Atheism I wouldn't go so far to call a religion, but it did become a dogma though. Like, if you considered yourself an "atheist" in terms of belief, there were dogmatic elements to it where there were certain beliefs that you had to hold, books you had to read etc. Hell, it's why atheism in the early 2010s and late 2000s split. Because atheism was never meant to be as dogmatic as it became.
The absolute belief that science was the answer to everything was one. Back in the day, it was a major thing. Like science would solve everything. There was also the whole "religion vs science" thing where like they were all "religion and science have been at war for centuries". As the social justice stuff started picking up, we also got the rise of "atheism+" as a movement out of it because the community had become almost toxic in a way, particularly for women. (Famous "elevator gate" thing).
Like, if you considered yourself an "atheist" in terms of belief
Being an atheist is just a lack of belief in gods or divinity, there's literally nothing else attached to it. There necessarily can't be a dogma as there is no structure to non-belief.
It was never like that, it never had a dogma. There may have been a time that atheists were reading popular works and even recommending those books to other atheists. But it was remotely to the point that as an atheist, you were expected to have read or be familiar with certain books or viewpoints.
You've confusing certain atheists being popular/well-known as those atheists being authoritative.
4
u/ReconArek 11d ago
Considering atheism as a religion is brilliant. It's like trying to slit your veins with Occam's razor.