What Kind of Atheist are You?

[Red Economist]

That is fair. There is no single atheism, but it is somewhat treated differently; Liberals are secularists and therefore can separate politics from atheism and atheism is therefore a personal belief, whereas communists can't and end up with an atheist state; their views on religion/philosophy and politics are closely connected that they produce a state which resembles a theocracy-just minus the god bit.

Yes, you have two different issues. The founders of the U.S. wisely made it a point to separate religion from public policy. I don't see how Secular Humanism and Communism have any different status under this system. You may espouse Communism here as a policy apart from atheism. You're problem is that while Communism sounds good ideologically, in practice it hasn't been effective at spreading wealth equally: Its effect has been spreading poverty equally. You need to address that before worrying about religious bias.

overall, I don't try to expose Communism mainly because it's a great way to "lose friends and alienate people" so I have no hopes of getting people to agree with me simply by my being here but I'm happy to add another dimension to a discussion that people may not have thought of. I think people can gain something from that. From experience I know that contact with communist ideas does not equal a person becoming a commie; it doesn't "spread" easily as it depends on the person in the same way atheists don't become religious by being knowledgeable about religion.

Secular humanism is a philosophy which is compatible with liberalism, but Communism has a much more difficult relationship because it is collectivistic and adherence to atheism is a necessary part of the collective identity and shared values of a social organization. Dystopia is right in pointing out that it is a positive form of atheism as a world view, rather than a negative one which is single statement of personal belief. This relationship between politics and atheism may actually be a good case for saying that communism does constitute a different form of atheism, but I'm hesitant. (I'm new and don't feel like pi**ing people off just yet until I know the lay of the land).

For what it is worth, Marxist forms of Communism do not support "equality of outcome" in terms of equalizing wealth distribution. There were some Communists who had this view in the French Revolution as I recall, but it has never really gone beyond a handful of people. That kind of conception of equality is fairly closely related to religion and absolute ethics which are difficult to sustain as it is. In 1931, Stalin gave a speech in which he insisted that income inequality was a necessary part of incentivizing people to work and to increase labour productivity in the economy. This position is virtually identical with capitalists, except that 'moral incentives' are supposed to take precedence in the end when society achieves an abundance of goods; work then becomes intrinsically valued as a way of expressing creativity and individuality through art and science, etc. The Communist definition of equality is more like 'equal access' to goods and services based on common ownership based on need rather than people being excluded from it due to private ownership, but in practice the retention of money and markets in the Soviet economy meant it was unequal even in this sense.
Atheism is important in this because the duality between spiritual and material worlds makes it theoretically impossible have have the level of knowledge to develop a planned economy as there is always a 'spiritual' realm which is unknowable and beyond human control and understanding. the relationship between atheism and politics is therefore unusual in this sense.