I say that freedom of religion is an engrained principle of the liberal mind. And ATRs are either valid religions or "silly superstitions" or "spirituality"--all of which is less threatening to the ruling Christian majority than a direct rejection of their god. (Not all atheists deconvert or reject exactly one higher deity, of course, but most do simply by virtue of the fact that most of the world's popular religions are monotheistic, where Hinduism counts as both mono- and polytheistic.)