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srdiamond comments on Offense versus harm minimization - Less Wrong
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I can't speak for JoshuaZ, but speaking as another nonbeliever-raised-Orthodox-Jew, my reaction is similar to his.
And, yes, I think it's fundamentally a cultural thing. That is, the Torah scroll in this example is functioning as an icon of cultural Judaism, much as flags do for various kinds of nationalism.
Just to unpack that a little: if someone behaves disrespectfully towards an icon of a culture, I react as though they'd expressed disrespect towards that culture. If it's a culture I identify with, I react as though they'd expressed disrespect towards me. All of this seems entirely unremarkable and to be expected, to me at least.
The idea that any of this (be it with respect to Torah scrolls or the image of Mohammed or American flags) has anything to do with specific beliefs about divinity is, I think, a complete distraction.
True enough. There can be also other motivations for finding damaging an icon of a culture to be distasteful. When the Taliban was destroying Buddha statues in Afghanistan I found that sad, simply because the statues were ancient and irreplaceable, irrespective of their religious significance.