I seem to run into a lot of people that claim they are atheists, but when you listen to what they are saying you find that they are not atheists, they are anti-theists. Now according to them, anti-theism is just a more activist version of atheism. This post to to hightlight why this is not true and try to explain why so many anti-theists want so badly to be classified as atheists.
The best way to describe this is a little story. A theist walks up to an atheist and says "I believe I can fly". The atheist (rightfully so) responds with "Show me some evidence". After much arguing and no demonstration of this ability, the atheist says "I don't believe you can fly". When this story is replayed between a theist and an anti-theist. The only difference is the anti-theist says "I believe you cannot fly". The anti-theist also generally goes on make comments describing how the theist is lying and how they are such a low life for making such claims.
Where the atheists simply says "I don't believe you" the anti-theist actively asserts that they not only don't believe the theists but that the theist is wrong for making the claims they make. Both are rightfully using the lack of evidence as justification of their position. However the anti-theist is taking it one step further and applying some kind of moral judgement on the theists.
This gets at the heart of the difference between atheists and anti-theists. To a hard core atheist, there is no such thing as absolute good or evil. Those concepts are nothing more than expressions of people's likes and dislikes. To attempt to make them into something more than just personal opinions, is to do nothing more than raise one person's feelings of likes and dislikes to a level that is more important than other people's feelings. This of course has the effect of downgrading someone else's feelings to point where they can be disregarded.
For an atheist, NOBODY'S feeling are more important than anybody elses. There is no scale where somebody's feelings can be ranked as more virtuous than another's. In fact, the act of blessing some people's feelings and supressing someone else's feelings is generally the cause of most of the inflicted harm that is perpetrated on people every day.
However, the anti-theist look at this entirely different. They generally feel that theism has caused some kind of problem that they don't like and now feel justified to mock and insult the theists. The most militant of the anti-theists will actually advocate penalizing the theists.
This can only be described as a kind of mental disease. The theists are wrong because they want to force their beliefs on others, but somehow the anti-thists are right because they want to force their beliefs on others. The theists are wrong for pushing their moral agenda, but the anti-theists are right because they are pushing their moral agenda.
An atheists sits back and says, "While it's not possible for both sides to be right about the existance of a god. The other possible answer is that BOTH sides are wrong". Unless you are an idiot and have not kept up with the advance in mathematics during the 20th century, you would know that there are situations where it is simply impossible to make a decision about which is the right answer.
So while there may be some truth to one or the other answer to the question of a god's existance, it is entirely possible that this is just one of those situations where it is not possible to choose. In other words there may be some ultimate truth, but no human can EVER know the answer. Therefore choosing to be on the side of believing a god exists or believing a god doesn't exist, is simply wrong on an fundamentally trivial basis.
If you pay attention, you will find that most anti-theists where at one time theists and "deconverted" as they call it to their anti-theism position. This is actually a very interesting point. The hard core theists attempts to push their moral position on others while the hard core anti-theists do the same thing. They both follow the unethical position that they are right and the rest of the world should be forced to follow their kind of thinking.
Both positions are in sharp contrast to an atheist's position that NOBODY should be forced to believe or disbelieve anything. Every person has the right to make up their own mind, and there is nothing wrong with choosing any possible alternative. The only thing that could possible be a universally disliked thing is when someone else tries to force you to believe something you don't accept. Or worse, when someone advocates penalizing someone for their bad thinking.
If you want a demonstration of the difference between an atheist and an anti-theist, make the following statement: "Atheism is just another religion". An atheist will respond with sure why not, there is nothing wrong with religions. An anti-theists on the other had will take great offense at that statement. The anti-theists are so wrapped up in the ideal of how evil religion is and how wrong the theists are that they think it's an insult to claim such a blasphemy.
The anti-theists just like the theists, seem to be so unsure of their position that even the slightest hint that they may be wrong is unacceptable. An atheist on the other hand makes no moral judgement about a person based on their beliefs. For an atheist a preditor is not evil for killing Bambee, it's just feeding.
When the theists or anti-theists feel attacked they seem to identify with Bambee and consider the preditor is some kind of evil thing. The atheist simply accepts them for what they are and defends themself. No need to go out and hnut down those evil preditors and eradicate them or change them into something else. All you need to do is protect yourself from them and the stupid people who don't, simply choose to be the preditor's next meal.
I suspect that most anti-theists at some level understand how closely they are related to the theists they hate so much. They have a real fear of the same thing being in them that they see in those evil theists. Because of this they want to classify themselves are atheists (without god) to make themselves feel more confortable with what they are esposing.
However, if you think there is something wrong with theists, atheists, or anti-theists you are NOT an atheist. You are just a religious kook that is trying to use your personal view of religion to justify some crappy treatment of somebody you don't like.
Why don't you stop hating them for what they believe and hate them for being douche bags reguardless of what they believe. Don't people get that atheism is without the existance or non-existance of a god. It's simply without a god. If your running around talking about how bad people are because of their belief in a god, you are most definitely WITH a god. Just one you don't like.
