One of my coworkers was talking today about how 7 states have laws on the books forbidding atheists from running for public office. Mayhap that’s true. But it inspires a couple of related questions from me:
What’s the highest political office an open, acknowledged atheist has been elected to in the United States?
Have there been any atheist senators? Representatives? Governors? State senators or reps? How far down the political food chain do you have to go?
And when was an avowed atheist first elected to public office in the US?
I am, of course, talking about candidates who were atheists at the time, and who made their atheism known during or before their campaign.
Jefferson was elected President twice despite being called an atheist by his detractors (although I think he was more properly called a Deist or proto-Unitarian).
The actual religious faiths of Jefferson, Franklin*, Washington, Madison and Lincoln have been subject to a lot of speculation over the years. None of them ever stepped up on a public soapbox and said “I reject Christ and all his works!”, but most of them distanced themselves from Protestant orthodoxy in subtle, vague ways. (Washington was a vestryman at two churches, one here in Alexandria and one down by the Rappahannock about 30 miles away. He tended to duck out right before the communion. Jefferson rewrote the Bible by omitting the parts he thought were fishy, including references to Christ’s divinity. Today, that would make him a Unitarian, but back then, society called it Atheism. Franklin and Madison had public church affiliations, but were critical of Christian practices and orthodoxy. Lincoln professed atheism in his younger days, but not during his political career.)
BTW, which states forbid Atheists from holding office?
*Franklin never held the office of US President, but was briefly President of Pennsylvania,when such an office briefly existed.
Jessie Ventura was an atheist, wasn’t he? At least agnostic. I know he was on Leno? talking about comments he made earlier and how after the things he’s seen (as a SEAL), he just doesn’t believe there could be a God.
I don’t believe Jesse Ventura was an atheist, although he did say (in an interview with Playboy) that “organized religion is a sham and a crutch for the weak minded.” Ventura more or less refused to talk about his faith (or lack there of), though in one interview I read he said he had “a spiritual side.”
I’ve always found it odd that Theism still has such a stranglehold on our culture that atheism is seen as some sort of extreme position that must be finessed or softened (not that I haven’t done the same many times in thinking about my own philosophical development)
Theism is a positive assertion - at the very least “There is a God”. As such the burdenof proof (should you wish proof) or claim of truly being a Theist, lies on he self-proclaimed Theist. i.e. “what proof is there that X really believed in God, and wasn’t just going with the flow”. In any positive assertion, we can be presumed to be skeptical until convinced (by proof, inspiration, fear, whatever) If I say there is a hidden Pope in Hawaii, or “There is a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder”, you don’t automatically believe me. You may go along for the sake of duiscussion, or you may check (especially about the bug) but you don’t actually believe any old thing that’s said to you (unless you’re incredibly credulous)
Babies are all born atheists. That’s why we have to teach kids about gods if we want them to believe in them, and why no view of God is accepted by a majority of humans. It is the sincerity and form of our Theism (if any) that must be proved. Atheism is the default.
A Muslim I know says that all babies are born Muslim, and only decadent culture makes them think they are not. He’s wrong, and so are you.
An atheist is someone who, after due consideration, knows for a fact that there is no deity. Typically, he is not receptive to alternative theories. Babies haven’t duly considered anything yet, haven’t given the God/No God question any thought at all, and are extremely receptive to the thought of a white-bearded patriarch who smites bad people. Try again.
So what would you call a person who had been raised in isolation, and never been exposed to the idea that there might be a God or gods (or a spirit world of any sort), and therefore didn’t believe in them? (Surely if “atheist” doesn’t apply, then neither does “agnostic,” since by your formulation the latter would presumably have considered the concept of god without either accepting or rejecting it.)
Babies are certainly not born atheists- you said yourself, atheism is a rejection of the existence of a higher power after consideration. Babies are not capable of considering evidence for the existence of a deity.
Anyway, that was more of a nitpick than anything… since this is going to be moved into GD soon, we may as well start some debating.
Atheism is not the default; atheism, like theism, is a certainty, and itself a belief. The default is doubt. It should be obvious that the neutral state is neither knowing that God exists, nor knowing that God does not exist, but not knowing.
The office of “President of Pennsylvania” has never existed. Under the revolutionary state constitution ( 1776-1790 ) the executive branch of the government was headed by a Supreme Executive Council. Franklin presided over this council from 1785 to 1788 and thus served as the chief executive of Pennsylvania but never its president.
A near miss was Robert Ingersoll of Illinois right after the Civil War. He had an interest in running for governor and a good deal of support from Republican delegates that could nominate him but they insisted he keep his mouth shut about his religious views which he refused to do.
He was thought to have no current equal as an orator, earning huge fees as a public speaker on many subjects and the party continued to use him in that regard, but his religious views became even more extreme and well known. At various times he described himself and by others as agnostic, atheist, infidel.
No, babies are all born agnostic, in the original, most literal meaning of the term: “a-gnostic.” They have no knowledge or opinion about anything whatsoever, including the existence of a god.
And we don’t just “have to teach kids about gods if we want them to believe in them,” we also have to teach them about gods if we want them to make their own informed decision, just like everything else we teach them.
I hate to break this to you, Interrobang!?, but this thread is on the fast track to GD-ville.
The most likely candidate would be Lincoln. Jefferson, from what I’ve read, was most likely a Deist. He believed that God created the universe, but he didn’t believe that God took an active part in the world’s affairs. Basically this means that he didn’t believe in miracles or the supernatural, and he probably believed that Jesus was just another prophet.
This is not the place for debating whether babies are born atheists. Let’s confine ourselves to discussing U.S. officeholders who were publicly avowed atheists.