[quote=Jorick]
Depends on the kind of atheist you're talking about, as there are a few different kinds. First you have to start off with a definition of religion. The definition I've always used is "a set of beliefs about the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe." I'll just go ahead and apply this definition to the two major different kinds of atheism to show you what I mean.Those who say emphatically and as a factual statement that there is no god are people who consciously believe deities don't exist, and those are the ones for which you can make a case that their atheism is a religion. Holding such belief is, due to lack of actual evidence, just as faith-based as any traditional religion. They are claiming to know the truth of the cause/nature/purpose of the universe, but they are not omnipotent, thus it is belief and thus it is religious.However, there are plenty who do not believe in deities but do not believe that they absolutely do not exist; this is agnostic atheism, colloquially known simply as agnosticism, and it is not a religious belief because it is in truth the absence of belief. These types of atheists tend not to have beliefs about the cause, nature, or purpose of the universe because they take the stance that it is impossible (whether permanently or just currently with our limited understanding and technology) to understand these things, that they are so far above human ken that it would be foolish to pretend to have the answers. This is the lack of beliefs stance that cause most atheists to call shenanigans on people calling atheism a religion, because this is the stance that most atheists (at least in my experience) actually take.Saying that all atheists consciously believe that deities do not exist would be like saying all Christians believe the Bible is made up of the literal and factual words of their deity. Those are both outlier positions, fundamentalism that is not representative of the majority in any way. It just so happens that fundamentalists of all kinds are very loud and controversial, thus they get a lot more attention than the average people of the group and give the appearance of great numbers.
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I agree with basically everything you just said here. I have always argued that gnostic atheism is just as irrational as gnostic theism. Agnosticism in any form is typically the most rational stance since the existence or non-existence of God is not really provable.