Well, it is perhaps true that if we are talking gross statistics, a large number of the public has negative feelings about at least those who claim confidant allegiance to atheism, but any of those negative feelings probably at the very minimum merely mirror the feelings that the atheists have about those same large numbers of the public. Looking down on the intelligence and even from whatever vantage point the morality of worshipers is commonplace. I think certain extremely disrespectful works about believers in current popular release should suffice as support for that statement, but I could provide much more if necessary. I first gleaned these sentiments mainly from my experiences as a graduate student at Stanford, where atheism and the usual co-occurring political worldview seemed to embolden people to say things that would in other contexts seem wildly inappropriate, right to my face. I remember being asked at a party, you don’t really DO THAT, do you? and like questions to which there really is never a good answer.

And I think it tends to be the sense of exclusivity and superiority over others’ beliefs that perhaps makes candidates of certain religions also similarly suspect, ironically. It isn’t usually the fact that a candidate has a certain religion, it is whether they have one that is viewed to be exclusive in doctrine, meaning that Mormons, atheists and certain other groups, rightly or wrongly, have the reputation of feeling they are right and other people are going to some version of hell, sacred or secular. That’s why the presidential religions that tend to be popular are the wishy washy variety that don’t make strong doctrinal commitments. Presidents who don’t even attend church, like many of the recent ones, are the most popular, even though they do, to placate said masses that their beliefs are rather compatable with the average statistical American analog, give verbal homage to some belief or other.

This could be that people have a reflexive fear about the consequence of giving someone power over them whom they know thinks they are either stupid or evil. But I think the obscure religions’ similarity with atheism in the minds of the public go a bit further, but along a similar vein. I think deep down, most people feel unable to find secure source of a belief in a higher power or in its nature, or even whether they are able to rule one out in spite of doubt. Mormons, in their unique and rather confident theological commitments and atheists in their declaration that they have managed the unlikely feat of proving a negative, probably to this 90 something percent we are talking about, give rise to automatic suspicion about the source of their confidence about things that most people consider unknowable.

But in response to atheists’ supposed sense of exclusion, I would argue that if they could choose whether to be looked down upon by middle America or by the institutions they ARE secure within, such as academics and even government (after paying homage admittedly to a religion, but hey, if you aren’t violating a belief in anything else, why not be willing to do this what does it cost? very little), I think that most atheists hands down feel they have a pretty good deal. They are in with the crowds they want to be in with, and the ones they aren’t in with, well, groups at least sympathetic to atheism at least have made comfortably sure they can’t be hurt by the believers, even now to the extent that they are claiming they shouldn’t have to see crosses or phrases on coins they don’t want to see.

CA

I transcribed a response to the Documentary that was aired the friday following the Documentary air date, it includes responses from the kued journalist who did much of the commenting on “the mormons” and responses from LDS historians. Its pretty interesting, if you want a copy I can email it to ya