According to a University of Minnesota study, Americans distrust Atheists more than Muslims.
Really?
Let’s dig into the article shall we.
Penny Edgell, associate professor of Sociology writes:
From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in sharing their vision of American society. Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.
Edgell also argues that today’s atheists play the role that Catholics, Jews and communists have played in the past—they offer a symbolic moral boundary to membership in American society.
Many of the study’s respondents associated atheism with an array of moral indiscretions ranging from criminal behavior to rampant materialism and cultural elitism.
Rampant materialism huh?
Last time I checked, every small American town had a Walmart, a Target Store and a CostCo…
and its aisles sure as hell weren’t full of Atheists on Sunday.
Anyway – it’s a scary and funny read.