Atheist US President

lerk

lerk

Posting this here as an Atheist becoming US president is more interesting before 1900 than in after.

Anyways, with a POD no earlier than July 4th, 1776, how can an atheist become US president?
 

CountDVB

My guess would be higher education more widespread amongst the people.

The Founding Fathers were secular, but still religious to an extent. Their view of god was of “almighty watchmaker”; they made the world and let’s it run.

With higher education and reasoning, people would gain more secular views of god and so on. It would have to involve inviting anyone regardless of religion. It would involve careful play of politics and motivation. Most groups could probably assimilate like this over time and if structures functioning like churches could perform those community duties, it would soften the influence of them.

An atheist president would still be suspected somewhat, though perhaps cultivating the image that they because disregarded religion entirely, they would be better followers of the law. It would require widespread critical thinking.
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

However, in the twentieth century something of a cottage industry arose claiming that Presidents who obviously didn't care that much about religion, if they weren't outright athiests, were religious. Really the first religious Christians to reach the White House was Garfield. Everyone before that was pretty nominal in their adherence.
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

I was thinking of this because I had just read this blog post from David Lindsay the other day:

"And the American Founding Fathers were not Christians. They were Deists, and their position is exemplified by The Jefferson Bible, from which he excised all reference to Christ’s Divinity, Resurrection or miracles; copies were presented to all incoming members of Congress until the 1950s.

"However, the phrase “the separation of Church and State” does not occur in the Constitution. Rather, the First Amendment’s reference to religion was designed to stop Congress, full of Deists as it was, from suppressing the Established Churches of several states, although they all disestablished them of their own volition later on precisely because they had fallen so completely under the Founding Fathers’ influence.

"The 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, “of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary”, was submitted to the Senate by President John Adams, was ratified unanimously, and specified that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion”. Although he attended Episcopalian services with his wife, George Washington did not receive Communion."

http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.com/2018/08/heres-deal.html
 

Rockydroid

CountDVB said:
My guess would be higher education more widespread amongst the people.
Click to expand...
Considering a world renowned brain surgeon wanted to establish the biblical tithe as the model for American taxes during the 2016 GOP primaries a bit of a....clue that this may not work out the way you think it will...just my two cents.
 

Jared

Rockydroid said:
Considering a world renowned brain surgeon wanted to establish the biblical tithe as the model for American taxes during the 2016 GOP primaries a bit of a....clue that this may not work out the way you think it will...just my two cents.
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On average, the higher the level of education, the lower the level of religious belief.

This of course does not mean that every person who has received higher education is non-religious, but on average they are more likely to be.

There's also a question of whether this correlation has any causation involved - if not, then increasing levels of higher education won't change anything.
 

Rockydroid

Jared said:
On average, the higher the level of education, the lower the level of religious belief.

This of course does not mean that every person who has received higher education is non-religious, but on average they are more likely to be.

There's also a question of whether this correlation has any causation involved - if not, then increasing levels of higher education won't change anything.
Click to expand...

Can't say I've ever heard of that one way or another. But I can say that a more educated society can certainly be more tolerant thus allowing more people to express their true views without fear of persecution. You could get more atheists to come out of their closet but I doubt you'd make more in the first place in any significant number. The most it'll do here, assuming everything else remains equal, is have a president who was agnostic or atheist be more open about it.
 
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