everyone (else) seems to be hating on atheists

[Aiza]

From the little research I've just done, it seems that the Catholic church has only recently changed its views on this. Anyways, someone should have told the priest at the eulogy of my friend who committed suicide. He basically gave a sermon about suicide sending you to hell.

Yes, it changed after suicide was expressly linked to mental illness/depression.

And thats awful! I am sorry to hear about your friend. I remember when my aunt had a stillbirth the priest gave a sermon about how "she can always have another kid". Ugh...

Did you ever stop to think that this has more to do with the social aspects of religion and less to do with any sort of mindset? It's much easier for people to adjust to society when the whole of society tends to agree with their beliefs. There are no social aspects to being an atheist.

Of course I have. In fact, I am pretty sure that is the reason: increased social aspects and opportunities means healthier social life. This also leads to a healthier mental state overall (though if you read the first link I posted in the last post, only 35-50% of the health benefits of religion are explainable via the social aspects--still a lot though, just not all of it)

There are atheist social groups (theres a local atheist societies/forums), though they spend a lot of time bashing religion as opposed to building up their own communities, probably because there's not a ton which binds atheists together to base a community on. That being said, there's no point in creating a dichotomy between atheist and religious. There are religious atheists (and irreligious secularized theists) as well. You can be a church-going atheist.