As an atheist, I don’t really understand holding reverence for holy (at least in the mind of its adherents) scripture...what matters to me vis-à-vis Christianity and Islam is how their respective believers act. While any religion can have its individual nutcases, the sort of behavior we’ve seen from Muslims in reaction to a copy of the Qu’ran being burnt 8,000 miles away seems to be inherent in Islam in a way it isn’t in Christianity.
Then there’s the small matter of how societies dominated by each of these religions treat public expressions of atheism. I suspect that freely expressing my viewpoint on religious matters wouldn’t be very good for my health in Iran, Afghanistan, or any number of other Muslim-dominated countries.
Your atheism would not be much help either. I don't want to kill you. I hope you would see the light, but it has to be of your own freewill. There's the glaring difference.
Yep.
Let's see.... You're on a staunchly conservative American forum, which means it is highly slanted in favor of belief in God (the God of the Christians and Jews, in particular), see the home-page banner. It is populated by a lot of people who feel strongly about their religious beliefs. In fact, they consider it a matter not only of Life and Death, but of Eternal Life or Death.
And the reaction to your atheism is.... pretty darn mild. A few might want to tell you about their beliefs, a few might encourage you to accept Christ as your personal Savior, a few might warn you of the peril you face, from their point of view. That's pretty much the reaction you would get on any street in America. Highly unlikely anybody would even get in your face about it (although there are a few nuts in every bunch), and you could depend on the law to support you if it came to that.
By comparison, in most Muslim-dominated countries, you could expect to be hounded, chased, beaten, lashed, and probably killed for your lack of belief in Islam. And not by a few isolated nuts -- no, it would be by the majority of people, and they would have the support of the law.
Yeah, your health would suffer elsewhere, and that's putting it mildly.