Seeing the original question as not about atheism but about hateful atheists
and having posted about the harm and murder they can they cause, I'll add they
may misinform.
Atheism is rejection of belief in god or gods. It may involve rationalism but
not necessarily. People who don't believe in God may believe any number of other
things--astrology, prejudices about those different than them (in this case,
those of faith), etc.--and, like those of any big group, be better or worse at
getting the facts right. And those of liberal/progressive/reform faith may be
rational in keeping up with the known things God is possible beyond and under-
stand their faith as such.
One variation on atheist misinformation that may be called hateful in that it's
'centric and intolerant may arise from leaving a version of a fundamentalist lit-
eralist religion like the JWs, or even some proselytizing by popular atheists
like Dawkins, etc., is the same stance as the fundamentalist literalist. It's
the forced choice of fundamentalist literalist or nothing, even dubious editing
to suit the case.
Even college comparative religion courses teach there are orthodox, conserva-
tive, liberal, progressive, and reform versions of Abrahamic religions, and a
routine search on Google shows the same, and it's like nobody told them. Faith
may be understood as a hope for a possible God beyond the known things and it's
like nobody told the prove is/prove isn't people that, either.
The fundamentalist or nothing offer is rejected by those of other kinds of
faith. I won't support every such rebuttal regarding every issue, I'd have to
look at how it's done and decide, but basically it's appropriate and easily done.
http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/early-christian-negotiated-existence/
link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawkins%27_God:_Genes,_Memes,_and_the_Meaning_of_Life
v cofty--thanks.
