Flutterby™! : atheism

crasch had a link to Volokh thread on hostility to atheism in the United States:

This strikes me as quite troubling — 50% of Americans have an unfavorable view of people whose great sin, as best I can tell, is that they refuse to take on faith what others are willing to take on faith. I'm pleased that hostility to Jews and Catholics seems to be much less than what it used to be in the past. I hope the same will soon happen as to Muslim Americans and Evangelical Christians; that one may disagree with some Evangelical Christians' political agenda, for instance, is surely no reason to view them unfavorably as people (just as one's disagreement with most American Jews' liberalism is no reason for viewing them unfavorably). Yet the high level of disapproval of atheists should make us worry about American religious harmony and tolerance more broadly.

I don't necessarily want to re-stir the "religion is good/bad" discussion of my Belief vs Theory musings, but I do find it telling that a difficulty to accept statements without proof or disprovability arouses that much ire in the general populace and makes, for instance, one ineligible for public office in the eyes of most.