I did not reply to your second point because it seemed so irrelevent, contrived and so far removed from any point I had been making that I took it to be more of a rhetorical argument than an argument that you seriously expected me to respond to. 
Okay, what you said in your second point was:
"People who convert to Christianity and are persecuted for it make the news because they did something- they engaged in a ceremony or refused prayer services.
“People who hold atheist beliefs and tell nobody do not make the news because they haven’t taken any affirmative steps to get noticed. The exact same thing would apply to someone who accepted Jesus in the Protestant fashion yet continued to live a Muslim life. The “discrimination” against him would go undocumented because there’d be no way to document it.”
Now there is an old saying that “text without context is pretext”. In the above quote, you are pretending or at least inferring that I ( idiot that I am) am calling for the US Commision’s report and the media to read the minds of atheists in Muslim countries that provide horrid and severe punishments for apostasy from Islam (of which atheism is a form) and to document the plight of those closet atheists who are essentially invisible since they pass for devout Muslims. I guess that really proves how stupid I am, does it not? :dubious:
In fact, my comments were made at a point where the discussion in the OP had broadened to include a general discussion of whether atheists are persecuted throughout the world.
My point was that much anti-atheist discrimination passes under the general title of religious intolerance, making it invisible for people like you and Mr. Moto and others on this thread who choose not to see it.
As an example, I said that Muslim countries with laws against apostasy are automatically discriminating against the rights of atheists, since a Muslim who becomes an atheist is “by definition” an apsotate. Many ex-Muslim atheists “vote with their feet” and move to western countries where the anti-atheist prejudice AND DISCRIMINATION exist but at a less deadly level. But that does not mean they are safe, especially with the growing numbers of Muslim immigrants to the west. There are several web sites of Muslim apostates abroad. Google “Muslim apostates” and read the stories of these people, and the degree to which they live in fear, even in the west: fear for themselves and for their families back home.
NOT ALL of these apostates are atheists, admittedly. Some became Christians. But as it states in the “Apostates from Islam” site:
(Emphasis mine) “Some of us have embraced other religions but most of us have simply left Islam without believing in any other religion. We believe in humanity. We believe that humans do not need to follow a religion to be good. All we need to follow is the Golden Rule. All we have to do is to treat others they way we expect to be treated. This is the essence of all the goodness. All good religious teachings stem from this eternal principle. This is the ultimate guidance humanity need. This is the Golden Rule.”
True, they do not use the word “atheist” specifically. But as we pointed out, only about 900,000 Americans self-identify as atheists but 27 million(!) identify as “no religion/secular”. No doubt these people have been brainwashed against the word “atheist” as much as people in the West. Note how pathetically they feel the urge, in the above quote, to defend themslves against the ridiculous but ever-present charge that atheists have no morality.
Sadly, many of these people live in fear of their lives, even in western countries. Read the site about the family that gets bricks thrown through its windows IN THE WEST.
An Iranian ex-Muslim who attends my humanist group once broke down in tears telling me she cannot see her family or visit her home in Iran because she is a known atheist. Her family in Iran is not atheist, but they live in constant fear and under supervision and harassment.
Frankly, I think it is unlikely that the Bush administration, where Condi Rice leads the Cabinet in prayer and where the President is in bed with the religious right, is likely to come out swinging for the world-wide rights of atheists.
