Religion requires the irrational belief in something in the absence of evidence or proof ... It is impossible to provide evidence for or proof of the non-existance of anything (including a god) therefore Atheism is inherantly a religion based on the irrational belief in the non-existance of god without evidence or proof.

Being non-religious implies that you're agnostic, but (you're correct) being agnostic does not necessarily mean you're non-religious.

As for my comment on the rise of fascism in Germany, I didn't imply that the surpression of rights drove the rise of the Nazi party or even that they were the main factors but only someone who was ignorant to history would claim that these laws didn't contribute to their rise to power. You can not surpress resentment to a group of people by making it illegal because it eliminates open debate, and in the absense of open debate you ensure that people will only hear one side of an issue; and that can be the horribly slanted view that you were trying to ban in the first place. Beyond that, a government being afraid of the citizens is called liberty, citizens being afraid of their government is called tyrany, and by disarming your people and creating laws to silence them you eliminate the "tools" the public has to "harm" a government.

That may be something religion requires - it is not however the definition of religion. Atheism is not a religion as it has no dogma or rituals.

Also I (and many others) would argue that atheism does not require an active disbelief in a god, just a lack of belief in one. It can be a passive position with no active beliefs.

As for disarming people taking away tools to 'harm' the government - recent history (the Autumn of Nations and the Arab Spring) has shown that uprisings of unarmed peaceful protestors in huge numbers can topple a government. Armed uprisings don't seem to be any more succesful.

Also can you link to some backing of your claims from a respected historian that gun control and hate-speech laws contributed significantly to the rise of the Nazi party?

Have you ever heard of the anti-jew rhetoric present in Nazi Germany? Fear/hate mongering has disastrous consequences for the targets. Also, by your logic direct instignations towards violence should not be illegal either.

This is the most irrational thing I've ever heard.

You mean formalized logic is irrational?

The only way to prove the non-existence of something is to assume it exists and then demonstrate that its existence violates a premise or axiom. While this works in pure mathematics where the entire system is built on formalized proofs, this does not work in the real world. There have been many cases where people have believe that certain "Beasts" were mythical or were simply superstition, like black swans or the gorillas in Africa, only to be proven wrong.

There is no way to prove that the Sasquatch, Loch-Ness monster or honest politician doesn’t exist, the best we can do is argue that the lack of evidence of their existence suggests that we should not operate under the assumption that they do exist.

Banning the anti-semitic rhetoric wouldn't have done anything about the holocaust. You cannot simply ban racism because it generally runs within families and underground in society, so having laws directly dealing with hate speech is probably not a great idea (here I think me and Happy are in agreement). However harassment or intimidation through hate speech should be illegal under more universal laws - even if not directed at a single individual (for example if somebody were to hang a black scarecrow in their front yard it should be taken as a death threat and the perpetrator punished).

I think the most succesful way of dealing with large scale racism that I've seen is what the USA did back in the 1960's, enforced integration and making discrimination illegal. If that hadn't been done there would still to this day be large numbers of all white schools and businesses because there would have been no reason to change.

Regarding your first paragraph, I already said I'd have to read the article in question before being able to have an opinion on the matter. His article could've been totally misinterpreted, if just the words used were taken into consideration, and not the global message.

Regarding the 2nd paragraph, a majority is simply a group that dominates society by being more numerous than all others (50+%). I never said women are a minority, whatI said was that they're a historically oppressed group. They may outnumber men, but they have no real power within society. Society simply considers that men are more "valuable" than women and this starts from birth. Studies actually show that the birth of a boy is considered a much more joyful even in basically every culture (exception being some South American country, I think either Colombia or Venezuela). T This extends well after birth, and in society women don't really have any power (how many world leaders are women?), women being confined to the household and dependent on men for survival. he practice of the Chinese you pointed out being proof of how valued women are. You may be the lowest on the "hate speech totem pole", but that's because you're at the top of the society totem pole (especially if you're also a christian). Regarding political correctness, isn't it's purpose not insulting anyone in order to minimize conflict? I think that insulting a man is just as bad as insulting a woman, and I don't see a problem with being anti PC, as long as you're willing to accept the consequences of insulting others.

Affirmative action was set up to protect minority groups from discrimination in universities (and to some extent assure that the number of educated people within these minority groups rises), no? Why are you bringing this into the conversation?

Regarding the 3rd paragraph, words can hurt people, and I'm not talking about feelings. Words spread ideeas, and ideeas lead to actions. I already mentioned that hate speech is speech that promotes violence and discrimination of high risk groups. If words weren't effective, there would be no problem, but reality shows that words have a great power over people. Tell people group X is evil, wants to outnumber them and steal their country, and you'll see lynch mobs forming. Ending discrimination requires treating the cause, not the symptom, as you propose.

1) Being that there are religions (like Christianity) where not observing dogma or rituals doesn't change the fact that you're following the religion as long as you maintain a handful of core beliefs, and you can believe most of the dogma and follow all of the rituals and are not following the religion as long as you don't maintain a handful of core beliefs, I don't think you can say that dogma or rituals are a requirement of religion

2 Simply understanding the definitions of what Atheism is tells you that you must maintain the belief that there is no god

a·the·ism
   [ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA
–noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no god.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

Agnosticism is closer to what you describe because most agnostics (like myself) accept that it is unlikely that the existance of god will be proven, and the premises surrounding the existance of god make it impossible to prove its non-existance, and choose not to live our lives free from the belief in the existance or non-existance of god.

ag·nos·ti·cism
   [ag-nos-tuh-siz-uhm] Show IPA
–noun

1.the doctrine or belief of an agnostic.
2.an intellectual doctrine or attitude affirming the uncertainty of all claims to ultimate knowledge.

Being that agnosticism could accurately be described as the "lack of belief in god" and not the "belief in the non-existence of god" is why agnosticism could be seen as the freedom from religion while atheism is still a religion. You can see this in the difference in how agnostics and atheists interact with the world. Unlike atheists, agnostics don't try to evangelize people and you’re not likely to see billboards trying to push people to an agnostic worldview. Agnostics tend not to be in conflict with other groups because they accept that no one can know what the truth is, while Atheist groups are constantly in conflict with organized religious groups (primarily christianity) because they assume they're correct and the organized religions are wrong.

Ah, I see, so basically formalized logic is useless when it comes to proving the non-existence of fantasy creatures. Humans being overwhelmed by their own creations...

So Gorrillas and Black Swans are fantasy creatures?