I tend to personally consider atheism to be a sort-of religion - AFAIK true atheists have a tendency to be just as fervent about it as the truly religious, and often expend comparable mental effort on the issue, save in the negative.

Far as I'm concerned the two can butt their stubborn heads together to their heart's content so long they don't start dismemebering each other or bothering me or other people in general.

Although I consider it an important difference that where the true believer tends to consider his religion the Only Right Truth and path to salvation (and whatever), and those of the others at best cheap copies if not outright lies and suchlike in something of a spirit of "my Scripture is bigger and better than yours", the proper atheist equally denounces all religions irrespective of their names and sundry and everyone more or less equally left high and dry as far as the ultimate fate of the hypothetical immortal soul is concerned.

The rather major difference between "religious" and "scientific" world-explanations then tends to be that the former are, ultimately, based on various revelations and the like you're supposed to believe just because; there's nothing directly falsifiable or provable about them, they're matters of faith (sic). The latter rely heavily on logic, observation, provable theories etc. etc. and rather more importantly only very rarely try to claim any moral truths - and when they do tend to get seriosuly dissed by their peers.

And, yes, the above is heavily caricaturized. It's that or a page-long discourse I seriously don't feel like typing up. I get to write *those* sorts of things quite enough in the university tests.