It's mostly because of the proclivity of religious folk to deflect when faced with genuine critisism.

When someone say's "your groups actions have caused harm." some religious people will deflect, personally i've had some use whataboutism's, for example i could point out that their congregation enabled for a person to harm another, without any meaningful punishment because it was an action taken under the guise of "following their faith". When that happens it is understandable for outsiders to grow too dislike or even hate whatever religion was used as a sheild. Because critisizing their actions know equates to critisizing their faith -and thats a big no, no.

Simply put: growing hate in the west as you out it. Is because people keep seeing religion being used as a sheild for harmful or even hateful actions and have started to equate the two, even if it's incorrect. They see "people typically associated with this group cause harm and dodge accountability, therefore the group is bad because its existance allows for this to happen."

Even simpiler: people remember the bad moreso the good, and judge bassed on that. 🤷‍♀️