TOP FIVE MOST ANNOYING THINGS ABOUT ATHEISTS:
#5 - TOO ARGUMENTIVE: Acting as if every personal statement is a scientific proposal which requires a body of evidence to back it up. If you tell me that you had a ham sandwich today, I don't ask to see proof. Yet for some reason, whenever someone says the believe in something supernatural, even if it's just making conversation, the atheists expect the person making the claim to have provided some irrefutable scientific evidence, otherwise, the claim should not have been made. I could understand if someone entered into a philosophical debate arguing for the existence of a god, but 99% of the time, a person who mentions belief in a god isn't trying to make any type of logical argument, any more than if they'd said "looks like rain," "she's very pretty," "chocolate is my favorite," "I'm going fishing tomorrow," or "I love you." Not every person who makes a statement expects to be cross-examined.
#4 - SELF-IMPORTANT: Taking credit for scientific achievements. If you are a scientist, and have studied the mathematics of cosmology, are an expert in particle physics, have taken measurements in cosmic background radiation, have personally dug up and radio-carbon-dated fossils, made in-depth anthropological studies and cross-referenced the human genome, etc., then you are a more intelligent person than I am, and you deserve credit for your high level of knowledge. If you just blindly accept the findings of other, more knowledgeable people, then that's all well and good, but do NOT expect me to give you any credit for being "smart enough" to figure out the big bang or evolution that the "dumb" creationists can't figure out! The fact is, you probably wouldn't have figured out that the earth was round if somebody hadn't explained it to you. Another thing along the same category, is that very often I'll point out some logical fallacy put out by a fairly uneducated atheist, and some other, more educated atheist will interpret this a criticism of ALL atheists, including the highly intelligent ones. It's not. The fact that SOME atheists are really smart, doesn't alter the fact that SOME OTHERS of them are really fucking stupid.
#3 - THE BLAME GAME: Blaming religion for everything. Every atheist I've ever met has a mile-long laundry list of evil things that have happened in the world in the name of some religion. Of course, as soon as someone asks what about the good things done in the name of religion, the default counterpoint is always, "people who do good in the name of religion would have done just as much good without religion." I agree. So then why is it so unthinkable that all of the EVIL things done in the name of religion would have been exactly the same without religion? Also, they seem to conveniently forget that most of the world's most brutal communist dictators were also atheist. Apparently, every evil atheist is the "exception" to the rule of atheists being good, but every good religious person is the "exception" to the rule of religious people being evil. The double-standard just makes it way too easy.
#2 - DOUCHEBAGS: Being incredibly rude. It's part of our cultural mythology that religious people are always "pushing" their religion on everyone else, and non-religious people never do this. Of course, this is only a myth. In fact, only once in my life did someone try to convince me that there was a god, and both times, only briefly and very politely. This is INCLUDING three occurrences of a Jehovah's Witness stopping by my door for a minute or two, being very polite, and not really trying to "convert" me so much as make themselves available should I require them, AND many years of going to a Catholic school, in which religious instruction seemed to be based around "we believe," as opposed to "you should believe." However, in the case of people trying to convince me that there is NOT a god, I honestly cannot count the number of times that some atheist has shifted the conversation toward the nonexistence of gods, gone onto a lengthy rhetoric explaining why there is not a god, and being generally dickish toward anyone who disagrees, whether the disagreeing party is present or not.
#1 - FALSE DICHOTOMY: Assuming that Fundamentalist Christianity is the only religion in existence. I have heard the nonexistence of "god" argued a thousand different ways, all based on a literal interpretation of Christian scripture. Hindu, Pagan, Buddhist, Shinto or Aboriginal gods are just dismissed as if they were never being seriously considered by anyone in the first place. Furthermore, the majority of Christians who take the Bible metaphorically, are often regarded as some sort of fence-sitting fringe group, while the minority who take every word literally (and are, by the way, a very recent cultural development in comparison with the non-literalists) are looked at as if they were the default setting for all religions. To talk to these people, you would think that everyone was raised to believe every word of the Christian Bible literally, and we've now divided into those who have grown out of this nonsense (throwing out ALL of religion, as opposed to just the parts that didn't work), and those who have not (i.e. the willfully ignorant).
