The danger of religion. .

[Hovik]

Atheists killed the most! No, Christians killed the most! What about them Muslims! And those fucking pagans! Oh, look; we're almost at the centre of the Earth - keep digging!

Actually, strictly speaking without adding any meaning to the word beyond what it actually means, atheists have killed and continue to kill the most people depending on the year (sometimes religious conflict* is responsible for more deaths in a certain year, sometimes secular strife in another year).

*The US and foreign intervention is responsible for the majority of the high-casualty religious wars though. Sure the Middle East was already a powder-keg full with pent-up tension and frustration, but the US is partially responsible (the USSR was the other instigator) for igniting the fuse.

Let's make a careful distinction here. Religion is an ideology. People get killed (and kill) in the name of such ideologies.

Atheism is not an ideology; it's a stance on the existence of God or gods. One cannot kill in the name of atheism. If by some fucking happenstance the case is such that the most killers in the world have been atheists, that detail is irrelevant to and beside the point. People are motivated to kill by ideologies. If there are atheists who were motivated to kill by other ideologies, that has no connection to atheism. Atheism is simply a stance on the existence of gods, nothing more.

In short, religion has the capacity to motivate; atheism has no such capacity.