"asserting knowledge of God and asserting knowledge of Not-God are both extreme" -

It is no more extreme to assert that God does not exist than to assert (apologies to believers) that leprechauns and goblins do not exist. Really. And you don't hear people in mainstream America getting snarky when someone says there are no such things as leprechauns.

I'm not trying to mock anyone's faith here. I'm just trying to make the point that for non-believers, there is no particular reason to recognize a possibility that there is a God, anymore than to recognize the possibility that there are other types of supernatural beings, or space aliens. Some people feel certain that there are no such things, and there's no reason other than tact for them not to say so.

And yes, this seems to be an issue unique to the USA and several Islamic theocracies.