Brother, I do not doubt your sincerity for even a second. I was an atheist for most of my life and so have been where you are. God bless.
"They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart."
Whose heart has been hardened? I'll bet that you didn't say such offensive things to believers when you were an atheist. But now you feel free to say them to atheists.
What effect should that have on how atheists view such a religion or the people embracing it? Is that a good, positive, constructive message deserving respect, or self-serving bigotry?
This is one of the things I like least about religions like yours. They depict skeptics as intellectually and morally defective. The Christian Bible has many examples of atheophobic bigotry. the religion promotes itself by scapegoating unbelievers, which has marginalized and demonized atheists for millennia and made their lives more difficult and more dangerous.
And yes, I was a Christian for years, have been where you are now, and am well pleased to have become a humanist instead. I find it preferable to be able to live comfortably outside of religions.
Thanks for the scripture. I've added it to my list of biblical bigotry (number [6]):
Here are the others I had already found:
[1] "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good" - Psalm 14:1
[2] "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." - Revelation 21:8
[3]"Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?"- 2 Corinthians 6:14
[4] Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ." - 1 John 2:22
[5] "Whoever is not with me is against me" - Luke 11:23
[6] "They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity." - Ephesians 4:18-24
Altogether, these six passages from your holy book depict unbelievers as corrupt, vile, wicked, abominable, godless vessels of darkness in the service of evil, not one of which does any good, greedy to practice every kind of impurity, to be shunned, fit to be burned alive forever as enemies of a good god, and the moral equivalent of murderers and whoremongers.
If you can't see the hatred and bigotry there, substitute Christian for unbeliever. Let's rewrite a few:
- The fool believes in a god. Such people are corrupt and vile. None of them are good people.
- Believers should be grouped with the abominable, murderers, whoremongers, and liars, and deserve to be tortured forever.
- Who is the liar? The Christian.