From: red sox 777 | #079
Panthera: If that's the case, then many Christians could say they were not part of a religion also. To be a Christian you have to profess a very small number of beliefs.
No, I mean that there has to be some sort of structure or unifying belief between everyone that's actually established in some way. You can have no contact with other Christians but still follow the established beliefs and practices (well, the ones that don't require priests and such) it has. There is nothing like that for atheism unless you want to claim that liking chocolate chip cookies is a religion because it's something people think. And some definitions of religion probably would rule out people who were utterly isolated from anyone else of their belief system. It's not like "religion" is a perfectly cut and dry term, but the one thing everyone should be able to agree on is that there needs to be more to it than "we agree about something" or else you've broadened the term to the point that it has no use.
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Mistake you're making - overlooking the fact that we might not want to be saved.