Hello, Im an Atheist.

Hello. Im an Atheist, and I wanted to introduce myself.

Atheist(noun): A person who disbelieves god(s), or lacks belief in god(s).

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

Thats all. Those who call themselves atheists share a lack of belief, but we do not necessarily share anything else. There is no sacred doctrine, there are no ancient scripts to interpret and argue about, and there are no admission tests.

There are no atheist fringe groups calling for the extermination, imprisonment, or conversion of all theists, though there are, with evidenced certainty, theist groups calling for the same against nonbelievers, heretics, blasphemers, fucking cartoonists, and a list that goes on and on. There is no extreme, fundamentalist interpretation of atheism that leads to honor killings and holy crusades, and in a civilized, rational world, there can never be.

An attempt to scandalize atheism has been made which utilizes the terrible tragedy that occurred on 2/10/15, when an angry, gun owning man with a history of brandishing weapons and aggressive behavior – who happens to be an atheist – killed 3 people in a rage over a parking spot.

Immediately after this event, the father of the 2 women who were murdered claimed, without any evidence, “he knew this was a hate crime and also it was because of how they were dressed.” After this, Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, echoed suspicion of a hate crime, also without evidence. Federal and local authorities all say no evidence of hate crime, and the fed says no need to even open a case. The man’s facebook page and character witnesses also agree, the man was not threatening towards muslims or religious people in any way, and spoke of equality for all people.

End of story. Right?

The only problem is that some people arent letting the story end in this manner, and are repeating it in a way that serves a specific ideology. On top of that, the news media, being generally biased towards religion and against atheism, is also seizing upon the opportunity to try to drag atheists through the mud by using phrases to describe the man such as “atheist extremist”, and the hysteria is even extending to attacks on Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris!

We must, must, must push back against this, and we must do all that we can to publish the truth about atheism! The conservative horde must not be allowed to choose their own facts, and write their version of history!