Evil Atheists?

[Darwinian]

People tend to fear that which they don't understand. For the deeply religious, be they Christian, Muslim or whatever, they cannot understand what makes a person an atheist.

It therefore follows in their mind that because we are without faith that we also have no belief in anything. We must therefore be cold and emotionless like reptiles. As they also believe the morals come directly from God and we are without God we must also be without morals.

In their world of black and white there are only two forces, good and evil. As we are without God we must therefore fall into the latter category so by default we must be evil.

They would not see the atrocities done in the name of their religion as evil, just good people perhaps misguided and being tempted by the devil. We, on the other hand, are actually on the side of the devil because we are not on the side of God.

Remember, in their minds there is an ongoing war between the forces of good (God) and evil (Satan) and if you are not with them then you must be against them.

I've come across this a few times in my life where someone tells, say, a Christian that I'm an atheist and they look puzzled and say something like "But he's such a nice person!"