I’ve been Athiest for maybe 20 years now and have always been a liberal. Every Athiest I know is a liberal and every Athiest I know of on TV is a liberal (George Carlin, Penn and Teller). I don’t know maybe it’s different in places other than Buffalo.
Can you guys please tell me if there are any conservative Athiests out there? And perhaps why Athiests seem to lean fairly heavily to the liberal side.
I’m one.
I’m not, but Christopher Hitchens might qualify. He’s at least conservative in some ways. I’ve talked to others.
I’m a kind of libertarian-conservative agnostic. How’s that?
This maybe one reason why many Athiest don’t seem to like Republicans:
http://bennyhills.fortunecity.com/hardy/203/nonbeliever/page50.html
This story was fairly popular back then if I can remember. Well around me that is. I believe Letterman even included it in a Top Ten thing of his once.
Penn is a libertarian, not a liberal. I imagine there are a fair number of libertarian atheists (I’m one), since both beliefs involve a certain rejection of authority.
Well, I was going to say I was one, but you listed Carlin and Penn and Teller as Liberal.
Im not sure how you see any of them as being Liberal with a capital L, but if you think theyre liberal then by that definition so am I. Living here in the Bay Area Cal though I can tell you that Carlin, Penn and Teller etc are not by any stretch Liberal, in the modern sense of the term.
Maybe there should be a new category; Liberal, Conservative, and Individualist. As for athiest, thats just a fancy word for non-superstitious. Me too.
Well I can’t say they’re very liberal but they certainly lean on it more and I do have to agree and say Penn is a libertarian.
Sorta, but not exactly, since so many religions and spiritual practices are atheistic.
Voodoochile has a point, though; Carlin is socially very liberal, but I’m not sure he’d describe himself as a liberal in the modern political sense of the term. As to Individualist, in many ways you’d be describing what libertarians say they are.
I’m a liberal in the sense of 18th century liberalism, which these days is fairly conservative, I guess, though I’m pretty far from wnot the same thing as being a “conservative.”
Apos:
I always thought an 18th century type “liberal” was pretty darn close to a libertarian. I would’ve said 19th century myself; not sure if that makes a difference.
Voodoo:
“Liberal, Conservative, and Individualist”. Perhaps Individualist = libertarian.
And I’m using small “l” libertarian here, as opposed to the actual large “L” party.
Oops. pushed submit too soon.
As for the OP. I don’t have any religious affiliation and if I had to put a label on myself, it’d be the small “l” libertarian, along the lines of Milton Friedman. Given a choice between a Dem and Rep, I usually choose the Rep, as I usually put economic issues at the top of the priority list.
I’m an atheist, and I’d consider myself somewhat conservative, depending on how you define your terms. Given today’s political labels I’d be called a conservative, since I favor a capitalistic economic system, free trade, local control over schools, property rights, limited government, strong communities, strong military defense, low taxes, the general wisdom of already existing social institutions, etc. But I also support separation of church and state, decriminalizing pot and prostitution, I’m not a racist or homophobe, I eat lots of locally grown organic vegetables, want to preserve endangered species, and am in favor of making polluters pay for the external costs of dumping pollutants into the commons.
I suppose if I lived in Alabama I’d consider myself a liberal, but since I live near Seattle I consider myself a conservative. Some of this is mostly semantics, but I find myself voting for Republicans more often than Democrats and agreeing with op-ed pieces written by self-identified conservatives more often than self-identified liberals.
The reason liberals tend to lean heavily toward the liberal side is that traditional conservatives lean toward the religious side. If you go back to the original definitions of liberal/conservative, conservatives wanted monarchy, a state church, mercantilism, state control of the economy, and social conformity. Liberals advocated republicanism, free thought, capitalistic free trade, and social experimentation. But the US was founded on liberal principles 200 years ago. After 200 years the conservatives got used to these liberal principles and adopted them for themselves. And so we get “conservatives” who believe in free-wheeling entreprenuerial capitalism, republican government, low taxes, etc. And somehow the word “liberal” got attached to socialism, state control of the economy, high taxes, governmental social experimentation, and the welfare state.
There are still plenty of conservative conservatives, like Pat Buchanan, Jesse Helms, etc. But there are also self-identified conservatives who are really liberals. And to generalize, many liberals are really liberals, but many other self-described liberals are really socialists or social democrats.
Make that: ATHEISTS tend to be liberals is because traditional conservatism leaned toward established religion.
What I orginally said doesn’t make much sense.
I’ve met at least one athiest who owns assualt weapons and believes in little-to-no gun control. It makes me believe said athiest is at least conserative leaning(or maybe just liberatarian).
I’m an atheist who loves to hunt (primative weapon only), believes in the right to own guns (with restrictions), but yet am pro-choice (to quote Jay from DOGMA) “What a women does with her body is her own business.” for the legalization of cannabis, psycosilibin, and peyote. So I guess I must be…Hell I don’t know!
Likewise. I’m agnostic rather than atheistic, and libertarian in my politics. From an economic standpoint, I would be classified as conservative, because I’m a pure capitalist. Likewise, on issues of personal responsibility, I woud be classified as extremely right wing, since my basic belief is that people are responsible for their own actions and the consequences of their own actions, almost without exception. On social issues, I tend to be perceived as lefty because I mostly don’t care what people do if they don’t hurt anyone doing it, but of course that stems from a rejection of paternalism - I don’t think anybody has a particular right to instruct you how to conduct your own life. When people assume from this that I’m left-leaning, I tend to point out that many liberals don’t believe this (i.e., there are those who would reject a right to hold racist or offensive beliefs), but that Barry Goldwater of course agreed completely with this.
It’s all part and parcel of the same thing to me.
Azargoth, that sounds pretty straight-ticket libertarian to me. Though I don’t know your views on other things.
Pardon me, but that’s kind of a meaningless comment - nobody ever campaigns against responsibility. When I hear people and politicians say they favor personal responsibility, usually it means they want to cut social programs. Is that what this means?
If Lemur866 won’t mind, I’ll use his paragraph as a form, with (most) differences emphasized:
I’m an atheist, and I’d consider myself somewhat liberal, depending on how you define your terms. Given today’s political labels I’d be called a liberal. I favor a capitalistic economic system, free trade, local control over schools, property rights, limited federal government, strong communities, strong military defense, low taxes, [strike]the general wisdom of already existing social institutions,[/strike] etc. I support separation of church and state, abortion rights, decriminalizing pot and prostitution, I’m not a racist or homophobe, I support polyamory, privacy, and the general concepts of liberty consistent with libertarian thought.
I’m not a fan of unions, or the influence of big business in politics.
And now to steal from John Mace:
Given a choice between a Dem and Rep, I usually choose the Dem, as I usually put social issues at the top of the priority list.
I find the differences between the two parties on economic issues as a choice between two evils. While I couldn’t quite endorse the Libertarian party either, they probably come closer my political preference on economic issues.
I’m a conservative athiest, and I have a number of friends who are likewise. But that shouldn’t shouldn’t come as a surprise that the people I’ve made friendships with share similar views as myself.
And likewise with you and your friends.