Atheism as a belief

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I never undertood why people think of atheism as being unreligious I mean it is still a belief it not like people can prove with hard science wether god exists or not, it is as if it unfalsifiable.

It's certainly not a "religion" but many people feel that it takes a bit of faith to conclude that there must absolutely not be some sort of higher/underlying power (which I can understand, but think it is preposterous to consider it religion, in the same way that say, Christian doctrine is). I tend to buy into Carl Sagan's particular brand of agnosticism (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).

Either way, prepare to hear a lot about Bertrand Russel's teapot.

would belief be a more correct term?

I am agnostic too. I question what god can be and what gods motives can be, but I really have my own religion. It combines buddhism, some hinduism and many other religions. To me god is the enrgy surrounding us and if there was an all powerful god he could take any form or shape.

That's interesting. The problem with talk on god is that everyone has their own, even people of the same religion are members of different denominations, and even then God means different things to each of them.

I really have no beliefs, though I am open to the concept of an underlying order.

It is interessting that in many organziaed religions there are people that have completely different beliefs, that may not even been in theri said congretations scripture. That would be an argument for spirtuality and personal belief instead of organzied religion and fundamentalism.

Atheism is a belief the same way that assuming you're a real person and not a brain in a jar is a belief. You could come up with an infinite number of unfalsifiable possibilities, most of them utterly ridiculous, but not believing in them isn't really of any significance unless others start insisting upon them.

"Atheism is a religion" is a very useful statement. It saves a lot of time and aggravation by warning you that someone is not worth arguing with.

The question is pretty meaningless, because the word "religion" is nebulous. Here's a bunch of definitions (from typing "define: religion" in Google):

Dawkin's version of atheism is a religion. But when I hear "atheism," I tend to think more what people call agnosticism- atheism simply means lacking a belief in a deity, and so what is generally called agnosticism is better termed atheism. And that's certainly not a religion, because the person isn't ascribing to any set of beliefs.