everyone (else) seems to be hating on atheists

[Creed of Heresy]

Oh, hey, Aiza, I remember you said you never found a single atheist who was killed by the Catholic church and that therefore there was no dscrimination.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz_%...y%C5%84ski

Found a guy for ya.

Łyszczyński was reading a book by Henry Aldsted entitled Theologia Naturalis, which attempted to prove the existence of divinity. But the arguments were so confused that Łyszczyński was able to infer contradictions. In ridicule of Aldsted, Łyszczyński wrote in the margins of the book the words "ergo non est Deus" ("therefore God does not exist").

This was discovered by one of Łyszczyński's debtors, Jan Kazimierz Brzoska, who was the nuncio of Brest in Poland or a Stolnik of Bracławice or Łowczy of Brześć. Brest, reluctant to return a great sum of money lent by Łyszczyński, accused Łyszczyński of being an atheist and gave as evidence the aforementioned work to Witwicki, bishop of Posnania. Brzoska also stole and delivered to the court a handwritten copy of De non existentia Dei, which was the first Polish philosophical treatise presenting reality from an atheistic perspective, developed by Łyszczyński from 1674 onwards.[5] Witwicki along with Załuski, bishop of Kiev, took up this case with a zeal. The King attempted to help Łyszczyński by ordering that he should be judged at Vilna, but this could not save Łyszczyński from the clergy. Łyszczyński's first privilege of a Polish noble, that he could not be imprisoned before his condemnation, was violated. Łyszczyński's affair was brought before the diet of 1689 where he was accused of having denied the existence of God and having blasphemed against the Virgin Mary and the saints. He was condemned to death for atheism. The sentence was undertaken before noon at the Old Town Market in Warsaw, where his tongue was pulled out followed by a beheading.[3] After that, his corpse was transported beyond the city borders and cremated.

So this definitely seems a bit damning that being an atheist was a death sentence with the church, given that his atheism was pretty much the reason for his execution.

and the ever so loving catholic church really had a very humane way of killing him, too:

After recantation the culprit was conducted to the scaffold, where the executioner tore with a burning iron the tongue and the mouth, with which he had been cruel against God; after which his hands, the instruments of the abominable production, were burnt at a slow fire, the sacrilegious paper was thrown into the flames; finally himself, that monster of his century, this deicide was thrown into the expiatory flames; expiatory if such a crime may be atoned for.

So, Aiza, yes. Yes indeed. Atheism, as we know it in modern times, WAS punishable by the church with a horrible, slow, excruciating death after a "recantation" had been made, likely via other forms of torture. All your arguments about atheists not being persecuted by the catholic church and atheism in general not being considered a crime by the church are now void, invalid, and unfounded. You should've looked a little harder.