In my opinion:
"Hate" is a symptom, the cause is fear, anxiety, and/or frustration.

They fear loss of control. They fear being a fool. Most of all for those who believed all their lives is the loss of the ultimate reward for being a "good Christian". And, there is an underlying fear that they gave control of their lives, their time, finances, and potential lifestyle over to opportunists. They fear that what they sacrificed in their own lives was for nothing.

Atheism means they lose everything that gave them purpose, meaning, and hope.

That is a lot of fear which in turn promotes anxiety and frustration. Anger, hatred, and violence is the outlet most commonly used to protect what they fear losing.

@Betty I like your analysis, and I thank you for it.

Not as much as they hate other religions and the closer they are the more vehemently they hate. Sunnis hate Shiites. Catholics hate protestants, Ffs there's a cave in Scotland where over 200 Babtist men, women and children were burned to death by Presbertians.

One atheist YouTuber (John David Wellman, I think) opined that Christian apologetics is more about retention than outreach. I think he's right.

"It’s like you are brainwashing yourself everyday." Yes, this so apt. I became a Baha'i when I 24, then went about brainwashing myself into my new faith.

@Scribbler A sign that they are on the retreat!

Banning religion probably wouldn't work; needs to die a natural death.

Agreed. If we're not going to consider fairies, why consider gods?

Wow!!!

Me Bad, left out fairies!!!

Did not mean to insult our fairy brothen!!!

What?

And yet we keep getting accused of hating their god. I think they find non-belief to be a difficult concept.

Good question. Some people think it's real. Go figure.

@Scribbler Those people do not think, they merely imagine. In my experience, they are all incapable of thinking.

@anglophone Or afraid of thinking.

@Scribbler Cynical me: "God did it, because science hurts my brain.".

And so why consider gods to be different? Because they are no different.

@Scribbler Nobody has ever produced any falsifiable evidence to support the existence claim of any god, so as @Betty says, "Can't hate a fantasy".

I like this answer.

Fuck number 1!

@Buck thank you for your comment .I used to think like that but will it rid us from religion?

Coincidentally I used to think like you. I was EXTREMELY empathetic and even sympathetic towards all religions.
Then 2016 rolled around and my gracefulness was rewarded with an orange fascist authoritarian shit stain.
So again I say, fuck number one. I already tried that route.‍

As far as I’m concerned all these bigoted intolerant hateful fucks can’t drop dead fast enough.

I'll most skip #1, and usually speak of god-belief rather than gods. And yes, always science, though most theists don't care all of that much.

@Buck You have not answered my question "but will it rid us from religion?"

I could care less if it does….

One things for certain, appeasing the nut bags hasn’t done anything but reinforce their fucked up delusions, so I won’t be contributing to their delusions any longer.

If you have an issue with my antitheism, please go ahead and click on that little “block” button and save me the time!

@Buck I care.

@Buck But I enjoy talking with you on the forum!. What then?

Makes me want to ask them, "Why do you hate Santa Claus?"

@JonnaBononna Might as well ….for all the sense you’ll get as a reply!

@JonnaBononna They do not like competition.

@Mcflewster We know that their’s is a vengeful, jealous god!

@Marionville Sorry and with respect, you are still talking as if he exists. Yes we have to [provided you want to] eliminate all traces of these vengeful god(s) from everyone's mind where he is a train of remembered images and tales not worked out or researched by themselves.

@Mcflewster This whole thread is nonsensical…the whole post is nonsensical. I stated that clearly in my initial response which details my position on this whole topic. The reply I made to your intervention was made on the assumption that you understood that this whole post is arrant nonsense as far as I’m concerned, and it was merely a flippant throwaway remark I was throwing in by way of some light relief!

@Marionville I do tend to agree with you but we still have these people who insist on only mentioning god so many times while they tell people they are silly. They are usually proud of being an atheist [nothing wrong with that] and want to show the only definition of atheism they know. I would much rather they said something positive about Humanism or some other philosophy. Calling someone silly is not going to make Christians change their thoughts or give positive feedback on atheism and humanism. I did skip over what you mentioned - I was in too much of a hurry to get out things that MIGHT work better. Sorry. Agnosticism is still the best position to be in during discussion, for the moment at least.

@Mcflewster Sorry, but Atheism is not Humanism, and has no position on anything other than the god proposition.

@Scribbler Humanism may not be Atheism. Atheists, even Theists can be Humanists.

@barjoe,@Scribbler. Can I suggest that you try saying that on the sister site to this one run by the AHA? www.humanism.com. All true Humanists KNOW they are atheists, its just that we have something else to say about beliefs in addition to not believing in god. An exception might be if you call yourself a Humanist Christian or a Humanist Jew. Yes they do exist but they are pretty well into confused thinking

@Mcflewster Okay. I'll go along with that. The humanist site is a mirror site to this. Content is identical if I'm not mistaken.

@Mcflewster Even all atheists are humanist (I'm a humanist), athiesm still has no position on anything other than the god proposition.

@barjoe But, and this is important, it is not the same site and well done to the AHA for giving us a choice. I am not here for religious reasons in any way, except to get rid of religion. I am here for strategic reasons because it is a better position for defence and attack !

@Scribbler I have been saying this for a long time , As Atheism is a generally an unpopular word this has not been doing the fight against religion any favors. I'm not saying it should never be used, rather that it is OK in the right limited context. There is a lot more to Atheists than atheism but for some of them , they need also not to abandon atheism but additionally move on. Sometimes they are actually preserving or prolonging the idea of god.

@Mcflewster I see your point, and struggle with this for the reasons you've stated, but skeptic or humanist seems to leave believers thinking that they have a chance (which probably shouldn't bother me, come to think of it). I personally prefer anti-theist. Besides, this meme is poking fun at the idiots who don't understand the meanings of words and say stupid shit like "atheists hate god" "atheism is a religion" and the like. What do you most often use?

@Scribbler Sorry to go on about yet another pet definition of words.[ I was a science teacher not an English teacher] Definitions are far more important in science. I would prefer to say about defining a religion that religions are defined by their OWN agreed (but do vary)tenets and essential tenets (beliefs you hold and take ownership of) . It is no good defining religion from afar . We are not in the religion and we are not Bishops who generally make the rules. Although the principle of tenets does apply to skeptics, atheists and other fractions of our movement, I for one am not sure how widely and across which boundaries these tenets spread. So I would like to vote against Atheism being called a religion (YET). We do have many other principles that we are fighting for like Human Rights and these should be tackled without confusing people about whether they are in a religion or not.

@Mcflewster Yes, religions define themselves; as a former believer, I can confirm this, but atheism could never be a religion and rightly be called "atheism." Atheism, as the negation of god-belief, is the opposite of religion. Which is why we are so roundly hated, despite our small numbers; we threaten everything that matters to them, the clergy being the foremost of these.

I don't know why some believers like to call atheism a religion; it's as if they know that that there is something wrong with religion.

@Scribbler " I don't know why some believers like to call atheism a religion;" I think it goes back to childhood.... "I want the toy that you have!"

At last we are reaching agreement . "Twin vectors" as ELON would say.

I was looking at a prospective investment rental property last week. The current owner was incapable of speaking a sentence without it being preceded or followed by a “God bless”. At first I was quick to judge his over use of the phrase, then it occurred to me how many F bombs I can drop in a single sentence on a good day and thought I best not judge…..

@Fernapple A fascinating definition.

@Mcflewster Thank you. The God lie may have other uses, but I have noticed that perhaps its most common is as a debate blocker and concealer of holes in evidence and arguments. You want to get to the next bit because you don't have evidence or reasonable argument, drop god in to fill the gap, he is not only a thing which hides in gaps, ( The god of the gaps. ) but also a gap filler.