Secular authority reduces atheist distrust 1 RUNNING HEADER: SECULAR AUTHORITY REDUCES ATHEIST DISTRUST Secular Rule of Law Erodes Believers’ Political Intolerance of Atheists

Atheists are distrusted in societies with religious majorities. However, relatively little is known about the underlying reasons for this phenomenon. Previous evidence suggests that distrust of atheists is in part the result of believers thinking that being under supernatural surveillance by a watchful God underlies moral behavior. However, secular rule of law, including institutions such as police, judges, and courts are also potent sources of prosocial behavior in some parts of the world. The presence of such secular authority therefore could replace religion’s prosocial role and erode believers’ rejection of atheists. In two complementary cross-national analyses, we found support for this hypothesis: believers from countries with strong secular rule of law showed markedly reduced political intolerance of atheists compared to believers from countries with weak secular rule of law. This relationship remained strong after controlling for individual demographic characteristics and several country-level socio-economic predictors of atheist distrust such as human development, individualism, religious involvement, and distrust of people in general.