Please inform your professor that atheism is NOT a religion because it lacks the defining characteristic called "faith" (Absolute belief in divinity without evidence it exists...) and that he should therefore not be teaching at any level in any subject because he lacks the ability to determine reality from his own twisted fantasies...

How could any Theist, minister/pastor/priest/iman/rabbi, teach anything other than what they believe?

Atheism is a belief that God does not exist and it is without traditions and chores. The argument can be made but it is controversial.

I think he is challenging you to debate, not accept. You are a student. Your role is to read, research, ponder and debate to understand various sides of the argument. Your role is not throw professor's material on social media. Your class work does not belong here. Focus on studies.

hes a fucking one dimentional dictater not a teacher. they should teach you how to learn and not what to learn.

Being treated as a religion, and being a religion are not the same thing. Especially when the phrases about treatment only refer to legal definitions, you can not jump for legal definitions to all other definitions, such as philosophical.

Drop the class
He’s an idiot
He’s inter mingling religion and group/society
I understand the point he’s making but he’s just plain wrong

He doesn’t get to make shit up because he’s a professor. I’d challenge him every step of the way. You don’t have to accept his ideologies.
Take philosophy classes instead.

Atheism in itself cannot possibly be a religion, since it's simply the absence of belief in a deity. However humanism could be considered a religion, since there is a world view that people can believe in and can unify a group of people all having the same worldview and life stance.

For those of us, like me, who wish to minister to life changes such as marriage, in order to satisfy many of the state's requirements that it must either be a clergy member or judge to solemnize a marriage, to make it legal, having humanism be considered a religion solves that problem.

For me, I'm a humanist minister, solemnizing marriages for couples who do not want any deity invoked or religious references mentioned, just natural and humanistic. The ceremony must be called religious, on the books, but it's simply human values being celebrated, not supernatural deity worship.

Surprisingly, many of the judges that perform the "civil" marriages, invoke god in their ceremony, so hiring a humanist celebrant is one sure way of knowing the ceremony will be focused on human values, rather than biblical ones.

Thanks Piper...you might want to read the whole Circuit Court opinion (Kaufman v. McCaughtry, 419 F.3d 678 (7th Cir., 2005) to understand where he is coming from. In order for a prison (state or federal institution) to be "neutral" as to religious beliefs it has to classify atheism as a religion. Here is a quote from the case defining "religion:"

"The Supreme Court has said that a religion, for purposes of the First Amendment, is distinct from a "way of life," even if that way of life is inspired by philosophical beliefs or other secular concerns. See Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 215-16, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972). A religion need not be based on a belief in the existence of a supreme being (or beings, for polytheistic faiths), see Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 495 & n. 11, 81" ...

"The Supreme Court has recognized atheism as equivalent to a "religion" for purposes of the First Amendment on numerous occasions, most recently in McCreary County, Ky. v. American Civil Liberties Union of Ky., U.S. , 125 S.Ct. 2722, L.Ed.2d (2005). The Establishment Clause itself says only that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," but the Court understands the reference to religion to include what it often calls "nonreligion." In McCreary County, it described the touchstone of Establishment Clause analysis as "the principle that the First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion." Id. at *10 (internal quotations omitted).

So yes, since everyone has a way of life, atheism, under the First Amendment is a religion, so as not to discriminate against non-believers. And in double speak, non-religion equals religion.

Perhaps once some of the previous commentators read the court's definition they will see that your prof is teaching the "legal" definition. The fact that you can only use his sources is b.s. of course, especially if he didnt even give you the citation to the case he used, so you can read it in context.

Not sure what gives this dude the right to tell others what they believe or don't believe. Or to define another person's religion for them. Don't generally pay much attention to folks like that.

Your prof is getting more annoying now! He refers to Secular Humanism but does not indicate where you can obtain an academic description.

It looks to me as though this is an opinion piece rather than academic notes attempting to defend teaching religion in schools!

As a previous poster suggested keep your head down and get the unit done.

Someone should tell your professor that there is no riturials or prayers no one pins predjuice on anyone for having free thought there is no book of lies to follow and there is certainly no collection plate passed along sex is had with out some documation or a certificate.

Does it matter whether atheism is considered to be a religion or not? If your Professor is saying that atheists can be as close minded in their opinions as others, he is not wrong.

From the notes you just posted, he has pointed out some of the same things I did below, but then equivocates by suggesting "atheism" as such is a religion. It just isn't, even though legally it can be considered a religious stance and thus is protected under the first amendment. (He begins his equivocation by invoking "non-theist" religions--which there are plenty of examples. The fact that he includes "Atheism" (weirdly capitalizing it) as one of the "non-theist" religions is underhanded equivocation.

I have no problem with considering secular humanism as religious.

The arguments that presuppose everyone has a religion, and thus you cannot exclude religion from public discourse without de facto smuggling in "atheist" religion is just nonsense.

I am curious what comes after the last line, "Everyone has some religion". I fear it is just more equivocation (in fact, it has to be, since that is the only possible thing to expand upon such a claim).

I think he is deliberately misinterpreting what the courts decided. Non-belief should hold equal status under the law, but because it must be treated equally with religion does not mean that it too must be considered as a religion. He is also conflating several different philosophies, such as Satanism, Communism and Secular Humanism with atheism. These named groupings may well be considered belief systems, but atheism with a small “a” is not an organised belief but a disbelief. He states that atheists push their views as facts and try to suppress all (other) religions. This is turning truth around, as in fact it is the religious who ttry to force their beliefs onto us and state their views as fact, with absolutely no evidence. Atheism has no deity, no priests, no holy writ, no churches, we are just a disparate group of thinking, rational human beings who do not believe in an invisible creator when there is no evidence to support such a premise.

Academically atheism doesn’t fit the criteria for a religion. Look up Ninian Smart’s 7 Dimensions and you can counter with that. I think it is in his book Dimensions of the Sacred.

With regard your sources it depends on your study. He might be wanting you to focus on a particular idea without going off track.

What is the course? Is it a degree?

Atheism is a belief.Agnosticism is a rejection of belief. Thus, given a common definition of "religion," atheism is a religion of sorts, and agnosticism is not.

*Atheists believe there is no god, i.e., it is a belief.

Under his definition, yes, atheism = religion. However, the case mentioned in the indented text (James J. KAUFMAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Gary R. McCAUGHTRY, et al., Defendants-Appellees) states, “If we think of religion as taking a position on divinity, then atheism is indeed a form of religion.” If this is so, why is Pastafarianism not recognized as a religion in the US? This would be something I would ask the professor to clarify their position on. Pastafarians claim they are a legit religion, and some countries (e.g. New Zealand) agree.
As a professor myself, I find it VERY odd that you are not allowed to use other sources besides the ones he has given you. Do you have this in writing or something? If so, this is grounds for a legitimate complaint as it is a huge deal. That being said, I would seek to not rock the boat. In the grander scheme of things, is taking a stance to rebut the professor worth not passing this class? Is that the proverbial "hill you wish to die upon" or would it be better to do what you need to do to get it over with while in the class. I would argue the second one.

Sorry, it seems to be a big deal to me. A higher education institution is to develop and encourage critical thinking. I keep telling my students that two questions they should be constantly asking when someone makes claims are: 1) What's your evidence; and 2) How strong is your evidence? What you are describing sounds like killing critical thinking in the bud ), which is particularly inappropriate given that it's done by a professor. We do live in strange times, don't we )

This creep could easily mark you blacklist you to his fellow bigot "professors" incompetent and ignorant that they are....so write what he tells you to write get his "A" ....you're not in a school you're in a cult....take good care of your health....apply for scholarships to real universities and don't submit religious essays there....write about science and art you care about....apply to women and minorities admissions.....it may take two years but transferring to a true University is worth the effort and there you will be free of religious brainwashing

The first rule of debate is to define your terms, since he is the professor, he gets to define the rules for debate in his classroom. While the primary reason for taking a class should be to learn something, as a college student who has paid money to attend the class, you have other good reasons to take the class, to not waste your money, to meet a graduation requirement, to not mess up your gpa; and to not have to take the class again. Roll with the punches and don't complain until the class is over and the grades recorded.

This argument makes me think of the number system and the difference between natural and whole numbers. For some reason zero is so profound, it deserves its own name.

Makes sense to my god - er, I mean, my dog!

Some are not so wise

Also when you have to complete assignments check the rubric.You may need to show an understanding of the course material rather than make an argument.

The notes are not written in an academic context. The sources (not reliable) and their dating (far too old, in this field of study. 5-10 years old is quite aged due to advances in sociological research) are not referenced in-text very well, i.e. no named authors so that their veracity and other work can be checked.

In academia one of the Golden Rules is to check your sources, otherwise, nonsense can pile upon nonsense, hence the unreliability of Wikipedia as you don’t know who wrote the pieces.