By Penn Jillette
I’m an atheist and I’m not running for president. That means my chances of being taken seriously as a presidential candidate are a bit better than Donald Trump’s.
Some of my fellow atheists bemoan that atheism is the final taboo in politics – polls report that America would never elect an atheist president.
Because of that, they brag that their favorite candidate (usually Obama or a Clinton) has to lie and say they believe in god and promise that they pray for supernatural guidance in world affairs.
They justify that their heroes are liars because Americans are too stupid and too bigoted to be told the truth. When you celebrate your hero as a liar, you’ve lost the moral high ground.
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15 comments on “Have Faith, We’ll Have an Atheist President”
We sympathise!
In Britain, now going into a parliamentary election, two of the three major party leaders are atheists. (The leader of the opposition, and the Liberal deputy Prime Minister.)
‘They justify that their heroes are liars because Americans are too stupid and too bigoted to be told the truth. When you celebrate your hero as a liar, you’ve lost the moral high ground.’
When your Libertarian views skew your acceptance of Climate Change, THEN you have lost the moral high ground.
Here in Canada, the prime minister is a creationist, and so was his first minister of Industry, Science and Technology.
This is so humiliating.
Canada is as backward as the US of A
On some issues, it is more backward!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32136006
The US has pledged to tackle climate change by cutting its carbon emissions 26-28% by 2025.
Tuesday was the deadline for wealthy nations to make their offers – but some, such as Canada, have failed to submit in time.
According to Penn, the editors at the New York Times considerably altered this article from what he had actually written. For more details, listen to his latest podcast, (episode 161) HERE.
Yes. With any luck we will have an atheist president before too long…
…let’s just hope that it’s someone rational and not an anarcho-capitalist nutjob like anyone Penn Jillette would support.
too bad Jillette is not running, Teller for VP!
What would atheists like an atheist president or prime minister to do that a ‘believing’ one would not? Or put the other way, what would atheists like an atheist president or prime minister to not do that a ‘believing’ one would?
“Believing ones”, come in a wide range of flavours and some bad-tastes, but the most obvious things are to keep religious theocratic bigotry and sectarian politics, out of national legislation, to allow people equality and freedom to run their lives without religious interference based on ancient dogmas. (Contraception, abortion, same-sex marriage, freedom from discrimination in services and business etc.)
There are plenty of examples of atheist and secular leaders in English and Scottish politics.
Maybe nothing different. It would just be nice if American atheists could get elected to public offices like everyone else.
As an American I disagree. We are the winners on that one. How dare you insult Canada?
They won’t be looking forward to the “end of times” when we will all be judged and the “Christians” will have their revenge.
The previous minister of Quebec is an atheist. Gilles Ducep. He was in the Party Quebecois but he left when they lost and is working as a lawyer now.
It will probably not happen anytime soon. Probably not in my lifetime (I assume I will die somewhere in the range of 2050). Maybe sometime in 2200. The USA seems very messed up from what I see. I’m in Canada.
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