Atheists can't figure out religious people. It shouldn't be that hard, religious people only believe in one more God than atheists, so they aren't all that different, while atheists only believe in one fewer God than religious people, who don't believe in a lot of other Gods, so they aren't that different either. Yet they just don't get along.
There may be new hope for understanding and dialogue. Religious Belief Systems of Persons with High Functioning Autism (HFA) finds that autistic people are more likely to be atheists than neurotypical (NT) people.
Razib Khan at Discover Blogs notes that social science data usually doesn't have much good to say about atheists anyway - disagreeable - but this may be evidence that more biologically 'rational' people lack the ability to accept the supernatural as easily, so it isn't their fault. He titles his piece "Atheism as mental deviance" to tweat his pageviews a little, since he is a proclaimed atheist. I'll link to the graph on his site so he gets some extra link juice:
There's something in there for both camps to insult each other about, and that is always good fun. Khan is also one of about five non-progressives in science media so he is worth following for that reason alone. Celebrate diversity.
