The President’s Religion

great piece. i really enjoyed colin powell’s quote. had no idea he said that.

I agree, but the scary part is that there are a number of people who WOULD vote for that hypothetical person.

I somewhat agree, but…

It’s not just a problem with religion. What kind of policy would you expect from a President who believes that all diseases are caused by negative thoughts, or that germs are the product of infection, not its cause, or that anthropogenic climate change is a myth, or that a certain category of people are actually evil sub-humans who should be eradicated? What about a flat-earther, a hollow-earther, a geocentrist? All those irrational, pseudo-scientific or just plain wrong theories ha nothing to do with religion and can be very harmful. On the other hand, within the same religion, you can find literalist fundamentalists as well as believers in a liberal theology. So I think religion isn’t the biggest problem.

I don’t think you want a President (or any senior policy-maker, for that matter) who bases his decisions on an ideology. Any ideology.

That includes not only the hard-core religious, but Neocons, Free Market idealists, ardent Pacifists, Right-to-Lifers, Libertarians, and (real) Communists.

Coping with the world’s problems is difficult enough if you approach them rationally, with rational advice based on objective analysis. Trying to implement theories from a Book ain’t the way to solve them.

I tried commenting but apparently I’m not registered. (I am). This is what I tried to post and what I’ll try again later.

Quick check. Pick a leader of a nation in the developed world. What religion is David Cameron (UK PM)? What religion is Nicolas Sarkozy (French President)? What religion is Julia Gillard (Australian PM)? What of Angela Merkel of Germany, Naoto Kan of Japan, or Jacob Zuma of South Africa?

Don’t know? Would it matter if one was a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Roman Catholic or an atheist?

OK then, what about the founding fathers? Of the seven key founding fathers (Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton) at least two were nominally Deists and two more appear to have no religious beliefs. Of the first half dozen US Presidents the religious affiliation of three are up for debate.

Of course it is their ideas and skills in office that got these men and women into power. Not the church that they attend or the deity that they may or may not pray to. I have no faith in those who claim religion in place of policies. It demonstrates a lack of substance to their arguments.

Excellent article.

I was really terrified when I heard that former French President Jacques Chirac said in his autobiography that he had received a disjointed, incoherent call in the middle of the night from Bush, saying that his Middle Eastern wars were going to cause Armageddon. That, even more than 9/11 itself, was what made me come out as an atheist.

I want a president who makes decisions after hearing from experts on the issue, not after hanging up on a conference call with a group of pastors.

-1 for ambiguous phrasing. I do want a leader who will hang up on a conference call with pastors. 🙂 It took me a second to understand what was being said.

Do you really want a president who can appoint important positions in the field of science like the head of the National Institutes of Health… who also believes the Earth was created about 6,000 years ago and that evolution is a lie

I realize this is hypothetical, but it’s perhaps a bit too close to reality (Collins’ appointment being heavily criticized in atheist blogs). As a result, I think you run the risk of people taking this as a misstatement of Collins’ beliefs.

Other than those two things, great column.

Too late now, but you missed a good opportunity to include rational conservatives and help Christians see your point, as well as zing new-agers. Like so,

“Do you really want a president who could launch a nuclear attack… who also believes in the healing powers of crystals and believes magnets are mystical?”

i understand the points you are trying to make.. but they don’t seem to relate.. for example-

“Do you really want a president who can appoint important positions in the field of science like the head of the National Institutes of Health… who also believes the Earth was created about 6,000 years ago and that evolution is a lie?”
-regardless of when or where you think physical matter came from, doesn’t change how one would appoint leaders in the scientific discovery to the aid of human health
it is naive to rest solely on science in order to make sense of life.. as science is merely our increasing understanding of physical things; and there’s still SO much more to learn and discover. it is foolishness to be so proud, with the very limited base of knowledge that we have.

The questions are even more interesting if you drop the part after the ellipsis:

Do you really want a president who could launch a nuclear attack…?

Do you really want a president who can appoint important positions in the field of science like the head of the National Institutes of Health…?

Do you really want a president who has the power to veto legislation regarding women’s health care…

I answer: no, no, and no.

Dan Covill:

I don’t think you want a President (or any senior policy-maker, for that matter) who bases his decisions on an ideology. Any ideology.

All policymakers base their decisions on ideology. The “I’m not an ideologue”-ideology is perhaps the scariest one of all because it allows the policymaker to pretend that her decisions really are intended to promote the general good (and thus allows her to be deaf to all criticism), and it is certainly the ideology that has caused the most death, destruction, and deprivation throughout history.

That includes not only the hard-core religious, but Neocons, Free Market idealists, ardent Pacifists, Right-to-Lifers, Libertarians, and (real) Communists.

So, basically disallow everything except Progressivism. Yeah, that’s not ideological. 😉

Great article. I agree with pretty much all of your points. I more often vote for candidates based on their actions and how they stand on various issues than on their religion (or lack thereof). Though I would be less likely to vote for a candidate who trots out his or her religion at every opportunity, because I’d rather vote for a candidate who holds views more in line with reality.

littlejohn

Obama’s parents were atheists and he’s simply too smart to believe in sky-daddies

I do not believe that it is a lack of intellect that makes a person a theist. I believe that it is an emotional need to have something larger than yourself that you can rely on that makes someone susceptible to religious belief. We might all enjoy mocking Bush as a stupid President but he was an intelligent man. His IQ was estimated at 125 based on his SAT score and he was smart enough to win two elections (or con his way into winning them). We already know that he was highly religious.

Obama joined his former church because of the work that black churches were doing to improve society. His is a proactive, practical faith and I believe that it is genuine. Bush’s was a faith of trust in the divine and of service to that voice he supposedly heard. These are very different things. As long as the President is a secular leader I don’t really care what religion he claims (or doesn’t). Secular isn’t anti-religious, it merely keeps religion separate.

“Do you really want a president who has the power to veto legislation regarding women’s health care… who also believes abortion is equivalent to murder and that life begins at conception?”

I don’t see that this is specifically a religious issue… I am an atheist, and a scientist, and I can find no proof anywhere that life begins at birth. Defining what it means to be alive, to be human, to be sentient, these are science questions not religious ones. I don’t know at what point a fetus becomes alive, becomes sentient, and human. From the studying I’ve done I thing abortions after about 4 weeks are homicide, one human killing another.

lucky for you you’ll never have to worry about that issue personally, Charles W. you’re free to have your opinions, but you’re not free to tell me what to do with my body. not you or anyone. just to be clear.

Obama joined his former church because of the work that black churches were doing to improve society. His is a proactive, practical faith and I believe that it is genuine.

i completely disagree. what was Obama’s religious practice while a student? cause i’m fairly sure he wasn’t a regular church goer before he was a politician. sorry, but it’s sort of the oldest cliche in the book for democratic (or republican, for that matter) pols to get involved with churchies once they have political need to, and not before.

it’s something i really despise democratic politicians for, their cowardice and unwillingness to say something as simple is “my religion or lack thereof is irrelevant in the performance of a secular office. ask me a question about what the voters elected me to do. they didn’t elect me to pray.” at least the republicans come right out and say they want Biblical Law in this country. democrats just pander to the believers, and for such pitiful lack of result. anyone who believes that Jeebus commands them to vote in a certain way is highly unlikely to ever, ever vote for a democrat. liberal and moderate Christians generally don’t need to be told of the religious beliefs of their politicians, they mostly don’t care or are tolerant. so what’s the point? in obama’s case, it was very specifically about getting elected, as an elite outsider from a mixed race, atheist/”muslim” family, with no natural connection to the district, becoming more “real” seeming to the mostly working class, fundie xtian Folk who lived there, and had little else in the ‘hood beyond churches. i lived on the South Side/Shore area for 10 years, including during the time Obama taught at UChicago, where i studied. the man is a believer like i’m a republican donor.