Welcome to Gaia! ::

Actually it's not. When the term atheism was originally coined, it was used by the Greeks and Romans as a term to refer to anyone who did not worship, or at least show token respect for, the Greek and Roman pantheons. The term translates as "without gods" but at the time it was less "without any belief in any gods" and more "without belief in or even respect for our gods".

You see the Greeks and Romans largely didn't mind the existence of religions outside their pantheons, they only asked that those with other religious beliefs make a show of respect towards their pantheons. Maybe participate in feasts and public celebrations, but at home do whatever, and most religions followed this because their commitment to their religion wasn't as zealous. However Christians were a different story. They refused to uphold this tradition, refused to make any sort of show of respect towards the pantheons. So the term atheist was originally used to refer to these sorts of zealots who rejected the Greek and Roman pantheons entirely to the point of not even pretending to respect their gods, and was basically synonymous with troublemaker. It was illegal to be "atheist" in Greek and Roman society not because they had a problem with people who believed in no gods, but because under their definition of atheist an atheist was basically a seditious troublemaker who spat on Greek and Roman tradition and law.