[nathan_long]

> There's nothing about being an atheist that promotes hatred. There isn't a holy text for Atheism that tells people to believe or do things.

On the other hand, there is nothing in atheism that can possibly say that anything is wrong. If the material universe is all that exists, humans are fundamentally no different from mosquitos or rocks. Killing a handicapped person because they inconvenience you cannot be seen as essentially worse than burning a leaf. In short, atheism provides no reason to do or not do anything other than "because I want to".

By contrast, if someone claiming to be a Christian wants to commit murder, they can only do so in opposition to the explicit commands and teachings of Jesus and of the moral laws they claim to believe.

By no means does this imply that "Christians" will always behave better than atheists. But at least there is ground for defining what it means to behave "better" and to argue for such behavior.