A new book by Bernard Schweizer explores this idea. Those who hate God–Schweizer uses the term misotheist–are not atheists. They believe in God, but the God they believe in “is malevolent or at least incompetent, indifferent—in any case not worshipful.” Among this group Schweizer includes biblical figures like Job’s wife, who counseled him to “curse God and die;” William Blake, and Mark Twain. Schweizer goes into greater depth here.

A review on Christianity Today by Jake Meador prompted this rejoinder from Schweizer.

Not having read Schweizer’s book, it’s not clear to me precisely what his argument is. However, it does seem to me that there is a qualitative difference between an atheist and someone whose antipathy to religion or Christianity, or God is rooted in a fundamental sense of a breech of relationship. I’ve encountered any number of people over the years who have lost their faith, but remain deeply engaged with Christianity (or Judaism, for that matter), who expend enormous amounts of intellectual, emotional, and spiritual energy in their efforts to extricate themselves from faith. In other words, like Job’s wife, they curse God, and want to die. The atheists, new or old, seem to be of a different sort. Their intellectual energy continues to be engaged in the project, but on some level, there is no longer any spiritual, or emotional energy engaged. Perhaps I’m splitting hairs here, but it has always seemed to me that someone who can proclaim publicly that they are an atheist has made a profound break with religious sensibility. To take one of Schweizer’s examples of a misotheist–Elie Wiesel has clearly not done that.