Religion means believing in GOD,making hope "one day we will get free from such disaster situation".atheists are necessarily irreligious, but that’s not true they think different they don't need hope ,they just want to live their life they haven't tried faith on god OR tried but lose soon.
It is natural for people to hope for something. I guess that would be equal to believing in something, i.e. taking something as granted without second thought. Not believing requires an expenditure of mental effort which would make life unbearable and miserable if practiced in earnest, i.e. making it into a lifetime credo...
But that would still be founded on a belief of sorts