Reply #79: Atheists are very scary to some theists.

[Taxloss]

They demonstrate that people can live ethical lives without the fear of punishment for transgression. I do not believe in Hell, I do not recognise the concept of sin, but I don't have a stack of skulls in my living room and I give up my seat for elderly people on the Tube. That is terrifying to some theists. It kicks away the whole basis of their imagined "morality", because the notion that some people can be good without believing in Hell suggests, on a subliminal level, that the efforts that they make to be "good" according to the doctrine of their church will not result in Heaven. They know, deep down, that if it wasn't for their God watching them they'd feel lost, or they'd kill their ex-wife, or they would happily bend over for the guy who changes the water cooler at their office, and the fact that people live their lives without that sanction is a direct affront. It is, frankly, an inferiority complex.