America Doesn't Hate Atheists; Just Honest Ones | The Odyssey Online
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Politics and Activism

America Doesn't Hate Atheists; Just Honest Ones

For heaven's sake.

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America Doesn't Hate Atheists; Just Honest Ones
dallasnews.com

Last month, at the CNN Democratic town hall in Derry, New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders was asked by host Anderson Cooper what he would “say to a voter out there who… sees [religious] faith as a guiding principle in their lives, and wants it to be a guiding principle for this country.”

 

Sanders’ response is worth quoting at length:

 

It’s a guiding principle in my life, absolutely, it is. You know, everybody practices religion in a different way. To me, I would not be here tonight, I would not be running for president of the United States if I did not have very strong religious and spiritual feelings.

 

I believe that, as a human being, the pain that one person feels, if we have children who are hungry in America, if we have elderly people who can't afford their prescription drugs, you know what, that impacts you, that impacts me.

 

So my spirituality is that we are all in this together and that when children go hungry, when veterans sleep out on the street, it impacts me. That's my very strong spiritual feeling.

 

What to make of this equivocation? Apparently Sanders, who is clearly not a religious person (the humanism he describes is quite distinct from religion), thinks it imprudent to disclose that fact. He felt pressured to lie. He feared adverse consequences should he tell the truth. He is not suffering from paranoid delusions. On the contrary, it is generally understood that, as far as presidential candidates in the United States are concerned, faithlessness is the great disqualifier. In fact, according to a 2012 Gallup Poll, it is the greatest disqualifier.

 

When asked whether they would vote for a “generally well-qualified person… who happened to be an atheist,” 43 percent of respondents said that they would not. Only a Muslim candidate could expect to face similar opposition (40 percent). Gallup’s findings are not surprising. Notwithstanding the Bill of Rights, anti-atheist sentiment is as American as crony capitalism.

 

Writing for The Nation in 1992, novelist/playwright/essayist Gore Vidal explained that

 

the founders of the United States were not enthusiasts of the Sky God. Many, like Jefferson, rejected him altogether and placed man at the center of the world. The young Lincoln wrote a pamphlet against Christianity, which friends persuaded him to burn. Needless to say, word got around about both Jefferson and Lincoln and each had to cover his tracks. Jefferson said that he was a deist… while Lincoln… said he could not support for office anyone who “scoffed” at religion. (Emphasis in original.)

 

Much to the dismay of the would-be theocrats, we have the indispensable First Amendment, guaranteeing the separation of Church and State and ergo guaranteeing every person’s right to practice—or not practice—whatever religion they like. It’s the “not” bit that tends to confuse people. To clarify: freedom of religion also means freedom from religion. Basic logic, that. But logic—basic or otherwise—is anathema to the faithful, and so it is for those wishing to impose their preferred dogma onto others. Since this imposition has proved a dead end (too many people are now prepared to fight religious coercion), the evangelicals have had to settle for keeping unbelievers out of politics, or at least keeping unbelievers running for office quiet about their unbelief.

 

As the American Humanist Association reports, several states actually prohibit unbelievers from being elected to public office. Mississippi’s constitution, for instance, dictates that “No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in this state.” Likewise, “No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of [Tennessee].” The constitutions of Arkansas, Maryland, both Carolinas and Texas all contain similar conditions. Now imagine if seven states explicitly—constitutionally—discriminated against Muslims or Jews. Who among us would tolerate it?

 

Four decades of cold war with the godless (read evil) Soviet Union did much to affirm the average American’s religious conviction. Indeed, the protracted conflict was a godsend for the Christian element in this country. The west’s eventual victory was not only a triumph for capitalism; it was also a triumph for organized religion, Christianity in particular. Western propaganda during the Cold War had two principal targets: communism and atheism. Each was conflated with the other, and both were represented as enemies of the “free world.” Both had to be defeated no matter the cost. Mutual destruction? A small price to pay.

 

The impact of this effort was enormous and enduring. Consider, for instance, that Bernie Sanders’ “electability” has been and continues to be doubted on account of his embrace of “democratic socialism” (an unneeded euphemism for welfare capitalism). Bernie Sanders is not a socialist in any meaningful sense, and yet his tenuous association with the word makes him less “electable” than he otherwise would be. In fact, the electability argument is often cited by Hillary Clinton supporters, who insist—contrary to the evidence, as is their wont—that Sanders would not stand a chance in a general election. If Sanders were to come out of the closet as an atheist, this argument would probably reflect the truth. Hence his somewhat clumsy attempt to shoehorn religion into his secular humanist philosophy.

 

His efforts should be more than enough to satisfy the faithful. After all, they don’t seem to require sincere belief as much as declarations of sincere belief.

 

Take Donald Trump. As of Gallup’s 2012 poll, a minority of Republicans (48 percent) say they would vote for a qualified Republican candidate who doesn’t believe in God. Thus the Donald—a probable unbeliever—swears that the Bible is his favorite book. When pressed to name his favorite verse, however, Trump balked. He doesn’t know any. The Bible is not his favorite book; he’s probably never read it. It’s plain to see that Trump is not a devoutly religious person. He used to support what religious conservatives believe to be the most heinous of moral offenses. He’s been married three times. And yet he’s the likely Republican nominee. Moreover, according to the New York Times, Trump enjoys the support of “42 percent of evangelical voters” (you can see the relevant poll here). Ted Cruz, a steadfast Christian whose father is a pastor, has only 25 percent.

 

The Trump narrative exposes the emptiness of the evangelical’s raison d'être. They won’t countenance unbelief, but paying cynical lip service to their cause is totally kosher—and, in Trump’s case, admirable. Shouldn’t they be upset with Trump? I know I would be. He exploited their faith for political purposes; he’s making a mockery of it. How is that worthy of their vote? There are two possible explanations.

Either the evangelicals are devoid of self-respect, or else they don’t actually care whether a person believes in God, so long as he or she pretends to. In the latter, more likely scenario, dishonesty is a virtue. This is not so surprising. It evokes Pascal’s wager: even if you don’t believe in God, you should pretend that you do, just in case he actually exists. But wouldn’t God, being omniscient, be onto the game? After all, a belief cannot be forced. One either believes or one doesn’t. Does Trump believe? The evangelicals couldn’t care less.

 

Encouragingly, the practice of pretending to care about whether a presidential candidate believes in God is less popular among younger Americans. Gallup’s pollsters found that 70 percent of young people (18-29) were willing to vote for an atheist president. That’s up 30 points from the 65+ age group. The reactionaries, then, are losing ground, as they always do. Barring an abrupt halt of progress on this front, there will soon be one less thing for politicians to have to lie about. Surely that is something everyone can celebrate?

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