Some thoughts about atheists

[tacit]

I've been seeing an uptick lately in popular media about atheism. A lot of these things I've been seeing start with "Atheists are..." and then lay out the premise that folks who don't believe in some kind of supernatural god have all sorts of negative characteristics, whether they be fat or immoral or selfish or whatever

Comments

[pstscrpt]

If you don't believe in a god, you have no reason to behave in a good or moral way. Atheists have no reason not to murder or rape or commit other immoral acts.
I would try to stay away with the punishment angle here, because it sounds like the sort of thing a well-controlled psychopath would say. Most Protestant Christians *also* have no religious reasons not to commit murder, rape, etc., but they don't. People are mostly good on their own, not because their religion may or may not tell them to be.

Atheism is a non-belief in a god or gods.
There really aren't clearly agreed-upon definitions. Someone who strongly disbelieves is an atheist, someone who believes it's impossible to know is an agnostic, but someone who just doesn't claim to know could go in either category, depending who you ask.

Atheists think that everything in the world came from nothing.
First cause isn't a worthwhile argument for *or* against religion, but people try to use it both ways. There's something that just exists, with no prior reason. It could be the universe, God, gravity, or turtles all the way down.