The Carpetbagger Report: Blog Archive: The last taboo
I do not equate "not professing a particular affirmative belief" with "professing a non-affirmative belief" in god nor do I care enough to claim myself an "atheist" but I don't think that the religious segment of this country makes any distinction between the various kinds of non-theists so it does not matter. They don't care what you believe unless it isn't what they believe. [I consider myself part of the general "non-theist" category and most aligned with Humanism]
The general distaste of atheists is not very surprising given the amount of so-called "christian" religions that make belief in Jesus a prerequisite for avoiding eternal damnation (not doing good deeds or anything--just simply being coerced into believing in Jesus is all you need).
This reminds me of the exchange in Carl Sagan's excellent book Contact where Jodi Foster's character, who was a scientist and a nontheist, was demonized by the religious segment as not being able to represent this country's values. All the more troubling when nontheists often have less contradictory and more consistent and humanistic values than the religious stalwarts. Just because those values are not rooted in a belief in the supernatural they are cast aside as having less worth.
People still make brash generalizations about people through superficial categorizations rather than fully try to understand others. Not much different from any other prejudice. Ignorance reigns supreme.
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