I suspect the reason tolerance of disagreement is so much higher when atheists are running things is because atheists tend to have good reasons for their beliefs and so have the confidence to subject them to close scrutiny, something a lot of religious people seem to lack.

"This sort of reminds me of the theists' quip that under atheism the world / humankind has no ultimate purpose or meaning. To which I ask, 'So what is the ultimate purpose with God?'"

I once brought up a similar question to a Christian I went to college with: he claimed that without a "god" their would be no standard of "good" and thus all values would disappear - and I asked him by what standard would the "goodness" of a "god" be measured. He claimed that "god" is "good," but I persisted in asking what it was that made his "god" "good." By the time it was all over, he admitted that "god" would have to consider itself "good" in order to be "good" - essentially admitting that "goodness" is just a matter of fiat.

In short, even if there was something called "god" there still wouldn't be any objective "goodness" or "meaning" as this "god" would have to define its own concepts of these things into existence - thus they would be conceived from its own subjective point of view and no more reliable than any concepts of "goodness" or "meaning" we can make all on our own.

[From Wikipedia:] "Philosopher Blaise Pascal claimed that without God, people would only be able to create obstacles and overcome them in an attempt to escape boredom. These token victories would ultimately become meaningless, since people would eventually die, and this was good enough reason not to become an atheist." I see exactly the same "problem" of ultimate boredom under theism.

I could go on and on, but I think I have made it clear. These people don't really believe in freedom and liberty, they believe in servitude and their master has all the trappings of a Stalinist dictator or a plantation slave owner.

When I was in school, another student said she would have been willing to vote Reagan Dictator For Life. And I think she was serious.

I know Ebon has a link to Slacktivist on the sight somewhere. If you're curious, he's doing a "Left Behind Friday" series where he shreds--I mean, critiques--the book almost page by page. Worth checking out.

I read the first two parts of the series ("Left Behind" and "Tribulation Force") and I can tell you that there's nothing in there worth reading: just 2-D characters, a predictible "plot" and a complete lack of imagination - avoid these books like the plague.