Why do believers hate atheists?

I often wonder why there is such resentment directed towards atheists by the religious (typically Christians or Muslims). And while they wont admit it, the answer is much more personal. Atheists are hated as they are, not just because we are viewed as evil or because we are hell-bound, and the religious fear for our safety. It is because the religious see atheists as a threat to their world-view.

We all have our own world-view, and we ('we' as in people in general) see those with a different world-view as being a threat to our own. While we will not live forever, our world-view can survive very long periods of time; for example, most people want loved ones to remember them so that their legacy will continue to exist beyond the grave. In a way, many of our beliefs have a life of their own (Richard Dawkins refers to it as a 'meme'). It seems all world-views have certain mechanisms to maintain their existence.

• Religious world-view has faith, hope, love, comfort, etc.
• Scientific world-view has logical thinking, rationality, open mindedness, legitimate truth, useful knowledge, etc.

The point here is that the atheist world-view is essentially a virus to the religious world-view (it attacks it from within)—also, when the scientific world-view (i.e. atheistic) is dominate, the religious world-view can attack it from within (the religious world-view is the dominate one at the moment, barely). In the struggle between religion and science there is often a mixture within an individual's world-view as well as society's (many atheists are spiritual, including myself).  While atheists do not want to admit it, religions like Christianity are a threat to atheism under the right societal conditions (e.g. high levels of fear, poverty, suffering, and general paranoia). At the moment, the societal conditions are just right for atheism to thrive, and it will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. It is hard for me to imagine what it is like to believe in a god—even though I did at one point—my world-view is radically different than a religious person's in this way (obviously). It is also hard for me to imagine the kind of world-view that is responsible for the Dark Ages. There is a lot of grey area when it comes to the struggle between the religious world-view and the scientific; but, keep in mind, there are light and dark shades of grey. Also, the religious world-view can work with the scientific world-view (and vice versa) when it is convenient.

Religion is not much of a threat to atheism at the moment because of the direction our society is moving. But as our history has shown, religion can shift the tides with the right societal conditions.  For example, the Romans were making great advances in knowledge, then BAM! Everyone becomes more religious and intellectual progress back-steps and stagnates for several centuries. The atheist world-view and the religious world-view have much struggling ahead of them, and ultimately I believe that society is too unstable to ever see a clear winner (hopefully I'm wrong). It is more possible than we would like to admit that society could fall apart in the next few centuries, and religion could make a comeback in a huge way—doesn't that sound like fun.