*sigh* I've just had the whole "what is religion" debate inflicted on me again as part of my Introduction to Humanities course. I think the point the "atheism is a religion" crowd are groping for is that there can be functional similarities between atheism and religion for a vocal subset of atheists. I just wish they would express it better, and I wish religous studies academics would just agree to study the functions and get on with it, rather than arguing about substantive definitions.