Atheists can win your trust by appealing to secular authority
Everybody hates atheists. One recent study found that atheists
are trusted about as much as rapists — or maybe even less. Why
do people find atheists so untrustworthy? Maybe it's because
they don't believe there's an all-seeing judge monitoring their
actions.  Top image: Pond5/1@henrischmit  Now new research has
found that when you remind people of police, judges, courts and
other earthly, secular authorities helped reduce distrust of
atheists.  Scientists had volunteers watch a video talking about
the many successes of the Vancouver Police Department during
2010, or had them subtly reminded about the authorities with a
word game that included words such as "jury," "court," and
"police." When later asked about their opinion of atheists,
those who had experienced these reminders of a higher earthly
authority distrusted atheists less than those who had not. The
researchers will detail their findings in the May issue of the
journal Psychological Scie