You don't need a "sky daddy" or church to have a religion. Nonthiestic religions are still religions.

People confuse atheism with "not believing in God".. it isn't atheism if you simply replace one belief system with another one. This is why the "new atheist movement" from the early 2000s fell apart. It started off as a real atheist movement, even though it was very naive. After it picked up steam, however, it quickly became overran by brainwashed Critical Theory/Woke types, which is a form of Neo-Marxism that most of them picked up while being indoctrinated in university classes.

What is more is that Marxism is a form of Young Hegelianism. It is derived from Hegelianism much in the same what that Christianity was derived from Judaism.

Hegel, in effect, tried to create a new German folk religion to counter act what he saw as the Orientalization of German society under the influence of Christianity. In essence trying to make Germany/Prussia more German. It incorporated elements of other earlier and contemporary ideologies, like bits and pieces of Platonism, Christianity, and Alchemy.

It is a form of Historicism which presupposes that originally there was a sort of perfect form of everything that became corrupted over time. Kinda like with Plato where he believed there was a sort of perfect kingdom that existed and it became corrupted and worse over time.

And over time as human society evolves and through struggles and conflicts through a dialectical process were you have thesis contending with the antithesis which then is resolved into the synthesis that is neither thesis or antithesis, but contained elements of both that are purified by the conflict.

And in this way as society evolves the "godhead", which is more or less the collective mind of mankind, approaches closer to perfection and self awareness.

And under this model the state is the physical embodiment of this sort of will or collective consciousness. He believed that in order for society to evolve and progress you needed institutions to direct that change... which are all part of how a state functions.

Marxism is directly derived from this. Although they sought to purge all the metaphysical and spiritual elements from Hegelianism. Which, formally, is called Dialectical Materialism.

It is "materialism" because it says that what matters in society is the material reality, the economics. Not some metaphysical spirit that exists in the collective imagination of mankind.

But you see plenty of elements poking through.

To drive the point home:

The equivalent to "Garden of Eden" in Marxism s "Primitive Communism". In which every person worked for the collective good of their tribe in perfect harmony.

The Original Sin of Marxism is "Division of Labor". When you separated the thinkers (masters) from the doers (slaves) that is when people started become corrupted and economic struggle between classes began.

The Eschatology (end time theories) of Marxism is Communism. This is a utopia stage of social evolution were the state nullifies itself through the final dialectical process and humans are physically and mentally transformed into "New Man" or "Social Man" (etc) were people work together as equals with no class distinctions.

And you have moral obligations that you are required to fulfill if you want ultimate salvation of mankind. Especially in modern forms of Marxism were they have decided that there is only two possible end-states of humanity.. which is either Fascism (hell) or Communism (heaven).

All of this depends 100% on Faith.

There is no proof for any of it.

The primitive communism, the dialectical process of history, the effect/origins/resolution of class conflict, and communism is all just pure conjecture. They believe in it simply because they want to believe in it.

If you don't want to call it a "religion" because that word is too loaded or you don't like it... that is fine, but it is sure as hell a faith.