On atheism being secular

I am somewhat of an anti-atheist. I'm not against atheist all together, but during their gathering I see people wearing T-shirts that proclaim "God does not exist" and the like. I mean how many Hindu's sport "Dharma for life mother fuckers"? No body, why do most devout atheists wear these, well, offensive tees? Do they think themselves better than the rest of the god heeding populace? Often, those shown in media are quite narrow minded in their conviction of others. This can be forgiven because the media would obviously only highlight those with the more extreme views.

Some people label atheism as being "secular". For those of you who don't know, secular means to be separate from any forms of religion. I disagree on this point because I see atheism as a "para-religion". I attach the prefix "para" to create the effect of being next to (ie. parallel or paramedic) as opposed to being against (paranormal). Atheism is its own set of beliefs about life and about god, so it is a religion. I further justify this statement, myspace lists "atheism" in one of its choices for religion when setting up a profile.

It is conceptions like this that prohibit myself from being called an atheist. So I guess I'm just stuck with Equivalent Exchange to believe in:

"Mankind cannot gain anything without first sacrificing something in exchange. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. This is the law of equivalent exchange, fundamental in alchemy." - Alphonse Elric

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