to love Truth. It seems atheists do neither.

Cheer up, atheists! Though the atheist may not be covered by the Religion clauses of the First Amendment, they are still fully protected by its guarantee of Free Speech, not to mention Free Association….

The case law you cite, dear brother in Christ, did not reach to such sublime considerations; rather, it was decided on pretty narrow, technical grounds that found the Plaintiff's argument "moot" WRT the decision reached — which probably exasperated, frustrated the “activist” or evangelizing Plaintiff to no end....

Thank you ever so much for writing, dear xzins!