10 myths about atheists that just won’t go away

9. Atheists hate the religious

To be clear, it is possible that some atheists do hate religious people, just the same as some religious people hate atheists. But as a whole, atheism itself imposes no hate on a person for what they believe and while the majority of atheists may not like religion, they have no problem with religious people in general.

This myth tends to stem from the fact that some vocal atheists take a strong stance against religion and often leave a religious person feeling as though they are being attacked because they identify so strongly with their beliefs.

Atheists, on the whole, tend to live by the idea that people should be respected, but ideas should not be unless respect for them is earned. So atheists can be critical and vocally so about religion, but this is no different than a Democrat being critical of the Republican platform. This does not mean the Democrat hates all Republicans, they just do not agree with their ideology.

Maybe to clarify it one step further, comedian and actor Ricky Gervais has said on numerous occasions that accusing an atheist of hating a religious person because they are religious is like accusing someone of hating a cancer patient because they hate cancer.