Whether or not atheism is technically a "faith" in the same manner as a religion such as Islam or Hinduism, the fact- an inescapable fact, actually- is that atheists do have faith.

Also, Rowan Forster may have gone a little far but nonetheless he does make a good point- the vast, vast majority of charitable organisations are either explicitly religious or were founded by religious people. Unfortunatly, many of them are no longer explicitly religious in name due to political correctness, nonetheless they have a religious heritage. The underpinnings of most modern atheists (naturalism, materialism) preclude them from having a strong foundation for values such as compassion etc. Obviously there are many, many compassionate atheists but my point is that their compassion isn't strictly founded on their worldviews, whereas a Christian's compassion is. Hence, we should find no surprises in the fact that Christians are much more charitable givers, and that they start more charitable organisations.

I always chuckle to myself at those who compare belief in God with belief in the tooth fairy. Why, then do we have the atheist convention? I haven't heard of a global Afairies convention, but if there is, let me know.

Also, Peter Hume's blunder in his post is embarrassing. I might be near the word limit so I'll leave others to point out his horrendous mistake.

The reference to the lack of charitable support organisations by atheists and the emphasis given to the highly organised and profitable church-owned charities, the readers should not be deluded as to the motivations of such organisations detailed by the writer.
If he tries to represent that altruism is the motivation, he would be insulting the intelligence of every reader. That has long since lost any credibility as we see just in Canberra alone 80% of all social clubs run and controlled by the Roman church, cruise boats, golf courses, health clubs, 36 schools and colleges. If altruism existed anywhere in the Catholic philosophy, then the church would sell assets to feed the poor rather than exploit the poor to continue the control of their hearts and minds.
So please do not assume that because the churches have 'charitable' structures that they are there for the good of the poor and destitute.
Anyone thinking that for one second would be naive.
If that is his argument against atheists, he is totally out of touch which the remainder of his writings confirm quite clearly.
If he is a so-called 'journalist' it must be for a church propaganda publication. Any journalist should be capable of rational thinking, sadly lacking in this article.

It may come as a surprise to most of you that the art of ‘Praying’ is still within the compass of old Sherkahn's habits. We Nature lovers; Tree huggers; Pagans; Darwinian realists, (not Atheists thanks!) are fully aware that everything on Earth is ‘The Complete Package’; ie; the God that you believe, is sitting up there, on a cushion twiddling his thumbs, never sleeping one 100th of an OLYMPIC second, seeing ‘round corners, through the bedclothes, down the Mine even into ‘Hades’, is in fact your Subconscious Mind!
You must all have come across the general advice when one has a problem, “sleep on it”. The Conscious mind off-loads or empties the too hard basket into the Sub-Conscious mind during sleep.
The Sub-Conscious does one of two things. It either presents a solution to the problem to the Conscious mind, OR, prepares you for the worst by switching on ‘Hormones’ for the body and Conscious mind to deal with the shock. Your terminology would be, “God came to my rescue”.

Your God is a Palliative necessity for the majority of temperaments of the human mob. Religion is also a great Tribal or Social Club that gives you that necessary Tribal feeling of ‘Belonging’.
I have no desire to see it crushed; I am no Henry V111 or indeed Cromwell or Communist, I love and respect religious architecture and religious music. Each Sunday night at 10.30 pm, with my headphones on, I listen to our wonderful ABC Classic FM program, The God Who Sings, for 2 hours.

What would be wonderful, and fill the churches again, ‘tweaking God’s words a bit’, would be for Religion to stop being so Narcissistic about the Human Supremacy, and worship Nature and all it’s creatures realistically. We may then ‘save the world.
If the world’s population were half of what it is, there would be hope. It is known that, the ‘Farting’ of humans and their food animals creates the majority of climate pollution. We even have an advert on our TV here, “Save the Planet, Go Veggie!”

The non-theist is someone who accepts that there will probably never be any evidence to support belief in the existence of any gods. For most people that only means an increase in gods he or she doesn't believe in by one.
As a sceptic, a secularist and a non-theist in my view the question should be the relative importance of secular charities versus religious ones.
In the secular column we should include, state education, state and federal health care, unemployment benefits, foreign aid, government funded research to overcome all manner of problems and so on almost ad infinitum. Religious charities are, compared to these, almost insignificant and certainly at the margins.
Religious school education has only bounced back from near extinction, apart from for the wealthy, because of state aid, a system foisted on all taxpayers, believers and non-theists alike, by religious twits in power, or vote manipulators, none of whom have, as a main interest, the long term well being of the community.
How much better would this community be in the future if all children mixed in local schools and were taught to think clearly free of the indoctrinations of the various religions?

The first thing to remember is that Saint Jesus of Galilee was NOT a social worker, nor did the radical spirit-breathing Spiritual Way that he taught and demonstrated while alive, have anything to do with a social gospel teaching.

Put in another way, this essay is a typical example of how the radical spirit-breathing Spiritual Way taught and demonstrated by Saint Jesus has been reduced to a social gospel ONLY.

The effect of such being that what is now called religion reduces every one to the mortal meat-body scale only.

No profundity allowed---either investigations or doings.

http://www.dabase.org/tfrbkyml.htm

Saying atheism is a religion is the same as saying NOT collecting stamps is a hobby. Bloody ludicrous.