are you disputing that the Bolsheviks/Communists were atheists? Or are you disputing that the atheist Bolsheviks/Communists killed millions of people?
as usual theists just can follow the ideas closely in this case as they are so desperate to blame people and give religion a pass.
Obviously the bolsheviks were communists and atheists. the important point is that there isn't a link between atheism and being a mass murderer. Bolsheviks didn't and couldn't justify killing based on atheism, since atheism says nothing about morals. Atheism neither forbids nor promotes mass murder.
Religion has been used to justify endless violence.
I do think the comparison of belief in God to belief in fairies, is used by many as a 'put down' which is intended to offend. Whether people take offense is a different matter.
It's meant both as an offense and to make a point (often, a very good way to make a point). What is the difference exactly between fairies and God? When a spirit is beside you, what experiment can you perform to first of all detect it, and second distinguish between a fairy and God. This, actually, is an example of where atheists are perceived to be rude and offensive, but the main reason for this is that religious people simply have no reply to this rather simple question. It is a condescending point, but what's the answer?
All this talk of spirits really makes me think of the word woo. You see this a lot in new age stuff (I particularly can't stand the completely meaningless use of the word "energy" in these contexts). Sorry, I just can't engage with it too much.
and relevant because you have to wonder whether secularists in other places are as embarrassed as they must be in Britain at the offensiveness displayed by so many atheists.
You are welcome to commission a survey. I highly doubt your survey will bear the results you think it will. Of course there are a lot of vocal atheists now who say a lot of outrageous things, many of whom I disagree. We aren't one person. The only things that binds us together is atheism, and possibly humanism, and those things are rather easy to defend.
Secularism might not have got off the ground at all in the US if it had been associated with the gobsmacking intolerance and the views on religion and people with a religious belief that have been posted here.
baseless speculation.
"militant atheism" is a term like islamophobia - just meant to silence. Besides rudeness, which I conceded is not unlikely in these debates (on both sides I might add), what exactly do the militant atheists want that's so offensive? All I want is religious privilege to be rescinded, and I am in fact ready to defend religious expression of individuals at every turn.