It's important to realize that atheism is a religion
Except that it isn't. Atheism is an answer to a single question, "Do you believe in god?" Yes or No. What it is not, is a claim that "god does not exist".
It is a worldview
No it isn't. Just because you wrap your entire worldview up in the trappings of your religion doesn't mean that everyone else does/
It is a matter of faith
Not if you are using the common and accepted definition of faith.
The agnostic shrugs and says, "I really have no idea about this God stuff. Have a nice day."
That's just fine and dandy except that isn't what agnosticism is.
The atheist, however, believes to the depths of his soul that God does not exist.
Well first, atheists do believe in a soul. Second Atheism, by definition does not mean you believe that "god" doesn't exist, it means you do not accepts the claims of a god or gods.
He stakes his very existence of this "fact" and makes it central to his existence.
Arrogant today, aren't you? You make the oh-so common mistake that an atheist spends all his or her time denying the existence of a god. They do not and if it were not for christians shoving the religion in our faces at every possible moment it's quite likely that many atheists would go through life without so much as a stray thought about any god.
Further more, you need to get past this fantasy you have that an atheist spends all of his or her time disbelieving in the christian god. If atheist devoted any time to disbelievings in god claims then they would never get around to anything else because there are tens of thousands of "gods" out there to not believe in, the concept is not so narrow as to be confined is the abrahamic tradition alone
He cannot really know one way or the other, but the important point is that he believes
You couldn't be more wrong. It's not that an atheist "believes" that your god does not exist, he just plain doesn't care. He doesn't accept your god claims, and since you can never pony up any evidences for yours, or anyones "god" and therefore he does not need to "believe" in it's non existence, he needs only take your deafening silence on the matter.
Our broken society currently treats his belief in the non-existence of God as somehow more "legitimate" than my belief in the existence of God.
How so? Just because you claim it is so? By all means give me one legitimate example? (No lying for jesus here)
The schools are full of the beliefs of atheists, but cannot be associated with the beliefs of churchgoers.
Name one? Name one single atheist "belief" that is mandatory in public schools? Now I'm sure you'll prattle of some shit like evolution or some other such nonsense but you would be wrong. Nor is disallowing mandatory teach/principal led prayer, or enforced/allowed proslytization an endorsement of atheism There are no atheist beliefs, what defines a person as an atheist is their lack of belief on a single unevidence claim.
The First Amendment protects him as much as it protects me
As it was intended to do.
but it does not protect him more than it protects me.
No one aside from yourself has claimed that it did.
