Athiesm is not a Religion, and "Believing" in Evolution is not Faith.

[WangFire]

The Merriam-Webster definition of Religion:

b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural

The Merriam-Webster definition of Atheism:

a : a disbelief in the existence of deity

Please explain why there is confusion?

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Believing in Evolution is the same thing as Believing in Algebra. Both can be, and have been proven in multiple ways, by both theoretical(a.k.a. theory) and physical experiments.

If you're going to argue with Evolution, are you going to argue with 2+2=4? Are you going to argue with the fact that if 2(x-3)=14, then x=10?

[Naesala]

be·lieve 
/biˈlēv/
Verb
Accept (something) as true; feel sure of the truth of: "the superintendent believed Lancaster's story".
Accept the statement of (someone) as true.

I believe in all things that are facts. Especially when considering that all science and math eventually falls to axioms.

As for the confusion between atheism being a "religion", its a matter of how one defines religion. By most definitions though, it should not be called a religion. It is, however, a belief system.

[Pineapple]

There is no confusion about whether or not atheism is a religion. Everyone knows that atheism is not a religion, and everyone knows that atheism is a belief system.

As for evolution...
I'm sorry, but there is no experiment you can do today to absolutely prove beyond all doubt that something happened in the past.
Mathematics is based on axioms. The only reason that 1+1=2 is because we say so; humans have invented these symbols and defined their meanings, and the only people who can accept 1+1=2 are those who accept these man-made abstractions.

[Nepycros]

There is no confusion about whether or not atheism is a religion. Everyone knows that atheism is not a religion, and everyone knows that atheism is a belief system.

As for evolution...
I'm sorry, but there is no experiment you can do today to absolutely prove beyond all doubt that something happened in the past.
Mathematics is based on axioms. The only reason that 1+1=2 is because we say so; humans have invented these symbols and defined their meanings, and the only people who can accept 1+1=2 are those who accept these man-made abstractions.

Evolutionary theory is the theory that explains how life changes over time. This can be represented easily by more axioms.

1) Living beings tend to reproduce.
 a) In reproducing, they pass down genetic traits that they themselves carry.
2) Sexual reproduction or other conditions may cause genetic traits to be substituted, deleted, added onto, or otherwise changed based on mainly mutations.
3) These mutations provide diversity from the original pattern of genetic traits.

Based on all this, we can follow that as living beings reproduce and pass on their traits, these traits DO NOT STAY THE SAME. In other words, they change. This is sufficient to prove the theory of evolution. Just not ancestral evolution... That takes more records, such as fossils.

[kimham8a]

The reason why many people don't believe it is because our society used to 100% reject these ideas. It takes time for the past to disappear.

If you grow up for years with everyone telling you that evolution isn't proven and it's ''just a theory'' and treat it as another religion, you are going to have a difficult time accepting otherwise in your adulthood, and you will pass on your opinion to those younger than you.

[Pineapple]

There is no confusion about whether or not atheism is a religion. Everyone knows that atheism is not a religion, and everyone knows that atheism is a belief system.

As for evolution...
I'm sorry, but there is no experiment you can do today to absolutely prove beyond all doubt that something happened in the past.
Mathematics is based on axioms. The only reason that 1+1=2 is because we say so; humans have invented these symbols and defined their meanings, and the only people who can accept 1+1=2 are those who accept these man-made abstractions.

Evolutionary theory is the theory that explains how life changes over time. This can be represented easily by more axioms.

1) Living beings tend to reproduce.
 a) In reproducing, they pass down genetic traits that they themselves carry.
2) Sexual reproduction or other conditions may cause genetic traits to be substituted, deleted, added onto, or otherwise changed based on mainly mutations.
3) These mutations provide diversity from the original pattern of genetic traits.

Based on all this, we can follow that as living beings reproduce and pass on their traits, these traits DO NOT STAY THE SAME. In other words, they change. This is sufficient to prove the theory of evolution. Just not ancestral evolution... That takes more records, such as fossils.

I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure you missed my point. What makes mathematical axioms so absolute is that they are designed to be absolute. Thus, anything based on these axioms can easily be rejected as circular. Mathematical statements have absolutely no inherent meaning, unless they are artificially applied to a real-life situation. However, even then, most mathematical statements are not exactly applicable without extremely specific modifications.

The theory of evolution, on the other hand, is different because all the evidence comes from the world itself. These "axioms", as you call them, are merely small-scale observations made in the present day. Sure, these observations suggest that, ceteris parabus, all these mechanisms were in play in the past, and from that suggest that evolution occurred continuously within the incomprehensibly long time between the first organism and Homo sapiens. However, simply because these observations were not designed to be absolute, the conclusions reached from them also cannot be absolute. And, as implied before, if they were designed to be absolute, then they would have no meaning.

[Siouxselle]

Atheism is not a religion, and atheism is also not a belief system. There isn't a single set of beliefs that all atheists hold. Not one. A lack of belief is not a belief.

[Naesala]

All atheists hold the belief that there are no gods or supernatural forces in this world. There isn't a single set of beliefs that all christians hold either. All christians believe in the same god and the divinity of jesus christ.

[furballdn]

All atheists hold the belief that there are no gods or supernatural forces in this world.

Not necessarily. Being an atheist just means that you do not believe in God or gods. There are atheists that believe in aliens and psuedoscience as well. Most atheists don't believe in supernatural things though.

[Naesala]

I wasn't considering aliens and pseudo science to be supernatural, but I guess that term is pretty loose, sorry. I stand corrected.

[OldTrees]

Please explain why there is confusion?

Are you venting your frustration at the confusion or are you looking for an actual answer? The actual answer is not pretty and might offend you.

[Zso_Zso]

A very interesting blog post that explains why evolution is NOT actually in contradiction with most religions -- only in the eyes of those who misinterpret their scriptures:

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.ca/2013/07/the-quest-for-common-language.html

Yet you can’t bring up the idea of evolution in today’s America without being beseiged by claims that Darwinian evolution is inherently atheistic. Creationists insist on this notion just as loudly as atheists do, which is really rather odd, considering that it’s nonsense. By this I don’t simply mean that an eccentric minority faith such as Druidry manages to combine belief in evolution with belief in gods; I mean that the supposed incompatibility between evolution and the existence of one or more gods rests on the failure of religious people to take the first principles of their own faiths seriously.

to an eternal divine being, all of time is present simultaneously, every atom is doing exactly and only what it was put there to do, and what looks like machinery to the atheist can only be, to the believer in classical theism or its equivalents, the action of the divine will in eternity acting upon the world in time.

Such a universe, please note, doesn’t differ from the universe of modern science in any objectively testable way, and this is as it should be. The universe of matter and energy is what it is, and modern science is the best toolkit our species has yet discovered for figuring out how it works. The purpose of theology isn’t to bicker with science over questions that science is much better prepared to address, but to relate the material universe studied by science to questions of ultimate concern—of value, meaning and purpose—which science can’t and shouldn’t address and are instead the proper sphere of religion.