Atheism is completely retarded. If religions were like a sports team, and a religious person said to an "atheist" what team do you support? The Atheist would basically say "I don't support any team". And then they treat their lack of a team like an actual team, and dress in shirts of that teams colours and stand at the side of a field every Sunday, cheering on their empty pitch. The idiots.
I like what this Fractal chap says, and Mr Nous too. Many people say that religion is an allegory of the real world, but that is just opinion. Fractal just pointed out that without the intermediary of religion, humans can't connect directly to the world. I think there is a lot of sense in saying something like that.
Also, it is clear that most of the world is atheistic as Nous pointed out. The Herd.
And you must believe what you know, otherwise you don't know it. Atheists' opinion that 'you can demonstrate certain specific things that are real regardless of whether the deluded individual believes them' is just garbage individualist blind faith. The hypocrites.
Most people in the world are certainly not atheistic, not in the slightest. The vast majority of people are religious and believe in a god. The herd needs crude, traditionalist beliefs because it makes them feel comfortable in what otherwise would be a very plain and natural world. They feel comfort in there being a grand leader who will reward them for life if they are part of his team; they feel comfort in being part of a group where others believe the exact same thing. They get an absolute "truth" about everything there is to be known, and this truth is unyielding to criticism. In other words, they are comfortable. That is what the herd seeks. Atheism gives absolutely none of that simple comfort.
Your simplistic metaphor comparing religions to sports teams is idiotic and I fail to see the connection, other than the fact that there are many "teams" of religions as there are teams in sports. Not a valid comparison at all.
And atheism has no dogma at all, nothing even close to what would qualify as a religion. All atheism is is a lack of belief in god, nothing more. A Buddhist can be an atheist if they do not believe in a god. There isn't one big pool of atheists with the same values, the same beliefs, etc. I would think this is something extremely obvious, yet so many misunderstand what atheism is. It is not even necessarily a belief in god, simply the absence of belief. Any rational person withholds belief until there is sufficient evidence. There is not sufficient evidence for a god, and thus I withhold my belief in god, making me an atheist.