Trump is an atheist.

As spokesman for the atheist community, let me just say that we don’t want him.

One of the core origins of Trump’s beliefs comes from good old Norman Vincent Peale of The Power of Positive Thinking. Peale was a good friend of Trump’s father, The Donald attended Peale’s church as a kid and got married there (the first time).

So Trump grew up Christian and this strongly affects his philosophy, right? Er …

Something went very wrong along the way. Remember Peale’s idea is that if you want something to happen you believe that it will happen. Trump’s mentality is a distortion of this: If you believe something is true it is true.

Peale’s philosophy isn’t all that Christian-specific to begin with and contradicts core Christian beliefs according to some experts.

I think the actual, recognizable Christian background that Trump got has had minimal affect on him. Instead he’s just your standard money and ego driven agnostic with a mindset that’s a perversion of a corruption of Christianity.

He knows perfectly well that if there is a Hell he’s going there afterwards. So there can’t be a Hell. And Heaven sounds boring. What, no porn stars?

Think about it: If Trump revealed himself to be the anti-Christ, you might be shocked, but would you be surprised?

Yes. It’s well known that Ronald Reagan was the Antichrist. Trump would be second fiddle to him, or more likely about fifth fiddle.

BTW, the Reagan Antichrist thing came from the fact that all three of his names are 6 letters long: Ronald Wilson Reagan. Well, my name has the same property. Furthermore, my initials are the same as those of the person this thread is about. As far as I’m concerned, there are far too many coincidences between me and Republican presidents. I’m thinking of suing, if I could just figure out who to sue.

I won’t try to argue over what the definition of atheist is, and it was not my point to define it.

What I mean to say is that Trump doesn’t believe in God the same way that he doesn’t believe in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

My own opinion is that he believes he is a god, in the sense of the roman or greek gods. He believes in the divine right for him to rule us and us to worship him and his name. He is a bit upset that in the US he can’t have the same level of rulership/respect as Kim Jong-un or the like.

While all of this is MHO, all also probably true.

I guess I care a little less than you do because I didn’t start a thread about it. I am similarly unconvinced he is a Dungeons and Dragons nerd or that he has an unnatural affinity for blueberry muffins or that bathing in sheep dip is on his bucket list. In your opinion are these proclivities similar in triviality to his being religious? Or is there a point to the OP that I am missing?

In answer to the OP, I think he acts very much like most Christians I KNOW about, so I see no reason to stain the belief structure of atheists or narcissists by associating him with them.

Trump an Atheist? I don’t care if he believes in little green men from Mars.

He’s a moronic crook that has not, and never has given a shit about anyone but himself.

He’s a narcistic sociopath. Full Stop.

Frankly, if he were openly atheistic or agnostic, I wouldn’t care either, but the fact is that it’s incredibly difficult for an open atheist or agnostic to win a political office in the U.S. (the exception being someone who runs for office in a highly liberal area). And, winning as a Republican, while not openly professing one’s Christianity, is close to impossible.

To me, that’s the bothersome part of this all. I see very little reason to believe that Trump has any real faith of any sort (other than his own ego), but he has paid what, IMO, is clear lip service to Christianity in order to gain the approval of the conservative Christians whose support he knew he needed in order to win in the primaries, and then in the general election.

Trump’s only religious trapping is his mirror.

Jesus was a loser because he got captured. Trump only likes holy figures who don’t get captured because they’re available for photo ops with him.

I gather you don’t remember the shitstorm about his former pastor. The Obamas definitely went to church more than twice a year.

Here is an article about his early religious upbringing - or lack thereof. There is no smoking atheist gun, but I’m betting he was one.
And I absolutely agree with pool that his religion was taken up for political reasons. He used God a lot in his keynote, and it went over very well. The guy knew that running while black was hard enough - he didn’t need to run while black and atheist too.

Trump’s religion probably depends on the last person he talked to.
My definition of atheism is simply lack of god belief. Trump may be an atheist under that definition, which requires no intellectual underpinning, but I bet we kind of believes in some civil type of god (like the In God we Trust god) because he is intellectually incapable of reasoning why this is untrue. But that doesn’t make him religious in the least.

I agree, seems to be a lot less inclusiveness here of degrees of non-belief as ‘atheism’ than there is when it’s debate about what % of Americans (for example) are atheists.

And just bashing of Trump, which, whatever, who can really defend the guy personally. I don’t think religious conservatives do by and large. They think they are under cultural attack, and whether that’s true or not if you feel that way you want a fighter on your side. Most of them believe he has/will. I don’t think many believe he’s a devout Christian.

Anyway Trump is of a form of ‘traditionalist non-believer’ nominally associated with a religion (tends to be Christianity in our cultural but not necessarily) in which he clearly has little actual interest. Whether that makes him an ‘atheist’, or whether he would become one with the stroke of the poll question of saying ‘unaffiliated’…again people might consider how they’d treat that question in other contexts. Are they sure they wouldn’t ‘borrow’ de facto non-believers like Trump as ‘atheists’? :slight_smile:

Of course any statement about actual belief is speculative. Trump doesn’t manifest any apparent interest in his supposed Presbyterianism when it’s not directly political. I have no idea if he might not have some residuum of belief at some level.

Well, I’d be more surprised that there really was a antichrist and that these were the end times. Trump filling the shoes- not so much as a eyebrow raise.

That statement about Kim Jong Zero is definitely correct, and the rest? Agreed 100%.

Oh, I definitely remember the furor over Rev. Wright. And I’m talking about now, not before he was POTUS.

My goal in the OP was to get exactly the sort of responses it has. Some have been humorous, some insightful, all of them interesting, to me anyway. Most interesting have been yours. I think you find this thread or something in my OP objectionable, am I right?
I’m getting the feeling that I’m missing something, either about you or about me, but whatever it is, it’s going over my head.

Atheists don’t have a belief structure, only the lack of one. And Karl Rove is an avowed atheist, so if it was going to be stained, it is already.

Maybe, there is controversy on this.

But last night Rove told me he is in fact a religious person, though he didn’t specify how his Christian roots manifest themselves in his life.

On ‘belief structure’ that just shifts the ambiguity to what that means rather than what ‘atheist’ means. In practical terms I’d distinguish in every day (internet, fortunately rarely in real life) experience people who tell me I’m stupid for believing in ‘my imaginary friend’ they are sure does not exist, v people who simply don’t believe in anything in this regard.

And the idea that people of any of these variations are strictly more virtuous than others is about equally ridiculous coming from people anywhere on the spectrum IMO. Though again noting that getting up in other people’s faces about their personal beliefs in this respect is obnoxious. I’m giving the example of people I know are ‘positive atheists’ because of their bragging about it. I’m not saying that less obnoxious people don’t have the same positive disbelief, which of course they are entitled to, but I don’t see it. And again in real life the people I deal with are rarely obnoxious this way like on the internet (I live in a very ‘blue’ area, so it’s not that I deal only with religious people).