Before I continue I want to make a definition clear. Ignorant. It means not knowing something. For instance I am completely ignorant of how to write code for a computer. It doesn't make me stupid, it just means I don't know.
I think the main reason people have a negative idea about atheism is a basic human response to things they are not familiar with. Here is my best personal example of this. I was at a World War 2 event in Reading a few years ago and there was a rather sudden down pour of rain. Many people gathered under a pavilion. There was an older woman having trouble getting under a rope barrier, so I went out and helped her. I was wearing the shirt I got at the Reason Rally by the way. The front of the shirt is about the rally, but the back lists the groups that sponsored it, many atheist groups. So she is under the pavilion and thanking me and saying what a gentleman I am. But I turned around to make space for her to stand and she saw the back of the shirt. Her reaction was comical, you would have thought my shirt had a picture of hitler with "he had the right idea" written on it or something. She backed away from me like I was going to attack, bumping into people as she did.
It is a sad state of affairs when people have this sort of reaction. I am not a big proponent of polls because there are too many ways to skew them, wording and how the data is collated being the two biggest. But polls regularly state that atheists are one of the least trusted groups. Why is that? How many atheists does the average person know, atheists who are open about it? Not many is my guess. There is a knee jerk reaction particularly among the religious people, and people from certain geographic locations in the country. Are they taught this? Is it discussed in churches or bible studies?
I think it is simply a fear of the unknown and people perceived as being different. These very same people probably have other dislikes for other religions or cultures too. But it comes down to a belief that their religion makes them superior to others, even of others of different yet similar denominations. It is an argument of semantics really. But I believe it is a fair bit of ignorance.
The woman I helped was so happy with me at first, so gracious when I was just another "good" person. In her mind people are probably just like her. But when she found out otherwise everything flipped. This is a bad thing. Nothing good comes from this sort of xenophobic reactions. Are there bad atheists, sure. Are there bad deeply religious people, sure. There are good and bad people everywhere. Those sorts of behaviors are spread across the whole spectrum of human society. Many people fear or distrust those who are different than themselves. They are raised thinking their religion, race or whatever is who they can trust, who they can rely on, that they are righteous. And the "others" that don't share their beliefs and have their own agendas are wrong and not to be trusted. I don't know the proper terms for this, but it is a very common human response. And it is a problem.
People think the past is so much better than today, people were better, life was better, whatever. That is a load of crap.
Was society less violent 50 or 100 years ago?
Was there a better standard of living? Were people healthier?
No on all counts.
What has changed is information. Back then news was more or less regional. Big stories might make it out of a region but most news did not. If you lived in Kansas, it is unlikely you would know about a triple murder in Florida unless it was picked up in your region or you knew someone in that region. Also news was on tv for 1-2 hours per day and newspapers were usually once a day sometimes two. But today news from all over the country is flooding in because it is 24/7. And they need news to fill those minutes. So it isn't that society has become more violent really, statistics say otherwise, it is that we hear about much more from around the country. We are certainly healthier and standard of living, that is relative. So the fondness for the past is a ruse. Every generation says it was better when they were younger. It is certainly different, and changing faster all the time. But it is a matter of perception.
And perception is where I want to end this. Atheists are perceived by some as being evil, immoral or just bad people because they don't have god in their lives. Or my all time favorite, satanic. A rational thought shows this to be false, misleading and an attempt by the believer to shore up their own beliefs. If having non believers in the world is enough to shake their faith, it isn't the atheist that has the problem. There are more non judeo-chrisitans in the world, like Hindus. They live in a society much older than the west, and what about the eastern faiths like shinto and buddhism? By sheer numbers judeo-chrisitians are out numbered. Doesnt that say anything? And those populations are growing, and by all accounts christianity is shrinking.
So I guess if everything is taken into account, privileged belief, ignorance of other and non belief, and xenophobia are a real problem. When people can stop dividing themselves along arbitrary lines like religion, race, sexual orientation or political affiliation the world will be a much better place.
