Except that Dawkins isn’t asserting it, he’s saying that he wouldn’t be surprised if it were true. Without looking out my window, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were snowing right now but I’m not asserting that it is.
Condescending Robot IS asserting it, but CR is a guy (or gal) on an Internet messageboard where all sorts of things are asserted. Hardly a representative of all atheists everywhere, especially as there are various atheists/agnostics in this thread who are not asserting that Obama is an atheist (personally I’ve always suspected him of being more fundamentalist than he lets on but that’s just a niggling suspicion).
So I’m not sure how this supports your point at all.
Dude doesn’t even go to church. He’s never, as far as I remember, made God a big deal in any of his speeches besides the obligatory “God bless America” at the end. So there are two “shreds” of evidence that he’s an atheist.
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.
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. It would be nice if he WAS an atheist, but I don’t see it.
The brutal truth is that the smarter you are, the less likely you are to be religious. Obama’s a pretty smart guy.
In my opinion, evidence suggests that Obama is probably a closet atheist and professes being religious if only because atheism would make him unelectable. The way he invokes God in his speeches is exactly consistent with how I’d expect a closet atheist to do it (i.e. in a very general way/namedropping/etc). It’s not like he’s pulling a “WE HAVE TO DO THIS BECAUSE IT’S GOD’S PLAN” routine.
I agree with everyone else that Dawkins obviously meant it as a compliment and that it’s completely different from the “secret Muslim” bullcrap some people claim.
All too often I see atheists defend their skepticism on the basis of science, reason, (lack of) evidence, and a preference for realism over wishful thinking and closed-mindedness; and yet those same atheists say things about religion or religious people that aren’t based on solid evidence and that don’t stand up to reality-checking.
Look, I don’t know for sure whether Obama is sincere in his professed religious beliefs, though the evidence I’ve seen seems to favor that conclusion. But I can assert that I do know, from experience, that there are intelligent, thoughtful people who really do believe in God, who are sincere Christians, and whose Christianity is informed and sustained by their intelligence and thoughtfulness.
That’s impossible, since Christianity so so blatantly, utterly wrong. You might as well claim someone’s belief in Santa Claus was “informed and sustained by their intelligence and thoughtfulness”. Well, except that believing in Santa Claus is less silly than believing in Christianity.
Yeah, me too. But I can say the same about many millions of Muslims, Jews, Scientologists, etc. And since it’s obvious that they can’t all be right, and since it’s equally obvious that a person’s faith has a very high correlation to where and how he was raised, it has always been a mystery to me why they can’t see that they are kidding themselves — that their “intelligence and thoughtfulness” has lost to their childhood indoctrination.
Plenty of smart people believe in religion. You can be spectacularly smart/intelligent but still be ignorant in the areas that would normally lead one to realize the (existential) problems of believing in something like a personal God.
It’s a matter of correlation. Smarter people tend to not be religious, but it’s not a surefire thing. I’m sure many smart people who believe in God only really do so because they want to be a good, moral person and want to use religion as the backdrop for that foundation or whatever. Maybe they actually do believe in a personal God because it makes them happy, and are well aware that the evidence is against it, but don’t really care either way.
Those people come from being raised as liberal Christians, or being raised as fundamentalists and deciding to tone it down later. Obama was raised by a hippie mom who sparingly explored various “spiritualities” and had a Muslim father he never saw. He wasn’t a member of any religion until he decided he might have a political career.
People don’t convert to “I sort of believe in Christianity but I don’t go to church or care about it.” That’s ridiculous. I’m sorry if people are too in love with the 2008 fantasy of the Obama campaign to admit this, but he’s a politician doing the minimum necessary hat-tipping to Christianity that is required to get elected in the United States. There seems to be no other rational conclusion unless you assume behaviors that don’t have precedent in human experience, like getting a post-adulthood spiritual calling to convert from being agnostic to being sort-of-generically-religious.
Is it? I could name you about 3 dozen people who became religious neopagans in their teens or 20s, and now in their 30’s are “I sort of believe in my Path, but I don’t go to Circle or care about it.”
I’d be one of them.
I’m not sure why converts to Christianity must remain zealous forever. I haven’t, and I was once the most active Priestess in my community. I’m more agnostic than ever, but I’m still kind of sad that I’ve got nothing to do for Imbolc today.
I wasn’t arguing against them being smart; I was arguing against the claim that their Christianity is “informed and sustained by their intelligence and thoughtfulness”. Christianity is not sustained by intelligence and thoughtfulness. At all. Not even slightly. It’s as blatantly wrong and nonsensical as you can get while still speaking coherently. They may indeed be smart; but that’s not where their Christianity comes from; on the contrary, it’s something they are carefully avoiding applying their intelligence to properly
The same goes for people of average intelligence or even quite a bit less than that; you don’t need to be smart to see through Christianity (or religion in general). Anyone who can figure out that Santa Claus doesn’t exist ought to be able to see right through Christianity. People don’t because they don’t want to, not because it’s hard.
Say, I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Don’t you?
If you disagree with me, then surely you’re going to burn in Meatball Hell. I’m going to force your kids to learn all about the Flying Spaghetti Monster in school if I have anything to say about it. I’m also going to throw a bunch of money behind politicians who advocate the Mighty Plan of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and will do his bidding, for they hear and understand Him. BTW since it says in his Holy Grater of Parmesan that cheddar cheese is the cheese of the devil, so I’m going to lobby for a nationwide ban of cheddar. I don’t care if you like it or not. Also, since the Holy Grater claims the world was cooked in an oven in about 10 hours at 200 degrees, your science must be wrong. Screw evidence and your logic – science hasn’t always been right, either!
And no you’re not allowed to question my beliefs or insult them because hey, it’s my religion! I’ve also had a personal, spiritual experience with the Flying Spaghetti Monster so nothing you say will change my mind. Be more respectful!!
Yeah, I find it funny that the OP is trying to equate Dawkins giving Obama more credit than he deserves (in Dawkin’s eyes, and mine too FWIW) is somehow equivalent to the people who “accuse” him of being Muslim, and use the term as a slur.
It’s all wishful thinking, on both sides. The haters wants him to be an evil Muslim, the atheist supporters want him to be a smart atheist like themselves. Neither side has a compelling case.
It would be nice if this issue was kept out of politics, and the professed religion (or lack thereof) of a candidate was as meaningful to their popularity as their blood type. But I know that’s not going to happen in this country in my lifetime.
Are you saying that you wouldn’t lose at least some respect for someone you had known for years, and always considered intelligent, if he told you he believed in something foolish?
Astrology, flat earth, moon landing hoax, Bush deliberately allowed 9/11 so he could start wars, take your pick. Something that you consider foolish.
If it’s someone you love, you can still love him. If it’s someone you work with, you can still respect his overall competence. If it’s someone you barely know, you can still not discriminate against him.
But I find it hard to believe that you wouldn’t lose at least a little respect for his judgement, if not his intelligence.
Atheism isn’t a form of fundamentalism. And atheists don’t merely “believe” in what Dawkins says. Atheism is a position based on evidence, reason, and logic.
The question of Obama’s religion is one that can also be looked at via the evidence. It may very well be true that he’s a Christian, but if so, religion doesn’t appear to be a huge component of his life. There’s other evidence to suggest that it’s simply something he’s claiming simply because atheism makes one unelectable.