From elsewhere:

Quote Originally Posted by Joker85 View Post
Atheism is simply the lack of any belief in God or gods. It’s a “religion” like baldness is a hairstyle.

It is still a belief system on the existence of God.
It is not a “belief system” at all. There is no “system” at all. It’s simply a position on the question of belief in the existence of God or gods. Anyone who is without such a belief is an atheist. End of story. Atheists disagree on just about everything else. It is not a “system”

Believing there is no God is not some neutral or default position.
It is still simply a position, not a “system” as a religion is. Big difference. And “believing this is no God” is only one type of atheistic position and far from the most common on. I don’t believe “there is no God” for example, and I am an atheist. Virtually no atheists I know “believe there is no God”
If you really want to have this discussion without getting your butt kicked it might be an idea for you to get a clue about what atheism is. While you’re bumbling around with this strawman concept of atheism as “a system” and muddle-headed ideas about all atheists “believing there is no God” you’re already at a profound disadvantage.

The problem is, you are trying to impose a default position of no religion on society, which, just happens to coincide with your religious beliefs.
Wrong. If I were trying to impose a default position of no religion I’d be advocating bulldozing your churches and throwing you all in jail. You can have all the religion you want. You can have religion up the ying yang. You just can’t impose your particular religion on those who don’t share it. Just the same as I can’t get up at a public ceremony and make everyone stand and say “I don’t believe in God” and a Muslim can’t get up and make everyone face Mecca and bow.

Declaring that the government must adapt of position of no religion is no different than declaring they must adapt a position on religion.
Nonsense.

That's why the "oh just keep it in church" argument is so dishonest. Basically, you are demanding that the government recognize and adopt your religious belief system and trying to shield it under some "government should be God neutral" argument.
I don’t have a frigging “religious belief system”. And whatever belief systems I do have are not imposed on you by keeping the public sphere religiously neutral. I’m not allowed to stand up and impose my beliefs on you. The Muslims isn’t either. Nor is the Buddhist. Everyone is equally respectful of everyone else’s beliefs in public and only shares their expressions of belief with fellow believers. You can be as public as you want with your beliefs. Hell, we just had the Catholic World Youth Day here in Sydney were 300,000 Catholics took over the whole city for a week. But they didn’t barge into our Parliament and insist they all genuflect to the Holy Eucharist.

You can't be neutral.
Yes you can. Everyone being equally unable to impose their ideas on others in the public sphere is neutral.
Government recognizing religion is not the same as making one the official state religion.
Big deal – we don’t want either in a pluralist, secular society. How delighted would you be if the Government decided to “recognise” Islam and you turned up to public events to find you were expected to chant that there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet?

Your easy attitude to these public expressions or Government endorsements of religion are based on the arrogant assumption that the religion in question is going to be yours.

And where we object, is when you try to hog the institutions you share with the majority and tell them they must conform to your belief system of no God and no religion. Again, a government refusing to allow religion in public is an atheist government. Not a neutral or impartial government.
Crap. It’s entirely neutral. An atheist government would be saying you can’t have religion at all. You can have your religion all you like, you just can’t impose your views on us. And we can’t impose ours on yours. That’s neutral. And that neutrality is not some tacit endorsement of atheism. And endorsement of atheism would be replacing your religious expressions with public talks on how the idea of God is absurd at civic events.

I will tell you what, if there was a city or township in America where 90% were Jewish, and they wanted to put up a religious symbol on public grounds to celebrate a holiday, I would not feel one bit that they were "imposing Judaism on me".
I would. Because they would be. Luckily our Jewish brothers and sisters are like those in the Buddhist and Muslim camp – respectful of the protection and respect the neutrality of pluralism gives to all of us. The only people who seem to have a problem with that neutrality are Christians, usually of the noisy fundamentalist Protestant variety.

I guess what I am trying to say is, the essence of freedom of religion to me means that, for instance, when swearing in Congressmen, the Christian can swear in on a Bible, the Muslim on a Koran, and the atheist on nothing if he so chooses.
Great, so do I. That’s nothing like going to a civic event and having someone stand up and ask me to bow my head and pray to his Jesus.