[quote=Magic Magnum]
1. Gnosticism is definitely a role in it as far as things such as no science in schools, violence, child molesting etc. is concerned. But it's also an activity that you only see a spike in with Gnostic Theists, not Gnostic Atheists. Gnostic Atheists such as say Richard Dawkins might be seen as very cold and pessimistic people by much of the population mind you (I'm not one of them, but I'm aware that it's a common opinion about them), but are by no means responsible for such barbaric crimes.But in regards to Agnostic Theism then? Yes, they are pretty much innocent of most of the bigger crimes and accusations of religion. Unless if they start taking stances such as "You can criticize someone's religion", which is what a lot of them have been doing. They use the reasoning that "Most of us aren't murderers, so stop attacking people for their religion and allow religious freedom with criticism" which is a fine idea in theory. But it comes with three main problems:
a) Those Gnostic's are doing it largely because of religion. So by expecting people to stop criticizing the religion they essentially give such extremists a shield/scapegoat. All they need to do is go "We kill these child in the name of God!", and now that they're pulling the religion card they become untouchable and a direct result of the actions done by Agnostic Theists.
b) It makes it so believing something without any evidence is now acceptable. It is essentially no different than someone going "I believe we are all created by a floating teapot owned by a Spaghetti Monster and was born from a virgin invisible pink unicorn" and legally no one would be allowed to step up and say "I find that wrong, and the idea rather silly", which leads me to the third point:
c) It removes freedom of speech/criticism. As soon as you make anything immune to criticism, freedom of speech is lost. Ideas and practices are allowed to spread unchallenged, and the results of such can be disastrous. And I will note, science and atheism is not immune to criticism. It is allowed to critique, questioning, doubt etc. In fact in regards to science students are encouraged to question and doubt things, and to go out and seek more answers and evidence.
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Richard Dawkins is a bit of a milder example of what I'm talking about when I say that Atheists (of a certain stripe, namely those that believe religion is harmful outside of just being incorrect) tend to fall into the same traps as Religious "Fundamentalists" (technically not a correct usage of the term. But religious extremists of varying levels of aggressiveness). He's not the Atheist Westburo (He has yet to picket a funeral, for example), though he comes pretty close to what they would sound like in theory.