Michael Medved, right wing loon, says we shouldn't have an atheist president. He gives three reasons, each of which is so stupid it is laughable.
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"Americans Are Right To Resist An Atheist As President"
Actually, there’s little chance that atheists will succeed in placing one of their own in the White House at any time in the foreseeable future, and it continues to make powerful sense for voters to shun potential presidents who deny the existence of God. An atheist may be a good person, a good politician, a good family man (or woman), and even a good patriot, but a publicly proclaimed non-believer as president would, for three reasons, be bad for the country.
Hollowness and Hypocrisy at State Occasions.
Just as the Queen plays a formal role as head of the Church of England, the President functions as head of the “Church of America” – that informal, tolerant but profoundly important civic religion that dominates all our national holidays and historic milestones....For instance, try to imagine an atheist president issuing the annual Thanksgiving proclamation. To whom would he extend thanks in the name of his grateful nation –-the Indians in Massachusetts?
Disconnecting from the People. The United States remains a profoundly, uniquely religious society: “a nation with the soul of a church” in Tocqueville’s durable phrase. A president need not embrace one of the nation’s leading faiths...A chief executive who publicly discards the core belief in God that drives the life and work of most of his countrymen can never achieve that sort of connection.
Winning the War on Islamo-Nazism. On one level, at least, the ongoing war on terror represents a furious battle of ideas and we face devastating handicaps if we attempt to beat something with nothing.
Read the rest here.
Medved: The Atheists Are Coming!
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Doug
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PZ Meyers writes a response to Medved's rant.
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See here.
Medved can't even argue against this nonexistent non-choice of a non-candidate with anything approaching sense. He gives three reasons we shouldn't have an atheist president, and I'm sorry, this is the best he can come up with? If those are the weaknesses of an atheist president, I say we've been wasting our time with Christians.
His first excuse is that an atheist president couldn't exercise ceremonial functions, like saying the pledge of allegiance, without being hypocritical. You heard that right: a right-wing water carrier for the Republicans considers hypocrisy to be a disqualifying offense. Further, a president who doesn't say "under god" in the pledge is "a formula for a disastrously unpopular presidency". Isn't it nice to know that a tanking economy and a catastrophic failure of a war aren't quite as damaging to a presidency as refusal to say a loyalty oath to an invisible man?
His second excuse is a little more convincing. Americans are god-lovin' people who will dislike a president who doesn't accept their delusions. Of course, this is also begging the question: Americans are right to resist an atheist president because Americans despise atheists. He doesn't say why it's all right for Americans to despise atheists, though; they just do.
His third argument is that we need to win the war on "Islamo-Nazism". Isn't it funny how on the one hand, Nazism is a godless evil driven by Darwinism, and on the other it's a character of a fanatical fundamentalist Abrahamic sect with dreams of establishing a world-wide theocracy? I get so confused, but then I don't have the advantage of having my higher reasoning centers pithed out, as have the Medveds and Coulters and O'Reilly's of the world. In this case, Medved makes a quadruple right reverse argument that leaves me totally twisted around. We hate "Islamo-Nazism," therefore we must elect a religious president because that's what the Islamo-Nazis want. It's the only way to win! I'm convinced. I'm so well persuaded now that if an Islamic mullah should run for the presidency, I think we should all vote for him. It's the logical conclusion of this chain of thinking, after all.
etc.
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See here.
Medved can't even argue against this nonexistent non-choice of a non-candidate with anything approaching sense. He gives three reasons we shouldn't have an atheist president, and I'm sorry, this is the best he can come up with? If those are the weaknesses of an atheist president, I say we've been wasting our time with Christians.
His first excuse is that an atheist president couldn't exercise ceremonial functions, like saying the pledge of allegiance, without being hypocritical. You heard that right: a right-wing water carrier for the Republicans considers hypocrisy to be a disqualifying offense. Further, a president who doesn't say "under god" in the pledge is "a formula for a disastrously unpopular presidency". Isn't it nice to know that a tanking economy and a catastrophic failure of a war aren't quite as damaging to a presidency as refusal to say a loyalty oath to an invisible man?
His second excuse is a little more convincing. Americans are god-lovin' people who will dislike a president who doesn't accept their delusions. Of course, this is also begging the question: Americans are right to resist an atheist president because Americans despise atheists. He doesn't say why it's all right for Americans to despise atheists, though; they just do.
His third argument is that we need to win the war on "Islamo-Nazism". Isn't it funny how on the one hand, Nazism is a godless evil driven by Darwinism, and on the other it's a character of a fanatical fundamentalist Abrahamic sect with dreams of establishing a world-wide theocracy? I get so confused, but then I don't have the advantage of having my higher reasoning centers pithed out, as have the Medveds and Coulters and O'Reilly's of the world. In this case, Medved makes a quadruple right reverse argument that leaves me totally twisted around. We hate "Islamo-Nazism," therefore we must elect a religious president because that's what the Islamo-Nazis want. It's the only way to win! I'm convinced. I'm so well persuaded now that if an Islamic mullah should run for the presidency, I think we should all vote for him. It's the logical conclusion of this chain of thinking, after all.
etc.