Atheist Politicians

I found this on a website and was wandering what people thought of it...

Recently Kevin Rudd attempted to push his religious views regarding stem cell research onto the 21,000,000 people of Australia, the majority of which do not support his views. On the topic of politics, how many atheists politicians can you name? Yet a meta study by MENSA found that of 43 studies into the relationship between religion and intelligence, 39 found an inverse relationship and 4 found no relationship. So atheists are more intelligent and none of them are politicians.

How many atheist politicians can you name?

There's also the possibility of politicians claiming they are of a faith in order to increase support. I really doubt that all of them would really be religious people.

Even an Atheist is going to say the word 'God' when in America, for example. I doubt a non Christian has as much chance as a Christian in countries like America.

Yeah but we don't need to limit this to the USA, what about Australia, New Zealand, Europe, etc?

Hence "countries like". Admittedly, in Britain for example I think you could get away with being an atheist politician publically, and possibly in others. Vladmir Putin for example is actually a reincarnation of Lucifer, so he is not remotely Christian.

How many atheist politicians has Britain had?

Past experience doesn't prove the future.

(I have no idea)

Yeah, in America, if you don't believe in God, at LEAST fifty percent of your voters are gone, and probably more than that. It'll get better once atheism is more well known, of course, and more accepted.

~D-Draw

Which it probably won't be, unfortunately for existing atheists and Satan.

Which it probably won't be, unfortunately for existing atheists and Satan.

Tell me again why it won't be more accepted in the future, please.

~D-Draw

Oh, look, there have been atheist politicians!  Even a few from the US! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Atheist_politicians

Who is this Jeremy dude?

Anyway, Australia has a few.  The leader of one of the minor parties here (the Democrats, not like the US version though) was not only an atheist, but a Goth when he was at school (Andrew Bartlett).

There is no doubt there is a disproportionately low number of politicians who are willing to admit that they're atheists though, especially when you consider the probably link with intelligence (in populations, not specific cases).

Knowledge I don't think will incerease, but actually 've changed my mind about acceptance; I think more sheep types are going to go with science instead iof religion in the next two centuries.

Aside atheist politicians, most people don't realize that various scientists considered by many to believe in a god were actually atheist:

• Albert Einstein (above all)
• Enrico Fermi
• Niels Bohr
• Werner Heisenberg
• Paul Dirac
• Wolfgang Pauli
• Ashoke Sen
• Edward Witten
• James Clerk Maxwell
• Steven Hawking
• Max Planck
• Prince Louis-Victor Pierre Raymond de Broglie
• Erwin Schrödinger
• Hideki Yukawa
• Sheldon Lee Glashow
• Abdus Salam
• Steven Weinberg
• Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

To name only a few offhand.

Albert Einstein was definitely not an atheist.  He said this;

I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but admire even more his contributions to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and the body as one, not two separate things.

Published in Glimpses of the Great 1930 - G. S. Viereck

So to be clear, Einstein didn't believe in any kind of personal God, nor was he superstitious.  However he wasn't an atheist either.

Einstein consistently said that he did not believe in a god (not just a personal/theological god) and that he did not believe in any sort of spirit of life force.

(when i could find the original letter i wrote it, otherwise i gave the book that the letter was quoted in)

• I do not believe in the God who rewards good and punishes evil. (Albert Einstein, as quoted in a memoir by Life editory William Miller in Life, May 2, 1955)
• I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it. (as he plainly states, he does NOT believe in a life force, or spirit (Albert Einstein, in a letter to a Baptist pastor, 1953)
• The idea of a personal god is quite alien to me and seems even naive (Albert Einstein, letter to Beatrice Frohlich, December 17, 1952)
• I cannot conceive of a God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. [He was speaking of Quantum Mechanics and the breaking down of determinism.] My religiosity consists in a humble admiratation of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance -- but for us, not for God. (Albert Einstein, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press, p.66)
• It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal god and i have never denied this but expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it (sounds like a pantheistic statement to me...). (Albert Einstein, in a letter March 24, 1954)

How is it that Einstein would deny the existence of a 'life force', or any inherent, unobservable difference between animate and inanimate objects (or between humans and non-humans, as is the case of absolutist religious followers), while at the same time believe in an intelligent, conscious god? I don't know where you found that quote of Einstein, but i could not find any letter, speech, or conversation in which he said any of it, whereas there are an overwhelming number of occasions in which he denies a belief in both a god and a 'life force'/spirit.

Sure, and if you read my post, I never denied that.  In fact I clearly stated that Einstein had no supernatural beliefs;

Einstein didn't believe in any kind of personal God, nor was he superstitious

That doesn't make him an atheist.  You can, perhaps, play around with words and claim that he was an atheist, but his own view was that he was not an atheist, and he considered himself religious and spiritual, just not in a manner connected to any superstitions. 

To name an example of that kind of theism, most Buddhists don't believe in a personal God, rather an 'Ultimate Truth'. I also don't know any superstitious beliefs linked to Buddhism, although obviously we can't rule out that there are superstitious Buddhists out there.

If Einstein did not believe in a god, and he did not believe in any spiritual life force, and he was not affiliated with any religion, and he says he is not an atheist, then doesn't that leave pantheism as his only option (he said himself that he was a follower of the natural, or cosmic religion, which sounds pretty pantheistic itself). And remember, pantheism is basically using god as a metaphor for nature, and i would assume Einstein would claim to believe in a natural pantheistic god, if only because it contained the word god, in order to keep up his public appearance, which would be necessary for his credibility, and also because a religious person would be more likely to trust someone who believed in a 'god' then someone who didn't, even if this god wasn't a god in the conventional sense (just a theory). In any case, it is evident that he would have to be pantheistic, which, when compared to insane fundies, is a good as atheist (although atheists tend to have more of a spark when defending the fact that god/spirit/heaven/hell/other crap doesn't exist).

He stated himself that he considered himself to be a religious person.

Yes, religious in a pantheistic sense. Here:

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
"I am convinced that some political and social activities and practices of the Catholic organizations are detrimental and even dangerous for the community as a whole, here and everywhere. I mention here only the fight against birth control at a time when overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet."

I'm not saying that he wasn't religious, but as he says, only in his 'unbounded admiration for the structure of the world...". Pantheism!

Sure, he might have been. Still leaves him open to being a believer in an Ultimate Truth or in a life force though.

Atheists are evil demons! How dare they try to enter politics and ruin America. This is the work of Satan!

Congratulations, you now have no credibility.

Yes, religious in a pantheistic sense. Here:

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
"I am convinced that some political and social activities and practices of the Catholic organizations are detrimental and even dangerous for the community as a whole, here and everywhere. I mention here only the fight against birth control at a time when overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet."

I'm not saying that he wasn't religious, but as he says, only in his 'unbounded admiration for the structure of the world...". Pantheism!

How can you claim he was an atheist if you think his religious beliefs were definable as pantheism?

I was defining him as an atheist in the general sense, merely not believing in a designer. However, you are right in that technically he is a pantheist. The point is, pantheism is far, far closer to atheism than it is to even having a loose belief in a life force or a designer, and in fact the two terms are somewhat synonymous. Most atheists are pantheists as well, as I know many (including myself) who continue to use the word 'god' in everyday conversation, when either making a joke about god or merely referring to the universe. Basically, the distribution is as follows:

Believes in some sort of designer:

• Theism
• Deism
• God-sided Agnosticism

Does not believe in a designer:

• Atheist-sided Agnosticism
• Pantheism
• Atheism

Indecisive:

• Agnosticism
• Weak Atheism

Sure, he might have been. Still leaves him open to being a believer in an Ultimate Truth or in a life force though.

He said himself that he did not believe in a life force.

Why are we getting hung up on Einstein anyways? The point is, most great scientists (nearly every Nobel Physics Prize winner) did not believe in a creator or a life force, and would go under the broad definition of atheism (the word itself is from the Greek 'atheos', with an acute accent over the 'e', which means "[those] without god"). This along with the public percentage which is atheist is in stark contrast with the number of politicians, who are supposed to represent the people, that are atheist (I don't think there is a single atheist senator or representative in the entire United States Congress).

Who is this Jeremy dude?

You should know!

Why are we getting hung up on Einstein anyways? The point is, most great scientists (nearly every Nobel Physics Prize winner) did not believe in a creator or a life force, and would go under the broad definition of atheism (the word itself is from the Greek 'atheos', with an acute accent over the 'e', which means "[those] without god"). This along with the public percentage which is atheist is in stark contrast with the number of politicians, who are supposed to represent the people, that are atheist (I don't think there is a single atheist senator or representative in the entire United States Congress).

I agree he's not a politician. Forget scientists, this is about atheist politicians.

We were on politicians, and someone brought up a list, so the topic was essentially ready to move on to something similar. Einstein seems to have been the route. If yu'ld prefer, lets talk about the credibility of Atheist politicians.

Ok, Americans, would you vote for an Atheist politician, in the event that you didn't particularly prefer either candidate's policies?

(I ask Americans, since the religion issue is less extreme here in Britain and down under).