# Think Only Right-Wing Christians Doubt Obama's Professed Religion? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 31, 2012, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351 "2012-01-31T22:55:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![FixMyIgnorance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@FixMyIgnorance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FixMyIgnorance)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/81 "2012-02-01T17:55:37Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I agree - although it’s not true that people believe this just because Dawkins said something. It’s been a topic of discussion for years. Regardless, there’s nothing compelling about this case. It’s supported by a combination of suppositions, assumptions, and wishful thinking. It’s not impossible that Obama is making the whole thing up because we can’t know what he believes in private, but based on what he does in public there’s no actual evidence he is anything other that what he says he is. I think even devout presidents make a point of playing up their faith in certain contexts, but that doesn’t mean anybody’s faking the entire thing. On the other hand I do think it’s annoying that they’re expected to play it up to such a great extent these days and I’m glad Obama does a bit less of that. I disagree. I think the evidence is more in favor of atheism, but of course, that’s just my belief. It’s not something any of us can probably know, so I guess you could call me an “agnostic ObamaIsProbablyAnAtheist” XD Either way it doesn’t really matter to me whether he’s religious or not because the end result is pretty much the same: He keeps it dialed low and doesn’t let some crazy religious “I know what God wants” thing running through his policies. Certainly Obama isn’t a creationist and probably doesn’t believe that Jesus was divinely inspired or that anything in the Bible is literal. He probably approaches it from a baseline of “positive morality” and not much more. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/82 "2012-02-01T17:57:45Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I agree he didn’t join a church just to improve his chances of getting elected president decades later, but it’s not quite true that he had no inkling of running for president at that time. He was certainly considering a career in politics. And that fact alone would be sufficient, I suppose, to encourage a sufficiently opportunistic person to begin building up his spiritual cred even if he cared nothing for religion. Combine a law of large numbers with the long-con sleaziness that seems to come easy to career politicians, and I’d bet dollars to donuts it happens relatively frequently. That said, beyond the strange claims that Obama is either (1) so smart or (2) so insufficiently fervent that he simply _must_ be an atheist!, no compelling evidence to my knowledge has been put forth to bolster this particular notion. (FWIW, although there’s certainly evidence that very high levels of education correlate negatively with religious observance, people really need to stop overstating that case. It doesn’t matter that _you personally_ can’t imagine why a person of great intelligence would believe in some religion; it is an empirical fact that many do; and any causal link between intelligence and religion turns out to be rather weak at best.) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/83 "2012-02-01T18:07:19Z")
> [@FixMyIgnorance](#): > > I think the evidence is more in favor of atheism There is no evidence. This is based on a series of assumptions and reasoning about what those assumptions mean. I think it’s ridiculous and you obviously don’t, but if you want to be honest about it you can’t call it evidence. > [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > And that fact alone would be sufficient, I suppose, to encourage a sufficiently opportunistic person to begin building up his spiritual cred even if he cared nothing for religion. Combine a law of large numbers with the long-con sleaziness that seems to come easy to career politicians, and I’d bet dollars to donuts it happens relatively frequently. He’s acknowledged that he joined the Trinity church for reasons that were related to his community organizing work. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/84 "2012-02-01T18:15:13Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > He’s acknowledged that he joined the Trinity church for reasons that were related to his community organizing work. And he didn’t waste much time leaving it when it became a political liability. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/85 "2012-02-01T18:32:09Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > And he didn’t waste much time leaving it when it became a political liability. Considering how big a liability it became, he could’ve quit a lot faster. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/86 "2012-02-01T18:35:50Z")
> [@YoDoc](#): > > That’s ridiculous. The fact that you don’t see him in church, and the separate fact that he doesn’t pander to evangelical crazies, do not combine to precipitate atheism. Third, the “God Bless America” is not obligatory. It may be expected, but it certainly isn’t a requirement. > > Barry O is more likely to be muslim than atheist, imo; and not likely to be muslim, at that. I said they were evidence, and they are. They certainly do indicate atheism. And there’s no logical way for one to conclude he’s more likely to be a muslim than an atheist. There are certain actions that one would expect to see from a Muslim, like dietary restrictions and prayer practices. We see none of those. But there are certain things you’d see from an atheist, like not going to church and not letting religious beliefs weigh on policy decisions. P.S. Look up “precipitate” in a dictionary. > [@](#): > > PS. Did you know that not all atheists are the same? Not all of us are raised to kick kittens and subvert America. I was taught to treat people nicely because that’s the only logical action, not because a monster will get me. Thanks for the PSA. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/87 "2012-02-01T18:50:16Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > I said they were evidence, and they are. They certainly do indicate atheism. Sure, they’re evidence; Obama’s behavior is consistent with someone who wears the mantle of religious belief despite secretly being an atheist. It’s also consistent with someone who wears the mantle of religious belief despite not caring about religion at all, and it’s consistent with someone who wears the mantle of religious belief and who _is_ genuinely religious but does not have the inclination to be particularly fervent and born-again-y about it. It’s consistent with someone who did feel strongly at the time of conversion but whose level of observance has diminished. It’s consistent with someone who was lying _originally_ but has eventually come to really believe. Heck, if we want to get really out there, it’s consistent with all sorts of bizarre Manchurian Candidate-esque scenarios that we could sit here inventing all day long. Who knows? Without further evidence it’s (very minor) lunacy to conclude that the Obama-is-an-atheist hypothesis is probably true. At best you’d be able to make the case that the Obama-is-an-atheist hypothesis can’t be thrown out prima facie. ---
**Author:** ![FixMyIgnorance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@FixMyIgnorance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FixMyIgnorance)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/88 "2012-02-01T19:09:01Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > There is no evidence. This is based on a series of assumptions and reasoning about what those assumptions mean. I think it’s ridiculous and you obviously don’t, but if you want to be honest about it you can’t call it evidence. > He’s acknowledged that he joined the Trinity church for reasons that were related to his community organizing work. I don’t disagree in principle – it’s like Carl Sagan’s dragon: What’s the difference between an invisible, undetectable, non-interacting dragon and no dragon at all? The end result in the same. The same analogy applies here. It doesn’t matter if he’s atheist or not as long as what he does in office is good. However, we are only truly agnostic about something if we had absolutely no evidence pointing any which way. There’s a difference between a blind assumption and evidence. In this case, we could argue any one path as being _possible_ simply because, well, we’re not Obama. We have no idea what he actually believes. In this case, we must be agnostic about it. But how does one ever assess what someone’s opinion is besides asking them? In this case, since we can’t ask him, and if we did, he’d tell us he’s Christian – I am arguing that actions _tend_ to be evidence (or at least, in line with) that of inward beliefs. Religious politicians in the past tend to be much more forward with their beliefs, whereas secular types tend to use the same sort of rhetoric we saw Obama use in the speech I posted earlier. My “evidence” is based upon his attitudes, the way he speaks about science (I’ve been in enough internet debates to know that a vast majority of the time, the kind of language used is MUCH less consistent among theistic types, even the intelligent ones), and the fact that he’s very low-key with his “religion” insofar as it appears to be a surface-level appeasement and nothing more. Is it circumstantial evidence? Of course. But it’s evidence, and not blind assumption – it’s the direction I’d bet if I had to. It’s something that tips the scale one way versus the other in a nontrivial manner (hence “compelling”). Compare to the null hypotheses in each case. If not atheist, then at least apathetic-Christian-by-default. Again, there’s no evidence that he believes in any Creationist junk or mythical hocus pocus that I’ve come across. We know he’s an intelligent guy, which we know is further correlated with higher probability of non-belief. So no, I disagree that there’s no evidence. There’s evidence – we may just disagree on how strong that evidence is. At the end of the day, though, I don’t think it matters: The outcome’s the same. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/89 "2012-02-01T19:23:26Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Fundamentalist atheists are as gullible as any other kind of fundamentalist. “Dawkins said it; I believe it: that settles it”. > > Regards, > Shodan So, in Shodan logic saying “I’d not be surprised if X were true” means “I am absolutely certain that X is true?” ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/90 "2012-02-01T19:29:40Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > Quoting the Bible is not “making God a big deal.” Even I quote the Bible, and I’m one of those frothing-at-the-mouth fundamentalist atheists. When you write stuff you use symbolism which connects with your audience. The early Dylan was definitely not a Christian - he was either a non believer, an apathist or still Jewish - but he used lots of Christian and religious symbolism. His first album had Gospel Plow, his third had God on Their Side. I think we don’t have evidence for an answer, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if Obama was not really a believer. ---
**Author:** ![YoDoc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e68b1a/32.png) [@YoDoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoDoc)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/91 "2012-02-01T19:50:54Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > P.S. Look up “precipitate” in a dictionary. It’s called a metaphor. Look up “basic chemistry”. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/92 "2012-02-01T20:14:40Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Cite for anyone saying it anywhere. > [@Voyager](#): > > So, in Shodan logic saying “I’d not be surprised if X were true” means “I am absolutely certain that X is true?” As expected, he’s a No-Sho. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/93 "2012-02-01T20:51:39Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > That said, beyond the strange claims that Obama is either (1) so smart or (2) so insufficiently fervent that he simply _must_ be an atheist!, no compelling evidence to my knowledge has been put forth to bolster this particular notion. > > (FWIW, although there’s certainly evidence that very high levels of education correlate negatively with religious observance, people really need to stop overstating that case. It doesn’t matter that _you personally_ can’t imagine why a person of great intelligence would believe in some religion; it is an empirical fact that many do; and any causal link between intelligence and religion turns out to be rather weak at best.) Precisely. While Dawkins and certain others seem to believe that Obama’s intelligence is a data point against Obama being religious, there’s no logic behind such a statement. Looking [here](http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/2011015.pdf) for data (table 153, page 224) we see the following average SAT scores for incoming college students: Reading = 501, Math = 516, Writing = 492. Among majors in “philosophy/religion” the scores are 563, 540, 540 for a total of 1,643, fully 134 points higher than the overall average. Among majors in “theology/ religious vocation” the scores are 539, 524, 515 for a total of 1,578, also higher than average. And since it was Richard Dawkins who started this thread, we might as well mention that the scores for biology majors were 544, 560, 536 for a total of 1,640, below philosophy/religion majors, though above theology and religious vocation majors. Hence the data shows us there’s nothing unexpected about a well-educated and quite intelligent person taking religion seriously. ---
**Author:** ![FixMyIgnorance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@FixMyIgnorance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FixMyIgnorance)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/94 "2012-02-01T20:58:47Z")
I would say it’s not primarily his intelligence that leads one to believe he’s atheist. It’s the type of language he uses when he speaks about God and/or science, as well as his past + family history. We can always point to various counter-cases, but this is a matter of probability, here. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/95 "2012-02-01T21:13:30Z")
> [@FixMyIgnorance](#): > > In this case, since we can’t ask him, and if we did, he’d tell us he’s Christian That’d be more evidence. 😉 > [@](#): > > Religious politicians in the past tend to be much more forward with their beliefs, whereas secular types tend to use the same sort of rhetoric we saw Obama use in the speech I posted earlier. My “evidence” is based upon his attitudes, the way he speaks about science (I’ve been in enough internet debates to know that a vast majority of the time, the kind of language used is MUCH less consistent among theistic types, even the intelligent ones), and the fact that he’s very low-key with his “religion” insofar as it appears to be a surface-level appeasement and nothing more. Yeah, again- this is evidence that Obama is a particular type of believer. It doesn’t make it more likely he’s an atheist. > [@](#): > > If not atheist, then at least apathetic-Christian-by-default. Again, there’s no evidence that he believes in any Creationist junk or mythical hocus pocus that I’ve come across. A lot of Christians don’t believe in that nonsense, though. And you really can’t make predictions about an individual based on a loose correlation of intelligence and religious disbelief. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/96 "2012-02-01T21:23:04Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Precisely. While Dawkins and certain others seem to believe that Obama’s intelligence is a data point against Obama being religious, there’s no logic behind such a statement. . Dawkins’ Syllogism: All the smart people are atheists Obama is smart Ergo, Obama is an atheist. QED That’s pretty weak logic for a scientist. On the other hand, his premise is probably true – there undoubtedly have been agnostic presidents who feigned religiosity. I’m reminded of the conversation in the movie The Best Man on the subject, where the outgoing president tells closet atheist Henry Fonda that, in politics, religion needs to be poured over everything, like ketchup. ---
**Author:** ![PigArcher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@PigArcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PigArcher)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/97 "2012-02-01T21:35:54Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Among majors in “philosophy/religion” the scores are 563, 540, 540 for a total of 1,643, fully 134 points higher than the overall average. The vast majority of philosophy and religious studies majors are atheist or agnostic, so I’m not sure what your point is. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/98 "2012-02-01T21:38:31Z")
My Congressman finally came out as an atheist a few years ago, (the only one). He is a zillion years old and has been in the House since about the time of John Quincy Adams. Our district is extremely liberal. I’m not sure it is extremely secular, but there are so many really different religious beliefs here that anything you say pisses off only a tiny part of the electorate. So, he is best case, and if he stayed in the closet so long, how do you expect someone with national ambitions to act? ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/99 "2012-02-01T21:41:05Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > My Congressman finally came out as an atheist a few years ago, (the only one). It appears we have the same congressman, since he’s the only one. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351/100 "2012-02-01T21:42:25Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > So, in Shodan logic saying “I’d not be surprised if X were true” means “I am absolutely certain that X is true?” No, in Shodan logic the claim that there is a “compelling” case for Obama’s atheism is horseshit. As mentioned, there is none, and all the foolishness about how he is really something he has explicitly and repeatedly denied is wish-fulfillment and fantasies. That’s why I referenced fundamentalist atheists, although a better analogy is creationism. Same blind adherence to dogma in the teeth of a complete absence of proof. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/think-only-right-wing-christians-doubt-obamas-professed-religion/611351.md?page=6)