Gervais et al. Do you believe in atheists? Distrust is central to anti-atheist prejudice Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:

This paper studied (mostly Christian American) individuals' attitudes to atheists. One of the most interesting results was that atheists were the least trusted group when compared to Muslims and homosexuals. One reason put forward was that the existence of atheists threatened organised religion's ability to bring people together especially in countries like the United States:

Religion appears to be a “social glue” in the world, yet the least religious countries are actually among the most cooperative and peaceful on the planet...It is important to recognize that religious prosociality (voluntary behaviour helping others) is primarily a theoretical framework for explaining the types of beliefs that can act as motivators of human cooperation in the absence of large-scale institutions for promoting prosociality. In this view, religion may have once been—and may still be, in many places—one of the only games in town in terms of bringing people together into large cooperative social groups.

This is no longer the case in large parts of the world, and societal-level existential security (as guaranteed by many modern social institutions) is a persistent predictor of reduced religious belief. This is perhaps most evident in Scandinavia, where religious belief is largely a historical curiosity, and the state provides most vital services.

Given that religious prosociality, but not secular institutions, directly implies distrust of atheists, the aforementioned finding that anti-atheist prejudice is exaggerated in strongly religious countries becomes clearer, as these countries also tend to rely the most on religion to guarantee cooperation. Freed from this constraint, people from countries that depend primarily on secular institutions do not tend to distrust atheists.

Comment 8 by huzonfurst

Israel exempts the Orthodox from military service and pays them their whole lives to sit around doing nothing but studying the Torah.

Some positive news from The Forward: In Israel, Haredi and Muslim Women Are Having Fewer Children

According to data released June 19 by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, by 2010, Haredi women were averaging one fewer baby than they were five years earlier — 6.5 instead of 7.5. The downward trend was not seen among other Jewish women, and over the same period, fertility among secular Jewish women actually increased by 0.15 children.

[L]ifestyle decisions and changes in Haredi women’s identity pale in importance compared to the most intractable problems of Haredi life — marrying children and setting up homes for them. It is widespread practice in Israel for in-laws to share these costs, and the expectation for help with housing is especially high in the Haredi sector, where many grooms expect to spend at least several years in full-time religious study.

The devaluation of the dollar (donations to fund the Haredi) and rising house prices are making it harder for the Haredi to buy apartments for their children.

Comment 10 by Phoenix*

Alternately,

You want me to alternate between these two explanations? That's going to be a challenge...

if you want your children to understand why we are here,

Something about a walking and talking snake - right? What do you mean "It's metaphorical"? Which bits are literal? How can you possibly know?

why we should treat others with love,

I'm sure that the Gileadites were expressing their love for the Ephraimites as they slaughtered them.

I'm also sure that your god was expressing his love for humanity as he drowned the vast majority of them (including children) in a global flood.

What do you mean "That's just the Old Testament. I'm talking about the New Testament"? If you ignore the Old Testament then you have to throw out the ten commandments and your creation myths.

and how suffering and death will be removed to make life everlastingly meaningful and joyful, get them to read the Bible.

Sounds like something out of last week's Cybermen episode of Dr Who (a series that has more to offer to my children than your collection of desert tribe myths).

Cristina Odone's new website ... launches on Monday.

Picture the Cobalt atoms created in the death of an ancient star, wandering in space for millennia, captured by the gravitational pull of our growing Sun, forged as part of the Earth, mined, processed, alloyed, manufactured as thin layer of magnetic particles on a hard disk platter and finally magnetised to store digital information in a hard disk in a server farm.

What information do they end up storing?

Is it part of a PDF of Charles Darwin's letter where he asks for the seeds of Solanum rostratum, a tumbleweed-forming plant that captures his interest just days before he passes away? Perhaps part of an MP3 recording of the second movement in Beethoven's 7th Symphony? Or even part of a JPEG image of a new-born baby proudly uploaded by her father to a social networking site?

None of these.

They end up storing part of a rant on a 3rd rate journalist's website about how better things were before the Enlightenment.

Pity not those atoms for they unable to feel the pain of their predicament.

Breaking news: It has been discovered that last year an intruder managed to slip undetected past the high-resolution trillion megapixel homeopathic silicon CCD security cameras installed at the Institute.

According to his blog (which he used to describe his exploits and also confirm his links to Big Pharma) the intruder spent most of one night swapping around labels on the most potent D32768 homeopathic remedies destined for hospitals around the country.

It is not known how many seriously ill patients have had to suffer needlessly as a result of getting the incorrect homeopathic treatment as a result of this criminal action. The institute has issued an immediate recall.