Why do you think religious people are so obsessed with what atheists think? Why does it matter so much to them what we believe about their religion and why do they spend so much time trying to silence us when we hold no structural power? Seems controlling to me.
I think a lot of religious people are taught to have biases against atheists but they never bother to unpack any of it and when called out for their prejudice and outright dehumanization of outsiders of their religion, they get angry, defensive and pull the victim card. They love to point fingers at us and tell us how bad and broken we are and how we need to be fixed, but can’t handle evaluating their own behaviour.
A lot of them see us as a genuine threat to them and granted, there are bigoted atheists who have privilege in society, but there are also many atheists who are not and are marginalized for many other reasons on top of their atheism. I have lost count of how many times throughout my life I have heard religious people, especially christians, dehumanize and outright vilify atheists of all backgrounds because we won’t submit to their belief system. It’s either that or they strip us of our humanity, they speak to us as if we’re stupid and inferior to them and that atheism is not a valid view to have and that we’re outright missing a fundamental part of what it means to be human (we’re not missing anything of course).
