One of the ideas that really caught my attention here, because I'd never paid such attention to the wording, was the shunning of people who "denied God."

That phrasing IS how many religious people think of it-- and it has connotations of denying what God is trying to say (as well as whether he exists). Yet, for non-religious people... there is no one trying to 'say' anything at all. It's not as if they willfully ignore the voice-- they have no experience of the voice. Even if they've tried.

There isn't much will involved at all. You can try to nurture your faith, if you have it, but you can't 'will' yourself to believe or to stop believing.

And yet, we can be awfully harsh with people (from both sides of the discussion) about that.