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I RECENTLY discovered that I am a member of a downtrodden minority, one of the most mistrusted and discriminated-against in the world. As a white, heterosexual, able-bodied, cis-gender male, this is not something I鈥檓 used to. But my minority status is undeniable. I am an atheist.

I鈥檓 not complaining. I live in one of the world鈥檚 most secular countries and work for a science magazine, so it hasn鈥檛 got in the way. But for atheists living in societies with a strong religious tradition, discrimination is a real problem. In the US, atheists have one of the lowest approval ratings of any social group. Non-believers are the only significant minority considered unelectable as president 鈥� and 鈥渦nelectable鈥� turns out to be a pretty low bar.

Even when atheists don鈥檛 face open hostility or discrimination, we often have to endure put-downs about the sincerity of our (lack of) beliefs. One of the most common is that 鈥渁theism is just another religion anyway鈥�. There is no way to prove or disprove the existence of god, the argument goes, so to deny it is a leap of faith. Ergo, atheism is just like a religion.

鈥淭his idea turns up all the time, and it is very loaded,鈥� says Lois Lee, who directs the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network at the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK. 鈥淲hen people say 鈥榓theism is just another religion鈥�, they normally mean it in a pejorative way.鈥� The subtext is clear: atheists are hypocrites.

But this is more than a personal slight. If atheism really is just another religion, its claim to be a superior way to run the world is fatally weakened. All the criticisms it flings at religion 鈥� of being irrational, dogmatic and intolerant 鈥� come flying back with interest, and progress towards a more rational and secular society is undermined. So is it true? Is atheism just another religion?

Atheists have been treated with suspicion for centuries. In 1689, philosopher John Locke warned that they are 鈥渘ot at all to be tolerated鈥�. The 鈥渏ust another religion鈥� claim seems to have arisen around a decade ago in response to the rise of New Atheism, a scientifically motivated critique of religion led by Richard Dawkins and underpinned by his 2006 book The God Delusion. Journalists writing about the movement took to using religious metaphors, calling it 鈥渢he church of the non-believers鈥� and a 鈥渃rusade against god鈥�. Religious scholars joined the fray to defend their beliefs. Even some scientists took up the cause. In 2007, evolutionary biologist (and atheist) David Sloan Wilson of Binghamton University in New York . His point was that, like many religions, it portrayed itself as the only source of truth and righteousness and its enemies as 鈥渂ad, bad, bad鈥�.

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The human mind is primed to believe in god, so why are so many people abandoning religion 鈥� and should we be worried about living in an atheist world?

To atheists, such accusations might seem easily refuted. The defining feature of religion is belief in god(s). Atheism defines itself as the absence of belief in god. How can it be a religion? That is like saying that 鈥渙ff鈥� is a TV channel, or not-playing-tennis is a sport.

But atheists arguably have not taken the charge seriously enough. 鈥淭hey鈥檇 say, the word just means 鈥榳ithout god鈥�. That is all. We can go home now,鈥� says Jon Lanman who works on the scientific study of religion at Queen鈥檚 University Belfast, UK. Perhaps because of this rather aloof response, atheists have failed to dispel the sense that the critics were on to something.

The truth is that atheism is not simply an absence of belief in god, but also a set of alternative beliefs about the origin and nature of reality. Even though these belief systems diverge in their content and level of fact from religious beliefs, perhaps they originate from the same underlying psychological processes, and fulfil similar psychological needs. Religious ideas, for example, provide stability and reassurance in the face of uncertainty. They help to explain events and provide a moral framework. For these reasons, and others, they are intuitively appealing to human brains. Maybe brains that reject supernatural ideas simply soak up naturalistic ones to take their place. 鈥淭hey may work as replacement beliefs, helping alleviate stress and anxiety as religion does,鈥� says Miguel Farias, leader of the brain, belief and behaviour group at Coventry University, UK.

One candidate for a replacement belief that atheists and others might hold is 鈥減rogress鈥�. A few years ago, psychologists in the Netherlands tested this idea. It is well known that religious people often turn to their beliefs to deal with emotional distress. Faced with reminders of mortality, for example, they vigorously reaffirm their faith. This may be why churches are full of death imagery 鈥� it is good for business. Does the idea of progress work the same magic for atheists?

, the team got volunteers with a secular world view to either write about their own deaths or about dental pain. Then participants read an essay arguing that progress was an illusion. Those who had been prompted to think about death disagreed more strongly with the essay. The anti-progress essay also made volunteers more aware of their own death, as if it were pulling their comfort blanket out from under their feet. A different essay arguing that progress had been substantial did the opposite.

That鈥檚 not all. Another primer known to strengthen religious belief is lack of control over external events. Clinging on to god can help people regain at least a subjective sense of control and predictability. And, yes, atheists do it too. Doing the 鈥減rogress鈥� experiment with people on board an aeroplane, for example, .

For many atheists, scientific ideas have a similar soothing effect. Stressful situations tend to strengthen their belief in science, especially in theories that emphasise orderliness and predictability over randomness and unpredictability. All of which suggests that religious believers and atheists are more psychologically similar than either would like to think.

That could even extend to supernatural thinking. Proponents of the 鈥減sychological impossibility of atheism鈥� argue that supernatural beliefs are so hard-wired into our brains that discarding them altogether is not an option. Evolution, they point out, has endowed us with a suite of cognitive tendencies that make belief in non-material beings come easily. As highly social and tribal animals, for example, we need to keep track of the thoughts and intentions of other people, even when they are not physically present. From there, it is a short step to conceiving of non-physical entities such as spirits, gods and dead ancestors who have minds and intentions of their own, know what we are thinking and have some influence over our lives. And, sure enough, there is evidence that such as there being a higher power or that everything happens for a purpose.

鈥淚t鈥檚 like saying that 鈥榦ff鈥� is a TV channel, or not-playing-tennis is a sport鈥�

However, even if letting go completely isn鈥檛 an option, that doesn鈥檛 mean that atheists are actually religious. 鈥淚ntuitions about dualism, teleology, and magic are common among non-believers,鈥� says Ara Norenzayan, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia in Canada. 鈥淏ut the case is much weaker for belief in God or gods, where cultural learning is much more powerful.鈥� And experiments show that people can override their tendencies. 鈥淭here is no evidence for the argument that all people have an implicit belief in the supernatural,鈥� says psychologist Marjaana Lindeman at the University of Helsinki in Finland.

So, despite some similarity between religious and non-religious beliefs systems, they are not equivalent. Surely that buries the claim that atheism is just another religion?

Maybe not. There is another way in which atheist beliefs make them religion-like, according to Sloan Wilson. It is the way they play fast-and-loose with scientific facts. 鈥淎theists will say that religion is bad for humanity, that it鈥檚 not an evolutionary adaptation 鈥� which happens not to be true,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat is how atheism becomes an ideology. It is organised to motivate behaviour. If it uses counterfactual beliefs in order to do it then there鈥檚 really very little difference between atheism and a religion.鈥�

But if using non-factual beliefs to motivate behaviour is enough to make something a religion, then atheism isn鈥檛 the only offender. Political campaigns are a religion; Father Christmas is a religion; self-help books are a religion. That would seem to lead to such a broad definition of religion that it is almost useless 鈥� and certainly doesn鈥檛 make the accusation against atheism especially damning.

Besides, religion is not just about belief. There are many ways in which atheism is not like a religion, according to Dan Dennett, a philosopher at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. When somebody puts it to me that atheism is just another religion, he says: 鈥淚 ask 鈥榠n what way?鈥� They usually counter with demonstrably false parallels. We have no rituals, no membership rules, no sacred texts and the small percentage of atheists who belong to specifically atheist organisations are more like people who belong to interest groups like scuba divers or guitar aficionados. And most atheists don鈥檛 feel the need to proselytise.鈥�

What鈥檚 it all about?

Atheism lacks other features of religion too. 鈥淐an atheism provide a strong sense of meaning and purpose?鈥� asks Sloan Wilson. 鈥淐an it motivate people to prosocial action, can it get you out of bed in the morning with enthusiasm to do things? I think the answer is theoretically yes鈥� but only for a few individuals.鈥�

So there we have it. Atheism is both like a religion and not like one, depending on which aspects you consider. And therein lies the real problem, and the reason why the question of whether or not atheism is just another religion goes around and around in circles. Atheism is not one thing. Nor is religion. 鈥淎sking 鈥榠s atheism a religion?鈥� is a terrible question,鈥� says Lanman. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 answer it because both are social constructs.鈥� In other words, they are categories that we impose on the world rather than things that exist independently in it.

In that respect they are similar to the category 鈥渨eeds鈥�. Everybody knows what a weed is, but try to produce scientific criteria to distinguish weeds from non-weeds and you will fail. It is impossible, for example, to develop a weedkiller that kills only weeds. 鈥淚n the scientific ontology that has been built up through biology and botany, there鈥檚 no place for a category 鈥榳eed鈥�,鈥� says Lanman. 鈥淭he things we label weeds have nothing causally to do with one another.鈥�

Without a causal connection, you can鈥檛 do science. You cannot produce a description of a social construct that distinguishes it from other things. You can鈥檛 discover what causes it, and you can鈥檛 make predictions about it. You certainly cannot answer the question 鈥渋s social construct A just another instance of social construct B鈥�. You might as well ask 鈥渁re bushes just another sort of weed?鈥�. Er, sometimes. It depends.

And so it is with atheism and religion. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been using inadequate concepts,鈥� says Lee. 鈥淭o answer the question, you鈥檝e got to have a coherent idea of what 鈥渞eligion鈥� is, as well as what 鈥渁theism鈥� is.鈥� And that鈥檚 not possible. You can identify beliefs and behaviours that are often part of the social construct we call religion and you can do the same for the social construct we call atheism (see 鈥�Elements of atheism鈥�). But you can鈥檛 really compare the two, says Lanman. Neither really exists.

That, of course, won鈥檛 win me an argument in a pub or across the dinner table. But according to Lee, the argument is still worth having. 鈥淚t may be a daft question, but it gets at a bigger debate about what it means to be religious and what it means to be non-religious. About 50 per cent of Britons are unbelievers of some description, and we really don鈥檛 know what we mean by that.鈥� Amen.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淯nholy faith?鈥�