Am I the only one who see's an increasing amount of extremism among atheists?

It may not be a religion but some people certainly follow it as if it was.

Religion has two main facets:

1) Structuring your life based on the teachings of your religion

2) Evangelising your religion to others.

Some atheists adopt both of these facets to the way they identify with atheism, structuring their lives as if there was no God, removing any religious affiliation or symbology and not attending religious places of worship, and evangelism, well the likes of Dawkins and Hitchens are enourmous evangelists! If they were Christian they would be seen as prominent missionaries.

So it may not be a religion, but some people certainly follow it as if it was.

1. To say that 'not' attending religious places is a religion in itself is ridiculous. It's just not being religious, it isn't an alternative religion. Atheists would need their own alternative symbols and places that denote some sort of atheist religion for that.

2. Dawkins and Hitchens attack religion, they don't promote an alternative religion. Atheism is in essence a void of religious faith, it's not a faith in itself. If they were agressively promoting a form of humanism or something in replace of religion then you could perhaps see them as evangelists, but they're trying to tear down religion, not promote anything in its place.
The closest you could say they get to promoting a faith is their promotion of science. But you'd be very hard pressed to call science a religion.

Oh come on, read what i said. I never claimed that Atheism was a religion. I even said that it was not a religion. All i said was that the way some people handle atheism is similar to the way that some people handle religion.

I was referring to the "new atheists" not just atheists.

But it isn't similar, see my points. It seems odd to say it's not a religion and then say people follow it like a religion. I'm saying it's nothing like a religion or is in any way followed like one.

You also used the term 'evangelist' which means preaching of the gospel to others. Hitchens and Dawkins aren't preaching any gospel, they're just looking at the gospels that are preached by religions and saying that they're wrong. They don't push forward any replacement ideas apart from maybe science.

But atheism is a replacement theology! The idea of the absence of God is a replacement for the idea of the existence of God.

Say I have a belief in unicorns and that they are telling me that I should act in a certain way, as bestowed by the great unicorn many years ago.

You tell me that that's silly and I have no proof for unicorns. You criticise my beliefs, but don't replace that with a new way I should act. You just say that I should have an absence of that belief. That's very different from you telling me 'no, actually there's a great bear in the sky and he says you should act in this way!'.

As I said, atheism is a void of religious belief. That void can be filled with any sort of actions or moral beliefs that you like.

And that's why it is a replacement. Atheism doesn't seek to just change what i think about the existence of God. As a new atheist, i wouldn't continue living my life the way i do now. My lifestyle would be replaced by a new one centred around the void that you mentioned.

Yes it would be changed, but you haven't been converted to anything. You've been freed from something, but are given no set path as to how you should now live your life. Can't you see the difference between this and converting to a religion which will tell you what to wear, or where to worship, or even what to eat?

It is because religious people are a nuisance. I used to be an athiest who kept it to myself but I realised that these religious people will make a nuisance of themselves.

Just look at what happened in Iran. Stupid religious people tying their beliefs to government.

Look at Israel stupid religious people claiming some land belongs to them.

Look at the UK the tax payer is paying (12 million) for the pope to come visit. This is a man who protected paedophiles.

Look at the UK, Tony Blair pretends not to be religious throughout his premiership, he invades a muslim country and then afterwards comes out as a devout catholic.

Religion is a plague and athiesm is the cure.

To be honest I find self proclaimed atheists who insist on converting everyone to their way of thinking annoying. I dont know what I believe but the OP has got it in one. What makes you think that what you believe is any way more correct and enlightened then someone who follows a particular religion.

Oh come on. Don't play with semantics like that. "you haven't been converted, you've been freed?" Are you hearing yourself?

I would expect the same sentence coming from a religious person upon an atheist's conversion to said religion. You don't see it as a conversion because you believe that what you say is the truth.

Now you're picking at words to ignore my point.

Freedom as in no guidelines. Atheism in itself is not a guideline, heck you could still go the church if you wanted because you like the sermons or something.

What are the scripture and teachings of atheism? What general rules are applicable to atheist life? There aren't any, because atheists are not a group in the same way that religions are.

Let's look at an actual belief structure and take secular humanism as an example. If there were a particular group of humanists who said firstly that religion is wrong (so far so atheist), but that also humanism should be adopted instead of religion, then that would be more comparable to a religion.

I'm confused that you don't see the difference between negating something (atheism), or actively replacing it with something (religion).