this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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Atheism is way too nebulous a concept to be its own driver of atrocious conduct so the latter is straight up not a thing, and it doesn't need to be. Crimes committed by people in the name of ideologies which explicitly reject religion (something something "religion is the opium of the masses") are equally potent in refuting the idea that atheists are more moral than religious people. Otherwise, most hate crimes in America are not, in fact, explicitly committed in the name of Christianity; race is by far the most common motivator.
No, it's not.
Atheism is simply the disbelief in a god.
Most hate crimes are done by conservatives, who happen to be overwhelmingly religious.
Yes, and? That's simply not enough belief to fuel a hate crime, or really anything good or bad. That atheism isn't the explicit and sole motivation of most hate crimes is nothing more than a consequence of the fact that atheism isn't the explicit and sole motivation of any radical action.
Are they?
Most conservatives are religious, but some back of the napkin math tells me you're looking at about 33% of Democrats and 20% of Republicans being religiously unaffiliated, so while this is a significant difference it's not as big as you imply; the majority of both parties is religious because the majority of Americans are religious. The only two groups I'd describe as overwhelmingly conservative here are white evangelicals and Mormons; everyone else is either more even or straight up Democratic-leaning.
Your link basically proved me right.
The exceptions being Jewish and Muslim.
Uh... did you see the rest of my comment? Again, about 66% of Democrats are religious too, so your point only holds in the sense that both parties have religious majorities. "The majority of conservatives are religious" makes only slightly more sense than "the majority of criminals are right-handed".
Uh... no? You have black Protestants and Hispanic Catholics too, with Hispanic Protestants being evenly distributed. As soon as you start correcting for race, the "religious people are bad" hypothesis loses credibility fast. Whatever is poisoning religious communities in America is clearly race-based, rather than religion-based.
It's the religious right doing the bulk of the hate criming. The left tend to have more empathy and compassion, and tend to embody more humanistic views.
Conservative religious people tend to be more selfish, egotistical, and less emphatic.