I know I'll most likely get down voted for not stoking the hate-religion flames. Ignoring the fact that evolution and religion could technically co-exist w/o controversy, I find the main issue to be the human condition, not Ignorance. The questions that plague us as a species ("Why am I here?" "Is there life after death?" "What is the purpose of all of this?") are not easy for everyone to come to terms with. As an atheist I value rationality, logic and intellect in the face of hard questions but I do not, for a second, lose respect for those who have trouble facing such an overwhelmingly scary premise. Maybe that is not respectable here but I'm not sure how we ever plan to mend the fences between believers and atheists if we continue to paint them as ignorant masses. On the other hand, I have never felt more empowered and more driven to be a positive influence in the universe since I became solidified in my non-belief. Believers not being able to conceptualize transcendent life experiences without God is something I don't get.

Problem is that a lot of the people claiming this are making big money from their claims, the "discovery" institute(ironicly named) takes in lots of money from donations, and does, well actually it doesn't do anything, it's like a money machine powered by stupidity. kent "not a doctor" hovind has a similar scam going, averaging 6 million a year and being able to support a theme park that's losing money? The problem is these people are trusted by a small percentage of religious population, this then creates a situation where lies and cheating to gain publicity earns them more money, what reason do they have to stop, religion is pretty much off limits in america, you can't critise them, and why would you? These are professional speakers we've lied to people for years over multiple topics, how much harder is it to find someone who can dispute their claims? The best biologist in the world isn't going to be able to argue cosmology, the best atrophysist can't argue the origins of life, and neither of them are likely to be good public speakers anyway. The end result is a continual spiral of stupid. You're lucky, in India knowledge is valued, you understand that raising the countries IQ raises the standard of living, shame too many people in the rest of the world can't accept that. Whenever I would hear creationists, I would always equate them with the likes of flat-earthers. I had no idea how big this issue was until my 12th grade biotechnology teacher mentioned she had gone for creationist seminars, and how disappointed she was that there are actually people in the world trying to bring this garbage into our schools. Honestly though, I'm as stumped as you are on this issue. I remember meeting a friend who was studying engineering, and is extremely intelligent as well. The weird thing is, he was a creationist! I mean, he runs around applying science to solve day to day problems, but compartmentalizes his logic based on his beliefs. I personally believe that if an intelligent person is a creationist, he is complacent about his beliefs. An intelligent person does not ignore evidence. The reason intelligent people who are non-believers that become creationists later in life still eludes me. Also, an interesting read (you've probably already read it), but I'm throwing it in here anyway - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_views_on_evolution I think there's more to it than that. I would say the main appeal of theism is to create an explanation of existence that is meaningful to people. What they really can't grasp is that life meaning is outside of scientific knowledge; science is just telling them that we come from other animals which no matter how you look at it will at least initially put a big hit in the possibility of human consciousness having any external meaning at all. Religion is their preexisting world view but it's not sticking around just because of indoctrination. Religious people can't handle the fact that there really is no blatant evident meaning or purpose of life. They must be of the "it's easier to get forgiveness than it is to get permission" belief system. Living in an extremely fundamentally religious, conservative area, I have seen this sort of thinking play out before, admittedly to a much lesser, local extent.

As best I can understand it, it goes something like this: because many of the fundamental religious folks believe they are the good guys and mean well, the laws, rules and regulations aren't really for them. Those laws, etc., are in place for everyone else who have intentions that aren't/can't possibly be quite so noble. At best, it's very naive thinking on their part. However, in my little corner of the world, the fundies are getting bolder with their "we're the good guys" vocalizations and actions, so I'm not sure it is actually naive. It's maddening and frustrating for those of us who don't hold their particular view. I sincerely hope these people are punished in some way, if only a fine or being disallowed from going to Haiti again. Altogether too often, religious groups are not held accountable in any punitive way for their wrong actions. Although raised catholic, I've been an Atheist since I was around ten years old. My religious mom and sisters have always had a strong default respect for people with religious titles (Father, Reverend, Monsignor, etc.) despite my cries of "Credentials! Credentials!". After all, different religions and/or denominations have different requirements for identical titles, so why should they all be respected equally? That argument never seemed to work. You can't argue with religious people ("because I said so" on a cosmic scale). No, I couldn't convince them without showing them. (Yes, I'm aware of the irony of using evidence to convince religious people.) So I went online and became an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church of Modesto, California. It only took a few minutes to submit, and a few days for my application to be processed and voila! Reverend Haddad. It's perfectly legal and official in the United States. It's also free and I've received no spam. This wasn't entirely enough to convince them that I was legally ordained, but my state-issued "Clergy" License Plate on my car finally did the trick. I told one of my sisters that now when I meet people, they have to call me Reverend, and she said "I would never do that because I don't believe the same things you do" (I'm paraphrasing). I replied with something like "So? You're not Jewish, but you still call a Rabbi a Rabbi don't you?" Now whenever they're introduced to a so-called holy man, I can see a little "oh yeah?" in their eyes. They still have a long way to go. OK, here's the deal: as I and others have pointed out, this doesn't really belong in the atheism section. Though there is significant overlap between the set of people that aren't religious and the set of people that are generally pro-gay on social issues, that doesn't really warrant spamming it into the atheism section. It's kind of like all the climate denialist crap that gets spewed onto the Libertarian subreddit.

TL;DR: I agree that atheism is not a belief system. Rationalism and empiricism would be the belief system most applicable to atheism. (Although they do not apply to all atheists, and are not exclusive to atheists.) They are fundamentally at odds with theism, though people will use compartmentalization to try and have it both ways. What you are saying about the "ism" part of theism is interesting linguistically, but irrelevant philosophically. There is no question that such terms were coined by people with a vested interest in legitimizing their point of view. I think you are putting the cart before the horse. Most theists - especially the early ones who lived in caves or huts, didn't give much thought to epistemology. God came first, then came the rationalizations. This is true from both a historical perspective, and an individual perspective. Parents don't teach their kids about epistemology to prepare them to learn about God. They give them cute children's books with pictures of animals in arks and a friendly looking man healing blind people. At some point the question of how they know this stuff is true comes up. Then suddenly they have a whole new theory about where knowledge comes from. They are nothing but a rationalization to help them believe what they have already decided to believe. Theism comes from indoctrination and a fear of the unknown, not deep philosophical inquiry.