Living in the bible belt you see the prejudice against atheists firsthand. Even muslims and jews are more trusted than atheists here. The general attitude is "at least they believe in sumthin'"
The outright distrust and hatred atheists experience is one of the great overlooked sins in the USA, and we're still somehow begged to look at Christians as a persecuted class just because some dumb county clerk cunt doesn't want to do her government job or because school prayer isn't mandatory. Oh the oppression. Chill, snowflakes, you're not being forced to worship in the sewers and being fed to lions in the arena.
Pity those who think they're superior than others because of their beliefs.
Believers who follow their faith and commandments, actually know that they should not forcefeed propaganda and demean others because they are non-believers or atheists. Those who use religion to spread hate or attain a certain selfish outcome, ego sublimation, don't do that in the name of their creator, but because they have their own personal agenda.
Live and let live.
Supposing faith is a form of knowledge regarding a creator, how are the heart and intuition means of attaining said knowledge? The heart and intuition are important, sure, but to attain knowledge I've not seen anything other than reason that works with precision and reliability.
Unless you are going to argue that faith in a creator is not knowledge, in which case I would agree: it is faith.
There are those who need Faith alone, and those who need Faith and knowledge, and others, need knowledge to reach Faith. I've been reading Qu'ran lately, and it is cited that Allah's greatest believers are those who use their acumen to come his greatness.
In fact the verse to be first revealed was "Iqraa!", meaning "Read!", which puts en emphasis on the importance of knowledge:
“Read! In the Name of your Lord Who has created (all that exists). He has created man from a clot (a piece of thick coagulated blood). Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous. Who has taught (the writing) by the pen. He has taught man that which he knew notâ€
[al-‘Alaq 96:1-5]
In Islamic history, scholars and scientists always occupy a high status, and Qu'ran attests of this noble position as muslims knew this and were infused by that thirst of knowledge and thus made many important jumps in Algebra, Geodesy, Surgery, Art, Geometry, Physics, Astronomy, Architecture, Biology...etc:
“Allâh will exalt in degree those of you who believe, and those who have been granted knowledgeâ€
[al-Mujaadilah 58:11]
Quranic injunctions did have an influence on their drive.
I believe reason and the pursuit of knowledge can take you closer to the experience of Faith, and as a matter of fact, only now, after many years, scientific research is reaching conclusions that were cited in Qu'ran ages ago. Imagine a messenger who has no knowledge in embryology whatsoever, basically illeterate, never learned how to read or write, during common era, was bestowed a revelation among many revelations that suggests: