It looks like Americans would rather you believe in a god or gods they don’t believe in than have you believe in no god at all. Atheists identified as America’s most distrusted minority, according to new U of M study : News Releases: UMNnews: U of M..
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.
Since we don’t do such a good job with religious and racial diversity now, I can’t imagine what would happen if the 3% of America that is atheist grows or becomes more publicly visible.
This also seems strange to me since so many Americans do not go to church or actively participate in a religion. I can’t imagine that an athesist lives a life that’s very different than a non practicing Christian. I doubt they even that they have widely different values.