Atheists were historically deemed untrustworthy because oaths cannot bind them

Evidence

Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 226

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• XREF: This is the trustee’s-claim that believers might trust rival gods but not atheists — the precise exclusion zone the reader needs: the fumi-e forces a public renunciation that pushes the priest into the ‘atheist’ (no supernatural monitor) category, severing the trust signal.
• DEFINE: Grounds the historical logic of why atheism was treated as a social not theological danger: covenants and oaths required a watchful god to bind promises.

Related

• Historic Christian doctrine held atheists incapable of honoring social bonds (similarity 0.85)
• Believers read explicit atheism as a public signal of untrustworthiness (similarity 0.80)
• Distrust of atheists is a distinct, poorly understood religious prejudice (similarity 0.80)
• Anti-atheist prejudice cannot be explained by xenophobia or general outgroup distrust. (similarity 0.78)
• Atheists are distrusted more than other stigmatized groups even amid rising tolerance (similarity 0.78)