My anti-theistic perspective

[Aegon]

I doubt that ignorance and malice exhausts all possible reasons that a person might be an atheist in the absence of anti-theism.

 What other possible reason might there be? Religion is demonstrably bad in that it inspires division among people, it encourages dogma and it opposes rational thinking by its very nature. And that's only off the top of my head. All we do here all day is criticise religion. How can one do that and at the same time claim he isn't an antitheist is beyond me. An atheist that is not an antitheist - that would be the exception, not the rule. An implausible one if you ask me, once said atheist learns certain things about religion's impact in human affairs throughout history.

Now then, there are degrees of antitheism to be considered here. I might be more antitheistic than some and less than others. All that proves is more or less empathy and or ignorance on my part concerning humans and, respectively, religion's influence upon the world. 

Again I'll draw the line for you between religion and organized religion. The Catholic Church has caused a ton of war and bloodshed throughout history. Islam is currently causing a ton of war and bloodshed. But not all religion is harmful, and sometimes it is actually beneficial. I recommend you read The Way of the Human Being by Calvin Luther Martin. He examines how the religious and spiritual beliefs of the Yup'ik peoples allowed them to live in a peaceful harmony among each other and wild animals. He describes how the Yupiit identify as different animals, and how their spirit can leave their body and join the animals if they so desire.  He describes a world where the ecosystem relies on a mutual respect between man and animal, and the purity and spirituality of the natives dictated whether or not the animals would give themselves up for the peoples’ survival, etc etc. However, over the years they lost those beliefs and their society turned to shambles. The Yupiit of today are plagued with poverty, depression, sucicide, alcoholism, and high incarceration rates. The respect within the society that their religion gave them is no longer there and they are worse off because of it.

You can't sit there and tell me that all religion is bad simply because that's just not true.