Reply #172: Pardoning the obvious cliche, some of my best friends are athiests or agnostics...

[Tommy_Carcetti]

....or at least subscribe to no formal belief system.

All that said, I don't know where you are getting at when you say atheists don't have "equal rights" in this country. As far as I know, there are no actual laws currently on the book that infringe on any actual legal rights of atheists. I think if there were any attempts at passing any such law, any reasonable court would strike it immediately down. That type of thing just doesn't exist at this day and age. Atheists can vote, get married, assemble where they want to, or engage in any type of activity that the constitution protects.

With all this aside, I do sometimes wonder why the act of atheism is made out to be such a complexity, whether it is by critics of atheism or atheists themselves. As far as I can see, the concept of atheism is very simple and can be explained basically in one sentence: "I don't believe in God." Why then is there such an effort to go all out, write 300 page books on the topic, hold seminars, group sessions, etc. on such a simple concept. I never really understood that thinking.