Billy Graham’s Daughter: I Would Not Vote for an Atheist to be President

To be fair, just because she’s hypocritical doesn’t mean her dad is. I mean, he might be, but it’s not certain.

She threw him a slow ball right in the strike zone, and the guy didn’t even take a swing at it.

Here is my thing, who cares about Anne Graham Lotz, never heard of her until this point. My issue is with her dad and brother. 

And most Americans wouldn’t vote for an atheist anyway, so it doesn’t surprise me that Lotz would say something like that. 

I’m sure her definition of “religious” ends at “people who believe in Jesus” in which Mormons make the cut.

Even as a believer, why are you supposed to “fear” your god? That right there is complete absurdity and perversity. Why would anyone worship a being that is clearly not benevolent?

Bully Graham was never not political.  He prefers to be behind the curtain, and pull the strings of the political power players rather than dealing with the uncleaned masses.  

I agree with this. 
I don’t think there’s much real chance that the Republicans will nominate an atheist or a Muslim any time soon, so she’s probably safe in saying “fear for almighty God” is what’s important. Had you asked her a couple of years ago if she’d vote for a Mormon, I suspect the answer would have been no.  Evangelicals are throwing their hats in with Romney because they have to (the alternative would likely have been Santorum, and they’re generally not comfortable with Catholicism either). But that doesn’t mean they have truly embraced the Mormon faith, or that they’re ever going to truly believe it’s valid in God’s eyes. It’s simply a matter of political expediency.

Because if the sheeple weren’t terrified of going to hell for the smallest infractions, what would there be to keep them in line?  Fear of the afterlife is the biggest whip organized religion uses to maintain their flocks.

I agree that Santorum comes across more as an evangelical. Nevertheless, he calls himself a Catholic, and that makes many of them squirm.

And I also concur that the only reason he’s in the race is the evangelical support. They would far rather Santorum be President than Romney (typing that sentence made me shudder). But even they are starting to see the writing on the wall. Santorum isn’t going to be the nominee. Therefore it behooves them to start pretending that they’re perfectly okay with Mormonism. And yes, it’s not support for Romney so much as it is a desire not to see Obama get another four years.

Nevertheless, it’s absolutely political expediency. A year or two ago, you could have asked almost any evangelical in America for an opinion on Mormonism, and the answer would have been, “That’s not Christianity, it’s a cult, and I will never support a Mormon for President.”

These Christians seem unaware of the three temptations in the desert.

A mainstream religious bigot. I’m shocked; shocked. This is what we’re up against. The self-righteous, offensive, arrogant belief that morality is the exclusive domain of religion.

Why does this woman’s opinion mean anything, other than being reflective of most Americans? She’s the daughter of a guy was famous. It’s like when I see the Bush twins interviewed. Really? We care? Make a name for yourself in some way, then sure. In this case, her opinion only reflects mainstream America’s opinion. And that is the scary part. They are uncomfortable with Romney as a Mormon and Mormonism as a whole, but now it’s become almost incorrect to say so. They have to get behind him so they can vote out the perceived evil lib President Obama. This is their opinion, despite the fact that Obama professes their same faith and hosts prayer breakfasts etc. But an atheist? Oh hell no. They’ll be darned if they see one of us elected. 
And since when does wisdom come from fear? How does that make any sense? 

That’s exactly what I was going to say.

Really, what’s wrong with her position? I think almost everybody has absolute litmus tests when considering candidates. I would under no circumstances vote for a candidate who sought to make abortion illegal, or who denied evolution was real, or who denied global warming was caused by humans. That is, no matter what other positions a candidate might support that I agreed with, these would be deal killers. I’d vote for nobody before I’d vote for them.

Her attitude is really no different. Sure, I think her particular litmus test is a crazy one, but it’s still her test, her worldview.

Certainly, it is a far more rational position to automatically exclude candidates based on their viewpoints (e.g. refuse to vote for an atheist) than to automatically include candidates on similar grounds (e.g. to always vote for the most religious).

I do understand her logic a little bit.  I am an active christian involved in helping my community through a local baptist church and while I personal would vote for an atheist to be president, I can shed some light on her viewpoint.  As a christian, our primary source of instruction for faith is the Bible.  The bible says, “The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.”  As a Christian we believe so strongly in the evidence that God does exist that it is difficult for us to support someone who does not share this belief.  We have all seen things happen in our lives that cannot be explained by science or chance alone (Yes, I am well educated and I believe God does exist and involve himself in our lives) and so for someone to say, “I explain these events by a different belief in a different god” makes some sense to us, even though we don’t agree.  We can look at that person and say, “At least they believe in something other than cold science alone.”  On the other hand, someone who does not believe in a higher power of any kind seems “foolish” both from a biblical perspective and from a practical perspective.  The belief in a particular God is not as important to Christians today as it once was but, belief in some explanation for the inexplicable events of life is still important and this is something that an atheist cannot offer.  My personal beliefs about God are much more in line with an overall scientific, logical foundation and so I would not have a problem voting for an atheist as president but, I will save this discussion for another comment.   BTW, my first time reading your blog, interesting articles, I look forward to reading more. 

Yep. Nominating Romney highlights all the hypocrisy we atheist talk about. 

This seems to fit nicely into “the common creed” theory by Caplow, Bahr, and
Chadwick in the latest (but hopefully not final) installment of the famous Middletown study in  1983 (All Faithful People: Change and Continuity in Middletown’s Religion). In it, the authors posit that the United States has invented something new and very important in the scope of religious history. They say we invented something called, “the common creed” where we feel in-group kinship and a trust with people of faiths that differ from our own so long as their religious beliefs meet some very general standards (which I’m having trouble remembering right now. Something about belief in a transcendent power larger than yourself, daily prayer and… one other thing…? I’ll have to inter-library-loan that book again, I suggest you do the same, it was a very enlightening read).

I think what Annie Grahm Lotz is saying is that so long as you’re a common-creeder, you’re probably OK and we should just look at your policies.

For a more in-depth discussion of the atheist-as-other phenominon, I thought this paper by Penny Edgell of the University of Minnesota  was really valuable:

https://encrypted.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=penny+edgell+atheists+as+other&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDsQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.soc.umn.edu%2F~hartmann%2Ffiles%2Fatheist%2520as%2520the%2520other.pdf&ei=-_6CT-eLC6esjAKMuPCsAw&usg=AFQjCNEHfi4PaX0-Uk9_Fim4XSY1-4GQcg&sig2=cOUTHQ55kryRcpxtHxOpLA

Your problem here is the sheer hubris that makes you think that you must know the reason for everything. If you can find the humility to accept your own limitations you’ll realise that “I don’t know” is much more honest than “God did it”.

“As a Christian we believe so strongly in the evidence that God does exist that it is difficult for us to support someone who does not share this belief…someone who does not believe in a higher power of any kind seems “foolish” both from a biblical perspective and from a practical perspective. ”

The problem is that atheists don’t see any “evidence” that God exists. Indeed, to us all the evidence seems to point in the opposite direction.  Right now, atheists have little choice but to vote for Christians, but I admit that given a choice between two equally qualified candidates with similar platforms, I’d vote for an atheist over a Christian. I suppose it’s human nature to believe that the person who shares your worldview is more logical and sensible than someone who doesn’t *shrugs*.

I agree that this is her problem and a more general problem with Christian logic.  As I stated in my comment, her line of logic does not correspond with mine but, I can understand where she is coming from having been brought up with this mind set.  The underlying problem with Christian logic is that it assumes God is the sum of the variables from understood reality.  If this is all God represents in our lives then a belief in God will make less and less sense as the variables we encounter can be explained by science.  Thinking Christians believe that God is reality and it is his system that we strive to understand.  An event that we can explain through the laws of God does not represent a supernatural occurrence but rather one of God’s laws that we do not yet understand.  An answered prayer is as much a result of one of God’s laws as the moon revolving around the earth.  
If you think about it, this is why religion was so much more prevalent a thousand years ago.  It was because there were more variables that we could not understand.   The whole theory behind Atheism is that eventually, Science will explain away all the variables and therefore eliminate the need for God in our lives but, God is not the sum of the variables God is the inventor of the system and is thus involved in every area of our lives. 

I might point out that this same line of logic was overwhelming adopted Science for years (still with a large following today) and the most relevant scientific breakthroughs have come from scientists seeking to discover the laws that God put in place not the existence of a system that would create no need for God.  Although many of these scientists did not subscribe to a religious creed in particular they believed in the existence of God.  But, then again, those of us commenting on this blog are probably smarter than 
Copernicus, Sir Francis Bacon, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Pascal, Newton, Boyle, Faraday, Planck, and Einstein, all of whom did believe in God, right?  I am willing to admit I could be wrong and perhaps there is no God would you be willing to admit the same or is there no chance that any of the scientists mentioned above were right and you are wrong?  

Let me give you an example.  Let’s say you were walking with a political candidate down the street and you saw a motorcycle pass in front of you very clearly.  You turned to the candidate and said, “Did you see that Motorcycle fly past?” and he said, “Motorcycles do not exist and whatever you just saw was not a motorcycle, I didn’t see anything!”  You would question his ability to be a candidate because he obviously has a biased against reality.  If he said, “I think it was a scooter.”  You would think, “That’s strange…but at least he admits that he saw something.”  

Evangelical Christians believe God exists as much as you believe motorcycles exist so when someone says, “I believe in a different God”  We think, “That’s strange but, at least he believes in God.”  When someone says, “There is no God” then we think, “You are refusing to believe in the reality the we know to be true and that doesn’t make sense to us.”  That doesn’t mean you don’t do good things or are a generally good person or that we do not value you as a person it just makes us lose our confidence that you could lead others objectively.  By the way, one interesting project would be to identify the top 100 leaders in the world today and see what percentage believe in some form of God.  I would bet it is 85% but, I could be wrong I have no basis for the assumption.  I am with the 85% but, I admit I could be wrong and I accept the consequences of a wasted prayer life if I am wrong, you are with the 15% could you admit that you might be wrong and are you willing the accept the consequences if so? 

To extend your example, we are stuck with candidates who believe in unicorns.

I never said he did believe in a personal God.  I said he believed in a supreme being who created the system and laws of science we study which he did and which you just confirmed.  As far as what they would believe today, that is like asking if Kobe Bryant would beat Michael Jordan if he was in his prime…who cares!  There is no way of knowing or testing this, so it is not a viable argument.  

Here is a good one for you.  Name the top 5 Scientists who are (or were) confessed atheists who made discoveries that had as significant an impact on humanity as the scientists I mentioned above.   Again, I’m not talking about people like Stephen Hawking who says that there may well be a God (See his book, “God create the Integers” introduction) or other open minded scientist who say, “We have no explanation of the beginning of the universe so we don’t know if there is a God”  I’m talking about Scientists who profess to be atheists.  I can think of only one that has made a meaningful contribution.

Well, let’s see…  In 2008 11% of Evangelicals voted for Obama 
http://www.christianpost.com/news/poll-evangelicals-may-double-their-support-for-obama-in-2012-election-72657/  and it looks like 22% are planning to in 2012.  “Christian” is a very vague term.  If you mean, “Not Atheist” then you would know that over 85% of those voting for Obama in 2008 believed in God.  So… Yes, believers in God generally and Evangelical Christians in particular will vote for Obama or any other candidate that best represents their life views.   The real issue here is not how many will vote for Obama, but how many will not vote for the republican.  This election will come down to Voter turn out and if the republicans serve up someone who does not excite the evangelical block, the voter turn out for that candidate will be low which will fuel Obama’s victory.

See my comment below to 
Golfie98

The comments that followed on that episode of Meet the Press from a Catholic priest were no better. I had to turn the television off and had trouble sleeping afterwards. David Gregory just let these religious bigots say what ever they wanted without any push back or challenge. 

I would like to say that there are level-headed Evangelicals but now-a-days it is seeming like it is getting harder to find such a critter.

Nice, that was a great rebuttal thanks for calling me out on that one.  I might point out that your sample size is too small and allows for too much variation LOL but, other than that, good logic.   

Again, nicely done.  I am simply suggesting that being religious or believing in God cannot be categorically dismissed as a waste of emotional energy unless you are willing to assert that you are much smarter than the smartest individuals that have ever lived.  I believe in religious freedom and so any religion (including faith that no god exists) is your choice.  The thing is so interesting to me is that Atheists as a general rule cannot admit that they could be wrong.  Of course neither can most Christians but, you cannot say that you are open minded unless you can admit that you could be wrong and you can genuinly see the other person’s point of view.  If I am wrong, I will just die and never be heard from again having lived a wonderful life of blissful ignorance, happily married, successful in business, helping my community and enjoying life!  I believe God has been good to me but, if he hasn’t I have just been lucky I am ok with that too.

P.S.  Christians 33% — Muslims 20% to 25% we are still ahead… not that this matters I just had to correct the facts.

We have all seen things happen in our lives that cannot be explained by science or chance alone

We have? The reason I’m an atheist is precisely because I have never seen even a shred of evidence that would make me doubt that we live in a purely material world. I have seen absolutely nothing to make me think that the supernatural exists in reality.

The Christian belief is that God is infinite, that he has no beginning and no end.  However, since most scientists agree that the universe is not infinite but, rather has a beginning and end, we assert that God who is infinite created the universe.   I don’t claim that the universe couldn’t be infinite as God could have created however he chose to but, the current evidence seems to point away from that.  This is a perfectly logical system if you believe in God.  Science has shown that infinity can exist and we believe God is infinite.   If you don’t believe God then, obviously this is an illogical system but, since I do believe in an infinite God it makes perfect sense.

Again, your “evidence” of God is exactly what I said it would be.  You want to see variation.  You want to see God do something that defies scientific precedent as if that is all God could be.  If God created the system and allows us to have free will inside of the system why would he go against the system to prove his existence?  I would be willing to bet that you feel God (if there is one) has shown his existence to you through some inexplicable event already and it is his involvement or lack of involvement that caused your doubt in the first place.  

If so, ask yourself this question.  How much control should God have?   If God is willing to change the laws of nature to prove his existence, how far should that go?  Should he control every area of your life and the lives of those around you?  You can’t have it both ways, either God created a system and allows good and bad events or our lives are pointless and we are simply puppets on a string.  God created a system and we live in it using our free will and affecting our own lives and the lives of those around us through our actions.  This is a logical system for existence.

You’re the one who compared disbelief in God to disbelief in motorcycles.  I know you’re just trying to make a point, but my point is that just like you can’t understand how I could possibly deny God, I can’t possibly understand how you believe most of what Christianity says.  But since we only get Christian candidates, I’m stuck voting for the Christian who is at least scientifically literate enough to know that the earth isn’t thousands of year old, it’s billions.

So far you have thrown up Pascal’s Wager, argument from authority, argument from popularity and God of the gaps, and perhaps more I missed.

I know you’re trying to explain why some Christians would never vote for an atheist, and I don’t actually disagree with that point.  But you’ve thrown out a lot of faulty arguments that are seriously detracting from your point.

Really?  So, you never believed in God as a child?  And if so, when did you stop believing?  You just woke up one day and said, “Nothing extraordinary happened in my life today so God must not exist.”   By the way, you can see my other comments that this logic is not my logically reason for the existence of God, in fact it is quit the opposite.  I believe that God is the system and if there is something we cannot understand or explain it is not because God intervened and it is because his laws are always in effect and there are still man things we do not understand.  I do think it is a little funny you would say what you did, I mean come on seriously, Einstein said he didn’t understand half of the things he observed but, everything that has ever happened to you made total sense and was easily explained by science…. I don’t think so.

The prime mover “argument” is completely pointless anyways. All it gets you is “something created the universe”. So what? What does that get you? All you have is Deism.

You don’t have theism and you certainly don’t have Christianity or any other kind of established belief system. Where does your god come from? Why does it care what we eat, with whom we sleep in what position, how we worship and when we work? And how did it communicate those ideas to us? How does a creator god make a specific belief system true? You still have >b>zero evidence for anything else in your holy book. There are still tons of things you believe that make no sense whatsoever. Like the whole original sin/vicarious redemption nonsense.

Never mind that the whole line of thinking is completely absurd. There are ideas how the universe came into existence on its own. Things are “created” from nothing all the time (look up virtual particles). The universe wouldn’t function otherwise. But just become we can’t comprehend something or because we can’t definitely prove it, doesn’t mean you can’t say “God did it”. There is plenty of evidence for the Big Bang by the way. See cosmic microwave background radiations and the COBE and WMAP missions. And if your god can exist eternally, then so can some kind of basic quantum state that fluctuated to cause the expansion of spacetime

Atheists as a general rule cannot admit that they could be wrong

That is a problem everyone faces, but just because I think you’re wrong doesn’t mean I think I can’t be.  Heck, this is a good day.  I was wrong last night, corrected last night, spent the night trying to justify why I was right, and this morning came to the conclusion I was wrong.

I do think that in the “can be wrong” category, there’s a huge difference between science and religion.  Science is based on correcting things that are wrong.  It’s rarely right the first time, but it gets closer and closer.  Religion is based on getting it right the first time.  After all, how can God’s word be wrong?

Most children are indoctrinated into believing. Though actually Anna wasn’t. So there goes your whole line of thinking.

Religion is a learned behavior. Children are taught religion by their parents. That doesn’t make it true. My indoctrination never took. What I was taught never made sense to me, so eventually I stopped taking it seriously

“They would far rather Santorum be President than Romney”
Probably because their own protestant faith is a catholic heresy, whereas mormonism is a protestant Heresy. Hence mormons are heretics, and Catholics are the “old” church.

As you said it proves nothing, so what’s the point? Arguments from authority and arguments from numbers (or argumentum ad populum) gets you nowhere

Those scientists were all wrong about something. In the cases of (at least) Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, they were wrong about things we consider obvious facts today. And really, the pre-1650 folks were products of a different investigative paradigm. That they happened upon true insights is far more a credit to their characters than to the system of thought that dominated at the time.

A good story about Einstein is the cosmological constant. He considered it the biggest mistake in his life, but since then it was discovered that the expansion of the universe is accelerating and it was resurrected

Thank you for that, Stev. Yes, I think I’m done debating with this one. There’s nothing asserted here that hasn’t already been answered a thousand times, by atheists far more articulate than myself.

you’re joking, right?

nevermind… work on that “thinking” stuff some more, OK/

start here: what is your “thinking” about the Buddha? is/was he ‘real?’ 

we cannot understand or explain i

and yet here you are, thinking you both understand, and can explain “him” to those of us who know he’s just an ancient campfire myth. how much aramaic do you speak, by the way? classical hebrew? persian? babylonian? cause if you don’t speak any of them, you don’t even really understand the book that you think is ‘proof.’ today’s english versions aren’t really the same. 

How is it even remotely committing an error in using a person’s religious beliefs as a factor in deciding to vote for them? Religion ABSOLUTELY has something to do with a person’s qualifications, just as all of their philosophical viewpoints do. A person who considers religion (or its absence) to be an important factor in how a candidate thinks, or is likely to act, is a fool to not take that into consideration!

The restriction on religious tests bars the state from creating any kind of religious test as a condition of running for office. It certainly does not- and must not- limit an individual voter in considering a candidate.

For me, religion by itself is never enough to completely disqualify a candidate. But the more religious a candidate is, the more I count that against them when I decide who to vote for. It’s an important factor for me, although far from the only one. I voted for Obama, but the single biggest factor in his negative column for me was his overt Christianity. That wasn’t enough for me to change my vote, but it did (and does) matter.

As voters, we have both the right and the obligation to consider every aspect of a candidate- which includes everything that defines their philosophical viewpoints. For most people, that includes their religion.

Cecil Bothwell, the current atheist running for public office, wrote an excellent book about Billy Graham. Great insight and history about the man: 
http://bothwellsblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/16/hello-world/

The Hebrew word translated as fear is most often yir a which means reverence, not actual fear. So most of the time you see this in the Bible it is instructing the believer to have reverence for God. There are times when discussing the judgment of God that the word fear would mean to be frightened, but that is not what is normally meant when the scripture talks about”fear of the Lord”

Damn typo, I spelt atheist right and then wrong, forgiveness FSM please

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Shannara reference on the interwebs.  Well done, sir.

Half of Americans will never vote for an atheist. That is never going to change any time soon. You are in denial. Get over it. At least it means we won’t have a president who bores us to death by continually shouting flying spaghetti monster at anything on the net with even the slightest twisted possibility of anything to do with religion or proclaiming how smart he is to be atheist in between busting his zits and playing world of warcraft.