What Atheist Should Be on Obama’s Faith Advisory Council?

Austin Dacey

Hemant Mehta

🙂

Greg Epstein.

Someone without a strong political leaning.

I’d probably go with Harris or maybe Dan Barker.

Keep in mind that this is an advisory council with regard to social services and community development, and not some source of general advice from difference faith perspectives. While there are no out right atheists on the council, there are secular organizations like SeedCo and Big Brothers/Big Sisters which do have representation.

You can’t just plop any prominent atheist on there, it would have to be someone ties to some sort of non-profit that does social work, and I really can’t think of any large groups that are specifically ‘atheist.’

August Berkshire, he does a great job of keeping an open mind to many things and keeping a level playing field.

Sikivu Hutchinson

I say we forge Richard Dawkins some papers and elect him, given the chance.

I think it would need to be someone with “religious” experience. Either an ex-religious leader (e.g. Barker) or someone from a “religion without God” type background (e.g. Humanistic Judaism, non-theistic Unitarian), e.g Epstein.

Tyson is a great science educator, but not exactly a proponent of atheism. He’s come out to some events to accept awards and such, but has generally sought to avoid labeling himself as anything in particular. I don’t think he’d be interested in such a role, nor do I think he would be the best person for it. It definitely needs to be someone with extensive experience with religious studies, philosophy, etc. which I don’t believe Tyson has.

Harris is too anti-religion for such a role.

The Hitch.
Or Dan Barker…

To generally be a wrench in the works, Hitchens or Harris. To stand up for reality and scientific literacy in the face of fundies, Tyson would be best.

Maybe someone from Americans United for Seperation of Church and State? Maybe the theism council could take a good lesson from them.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson would be my vote

Interfaith relations? gotta be Greg Epstein. It’s his strongest suit, and he does it much better than the big names/ 4 horsemen.

I like Tyson as much as anybody – well, not as much as my wife, who calls him Dr. McDreamy – but he’s too nice; almost an accomodationist. He doesn’t like to call himself an atheist.
Why not Hemant?

Michael Shermer, Hemant Mehta, Greta Christina.

People should maybe think about the names being put forth here and what the list might tell us about nonbelievers, our community, and how we view authority. (Read Nick’s comment above, if you haven’t.) Throwing someone without expertise in social services onto a community development panel is no different than letting creationists decide science curricula. The religious think their holy books give them automatic expertise in social projects, but we should know better than to think any random prominent atheist is automatically suited for any job with “faith” in the title.

Personally, I’d rather see the panel disbanded than amended. But that aside, I think we should be answering that the best candidate is the one most familiar with the literature on the sort of development projects the panel oversees. That’s how secular authority is different from religious authority. We need to be more vigilant for confusion between expertise with prominence within our community.

Me! Me! Me!

Nah, seriously, I think DJ Grothe, Phil Plait, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, etc. all sound nice.

Oh, and Delphine:

Christopher Hitchens.

He is not my favorite non-religious person as I find him too apologetic to the religious folks.

That’s a first. I’m always hearing about how he’s so “angry” and “intolerant.”

Dan Barker

Dan Barker or Sasha Bartolf

No one. The council should be disbanded. Not just because the government shouldn’t be religious in nature or even just because the government shouldn’t exist at all, but because their primary purpose is to discuss poverty. Government has been the primary cause of poverty throughout history (and the sole cause of long-term poverty) and any attempt by the government to “deal with poverty” in any way other than ending the policies that cause it is like a kick in the teeth to the poor and to all those who care about poverty as a social issue.

Also, Obama is one of the more dishonest presidents in modern history (this isn’t necessarily entirely bad: the fact that Bush was honest about his ill intentions towards us makes me hate him more than Obama, who at least has the courtesy to pretend that he’s on our side). This panel will allow him to pretend that he cares about issues of social justice while he continues to focus on the issues of pleasing his campaign contributors in the FIRE economy. Anything that makes it easier for him to dissemble in this way is bad for us.

And definitely not Christopher Hitchens. There are already too many neocons in the Obama White House. He has had a few good ideas (I loved his book Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man and most of his writings on Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell), but like all too many others, he’s fallen into this apocalyptic view of the war on “terror” and that’s a view so horrible that it more than counterbalances every good idea that he has.

Mat Wilder: As far as I can tell from it’s description in Wikipedia, it seems to me blatantly unconstitutional

It isn’t. First off, in the post-Hein v. FRFF era, it looks like the Supreme Court is going to take the “Congress shall” phraseology in the 1st Amendment literally, so I wouldn’t bet that a challenge against any executive branch abuses would succeed, no matter how blatant the abuse. Furthermore, the faith-based initiatives and “economic recovery money” already exist, and it looks like this group won’t have funding of its own, but instead will just give the president advice on how to misallocate the funds. The Constitution doesn’t say too much about those who serve the president in an advisory role, so it’s probably Constitutional.

But then, public protest means more than what the Constitution says anyway. As Thoreau said, “it is…with men and not with parchment that I quarrel.” At the end of the day, the Constitution is basically a dead letter, useful only when it spurs us to direct action. When we as a society develop the instinct of immediately going to direct action to right any wrong of government, the Constitution will become worthless.

Tyson — because he’s hot!

No, not really. For that reason, I mean. I just had to get that in there. There’s such a shortage of good-looking leading Atheists.

Tyson, because he’s got charm, charisma, he makes people listen and his message is so damned positive. Yet he doesn’t back off.

I’m sure some of the fundies have succeeded in doing so but it’s got to be hard as hell to hate the man. He’s just so happy.

And that’s another reason. They just can’t point at Tyson and say look how miserable Atheists are.

Tyson, Mehta, Epstein, or McGowan would be the best choices if this thing is going to continue at all. There may also be some good choices working from within the American Ethical Union, I just don’t know them as well.

What about Bart D. Ehrman? Technically an agnostic, but he does have a lifetime of “faith experience”, and won’t be too offensive to the Xtians.

The iconoclast in me wants to say Kathy Griffin 🙂

but seriously, I think Ann Druyan (author and widow of Carl Sagan) would be an inspired choice. Check out some of her youtube videos (ie her talk at ‘Beyond Belief’) if you’ve never seen/heard her talk before.

I’m with Mike on this one:

Oh, and Delphine:

Christopher Hitchens.

He is not my favorite non-religious person as I find him too apologetic to the religious folks.

That’s a first. I’m always hearing about how he’s so “angry” and “intolerant.”

Chris “How Religion Poisons Everything” Hitchens apologetic of all things?? Dawkins himself said everybody thought he (Dawkins) was “bad” until Chris came along. Are you not familiar with his book about Mother Teresa, titled The Missionary Position? Apologetic is about the last thing I’d ever call him.

OT, I’d vote for Hemant or Dr. Tyson. Put an educator on there, and maybe some thinking will happen. I’d love to see PZ in there, too. Wouldn’t that give the entire staff of the Creation Museum a collective heart attack? LOL.

But I’d also be on board with a representative of any of the major humanist or secularist organizations.

I’m Canadian, but I would suggest:
Dale McGowan, Austin Dacey, DJ Grothe or Dan Dennett.

Some with a southern drawl, so that every time he/she says it, it comes at as ‘faith-biased initiatives”

I don’t think we should put a “big name” on the counsil. I think a better alternative is a representative from the American Secular Society. First and foremost, I think someone representing “Atheism” would be a bad thing. That would leave out a lot of people who are faithless, but wouldn’t call themselves atheist. Perhaps someone representing “Nontheism” or Secularism”.

Besides, I think the American Secular Society is a better representative anyway than American Atheists. Like many other movements in society, there have been a “can’t we all just get along” wing, and an in-your-face “we’re here, we’re …, get used to it” wing. They are both nessecary, and serve vital functions, but knowing when to play the soft card and when to play the hard card is very important.

I find it a little sad that I’m having trouble coming up with atheists well-known in social service. So I guess I’d go with Dale McGowan, or Joe Chuman of the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen, though he’s more of a human rights activist. But most of our big names are academics or spokespeople, not social justice workers. Where’s Jane Addams when we need her?

Layne I don’t think it is saying that atheism requires faith. I think that it is just saying atheist should have a voice in the subject. Myself I don’t want someone who is already known within the atheist community to represent me but someone that is down to earth and concerned with life itself.

Thanks Helen, you’re sweet.

To everyone else, this is a good idea, but I’m wondering if it has any more of a chance than a lit match under Niagara Falls. I’ve learned a lot more about these excellent suggested council members, but I’m not going to be holding my breath waiting for it to happen.

I am not an American so my opinion on this does not really count, but should people having a lack of “faith” be represented in a council of “faith”..

wouldn’t this just provide ammunition to the Theists who keep saying Atheism is also a religion when we(most of us) try to say otherwise?