I think there are two issues here. First, is that beliefs inform action. Since atheism is the lack of particular class of beliefs, it's difficult-to-impossible to justify the claim that Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot committed genocide because they lacked beliefs. In all cases, they acted based on what they did believe, which had nothing to do with atheism.
I agree with you that it's wrong to lump ALL theists together, but Judaism, Christianity, Islam (and all splinter religions) believe in the same God (the god of Abraham, thus they are called the Abrahamic religions.) Furthermore, members of these religions claim that this God is the author of morality, that they can receive messages from the god, and that they are generally very motivated to serve this god (so they can gain the god's blessing and/or achieve perpetual orgasm). Given this set of beliefs, it is reasonable to expect that members of these religions should generally be well-behaved and have a consistent moral code. Of course, any way you look at it, the idea fails. The main failure seems to be that the three religions nor their various sects cannot agree on anything of substance. They've killed each-other over their religious differences ever since the beginning.
Atheists, by contrast, have no claim for a centralized moral authority--we only have our common evolutionary history, ability to empathize and reason, and our common culture, including laws. Strangely, despite our apparent lack of central authority, we've done much better than those who clam to have one.