"Atheism Is a Religion" or "See, you are no better then me!"

Over at Reason Magazine, I came across this article "Atheism Is A Religion" and I wanted to make a comment about it.

Here is the final paragraph of the article:

Atheists should embrace their religiosity, recognize the biological component that drives them to make sense of the world like the rest of us, and church it up. As the Man from Galilee once put it, render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. If you don’t believe in God, then you don’t owe him anything. And if my Facebook friends are any indication, you lost your sense of humor ages ago. Which means you atheists may have nothing left to lose but your taxable status.

 This paragraph betrays a way of thinking a lot of religious people share. She wants to believe that Atheism is just like Christianity or Islam. She needs to believe that Atheism is no better or worse then the religion she picked. It's like a thief believing that everyone else steals something so his crimes are no worse then anyone else.

The religions need to feel the same way about atheism. Atheism isn't a rejection of everything you hold deer by a reasoned argument, no, its's just a different belief system which is morally equivalent to any other religion.

Once a religious person realizes that an atheist is not a believer like you, it can be hard to get over the cognitive dissonance of the situation.

When a Christian is confronted by a Muslim, but can discount the other's arguments because both arguments are based on blind faith and with nothing tying the belief to reality, neither belief can be said to be better or worse then the other

But with atheism, things get tricky. Atheism is tied to reality, Atheism can be dis-proven, Atheism is not equal to other beliefs, atheism is the rejection of all other beliefs because they are simply not good enough. 

It's much easier to believe someone's beliefs are no better then yours then to know that everything you hold as Truth can be rejected so easily and you have no argument with which to fight that rejection.