# Nations With Official (or Unofficial) Theocratic Tendencies **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 27, 2009, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nations-with-official-or-unofficial-theocratic-tendencies/507921 "2009-08-27T16:17:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 72
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nations-with-official-or-unofficial-theocratic-tendencies/507921/72 "2009-08-31T22:40:42Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > 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”. Absolutely. Early Presidents. How many recent ones would you class with the deists? > [@HorseloverFat](#): > > Err, unlike which countries? Every country has a dominant religion. How many Islamic presidents has Argentina had? How many Jewish presidents has Russia had? How many Buddhist presidents has Iran had? How many atheist presidents has Australia had? Australia doesn’t have a President… does it? In any case their current Prime Minister is Anglican I think. But I have used NZ as an example before; our current PM perhaps has a religion… but has said he doesn’t believe in life after death, and our previous PM was agnostic or an atheist. The point being that – outside of a few small fringe parties – religion or lack of religion is not a deciding factor in getting elected here. Is the same true of US politics? If a US presidential candidate said: “if you’re asking me if I’m religious it depends how you define religion\*”, and stated that he did not believe in life after death, would it have a positive, negative, or no effect on his election chances? (\*quote from current NZ PM John Key). > [@](#): > > While its “cool” to bash the US on all things on the web, I think its an unfair characterization. The US, unlike a lot of European and Asian countries, was founded as a secular country, which is almost unheard of. Yes, there’s a fair bit of religiosity, but calling it a de facto theocracy is ridiculous. I wasn’t bashing the US. I was asking, given the exact wording of the OP’s question, whether the OP was wishing to explicitly exclude the US from consideration. > [@DrDeth](#): > > And- can we quit this hijack, or continue it in GD? > > The USA is in no way a Christin Theocracy… (There are some aspects of _Dominionism )_ What hijack? The OP asked about (my emphasis): Nations With Official ( **or Unofficial** ) Theocratic **Tendencies**. Tendencies. Not actual theocracy. If you think there are aspects of Dominionism in the US aren’t you arguing in support of the US having theocratic **tendencies**? --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nations-with-official-or-unofficial-theocratic-tendencies/507921)._