I frankly don’t care what they believe. I just would love to see actual separation of church & state in politics. I’d also like a pony.
There are a handful of open atheist Democrats in Congress. Have any atheist Democrats run for President? I can’t think of any. Most atheists don’t care about a candidate’s religion, unless they’re fundamentalist. I think your opinion about how the Democratic party “treats” atheists is baseless.
Bernie?
Perhaps by and large liberals are more accepting of people of different beliefs. Thus they don’t shun Atheist like the religious right does without blinking an eye. They understand that sometimes compromise is necessary to gain strength where as others see it as a sign of weakness and breaking from the tribe.
In polls, atheist frequently come close to the bottom on the list of trustworthy people. But it’s not all bad news, according to this article, only 18% of poll responders in 1958 said they’d vote for a qualified atheist president while 60% of poll respondents in 2020 said they’d be willing to vote for a qualified atheist president.
But only 41% of Republicans said they’d vote for an atheist versus 69% of Democrats who said they would. Republicans would rather vote for a gay presidential candidate than a homosexual.
Not according to this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bernie-sanders-finally-answers-the-god-question/2016/01/26/83429390-bfb0-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html
He ain’t foolin’ me.
This is one of the most poorly thought out OPs I ever seen.
There’s your problem right there. Most of the small-minded hobgoblins are on the Republican side.
Consistency is WAY overrated.
Just to note that the Democratic Party (and, for that matter, the Republican Party, as well) doesn’t select candidates to participate in the primary process – anyone who files to run may do so, if they meet the filing requirements. (This led to some consternation among party members in 2016 and 2020, when Bernie Sanders ran in the Democratic primaries, even though he is an independent, and identifies as a socialist.)
While, as far as I know, the Democratic party hasn’t ever had an atheist as its presidential nominee, that’s probably not on the “party” so much as the voters in the primary elections and caucuses having never selected one. As @Odesio notes above, until fairly recently, relatively few Americans would have voted for an atheist candidate.
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People do not arrive at being religious from applying logic or consistency; they almost always do so because they were raised to be religious. That training sticks.
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Because they’re trying to win elections and in the USA being openly atheist is political poison.
Not if you’re making hummus.
I don’t know why you would say that? Many people say he can quote parts of two Corinthians.
I’d call it honesty.
The reality is that most Democrats, like most Republicans, consider themselves to be religious believers. So why should they pretend to be atheists?
That seems hard to believe.
If you look at the answer to that same question, from that same study, sliced the other way:
- 55% of Democrats (including those who “lean Democratic”) say that they believe in God, and are absolutely certain in this (among Republicans, this is 73%)
- Another 21% of Democrats/lean Democratic say that they are fairly certain in their belief in God (among Republicans, it’s 17%)
- Only 13% of Democrats/lean Democratic say that they do not believe in God (compared to 5% of Republicans)
So, three-quarters (76%) of Democrats believe in God (adding up the “absolutely certain” and “fairly certain”).
Yes, most atheists are Democrats. No, most Democrats are not atheists. Even among Democrats, atheists are still a fairly small minority of Americans.
Yeah, as a religious socialist I completely reject the premise of the OP. Most Democrats are religious, although I think it is true that almost all non-religious Americans are Democrats, probably because the other party has embraced Christian identity politics.
And as most young people aren’t religious, the fraction of atheistic Democrats is getting larger. They are starting to recognize this; I remember at some point Biden giving a speech with the standard line about how we are all Americans: Christians, Jews, Muslims…and then he added “and those of no faith”. I think that’s progress.
It’s that Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act vs Obamacare thingy.
I still wonder why you think liberalism or progressivism is more compatible with atheism than conservativism is.
What fresh nonsense is this?
I spent all day at a teacher’s union training, focusing heavily on how to bring more people into the union. We talked about critical race theory, about charter schools and private schools, about defunding classrooms, about the loss of career protections, and a lot more.
At one point, one participant said, “I don’t know how many of you are Bible readers, but I’m reminded of the verse, ‘Be ye ready’” (or something like that). Several other participants nodded sagely and "Mm-hmm!"ed her words, and someone else mentioned another, related story from the Bible.
You say that atheism ties directly into liberalism? You know what else does? Jesus’s message. He spoke of respecting the weak and downtrodden. He spoke of the impossibility of rich fuckers going to heaven. He protected sex workers from oppressive laws. He told stories about overcoming racism.
A shitload of liberals are liberals because of their religion, not in spite of their religion. It’s absurd to suggest otherwise. I may be an atheist, but I can find a ton of common cause with religious people whose religion motivates them to compassion and mercy.