Odd that. When the Atheists want to show a list of great atheists, they often include many US Presidents. Quite a few US President- while not perhaps “atheists” were not regular churchgoers or perhaps “deists”.
Here’s a cite:
*The irreligious
In some cases there is a paucity of material that suggests that religion was important to certain presidents. For example, next to no evidence exists for Monroe’s personal religious beliefs. This may be a consequence of his destruction of most of his personal correspondence, in which religious sentiments may have been recorded.
Franklin Steiner lists four presidents as “not affiliated” and six others as “religious views doubtful”:
* James Madison
* James Monroe
* Martin Van Buren
* William Henry Harrison
* John Tyler
* Zachary Taylor
* Andrew Johnson
* Ulysses S. Grant
* Rutherford B. Hayes
* Chester Arthur
As with claims of deism, these identifications are not without controversy.
Deism and the founding fathers
Deism was a religious philosophy in common currency in colonial times, and some founding fathers (most notably Thomas Paine, who was an explicit proponent of it) are identified more or less with this system. Nevertheless a number of early presidents are sometimes identified as holding deist tenets, though there is no president who identified himself as such. The following Presidents are often identified as having some degree of deistic beliefs:[6]
* George Washington
* Thomas Jefferson
* James Madison
* James Monroe
* John Tyler
* Abraham Lincoln
Note, however, that most of these identifications are controversial. …
Four presidents are positively affiliated with Unitarian churches, and a fifth (Jefferson) was an exponent of ideas now commonly associated with Unitarianism.
There are also around 13 (of 50) US Senators who are listed as Jewish, a couple who are Unitarian, and one Unspecified.