There are one hundred United States Senators currently serving in the United States Senate.There are five hundred and thirty five congressmen and women currently serving in the United States Congress.It is beyond belief that not one of them is an atheist or an agnostic.There were rumors that a lot of the people who worked in The Bush Adminstration,who had a reputation as being being this super-Christian Conservative Adminstration,were actually pretty indifferent when it came to religion(I`ve even heard that a lot of them may have been atheists and agnostics-and there`s a rumor that`s been going around for years that Karl Rove is an atheist).But that they pandered to the religous right and to the neo-cons for support.In a country that`s 85% religious,an atheist or an agnostic wouldn`t get elected to the Presidency,we know that and you would pretty much have to be a Christian or Roman Catholic-or pretend to be-to get elected.

Some atheists like Bill Maher,Christopher Hitchen and Sarah Elizabeth Cupp(who-I hope wouldn`t ever take this the wrong way,looks like a hotter,smarter version of Sarah Palin)think that the incumbent President,President Barack Obama is secretly an atheist and that he`s pretending to be a Christian.But this differs from the is Obama an Muslim? question that kept popping up and the ”Obama is a Muslim campaign” that the GOP tried to smear Obama with a few years ago,which I never believed-in that ”the is Obama an atheist question?”is harder to answer.Add to that,I always thought the real, disturbing and offensive subtext to the ”is he a Muslim?”rumor was that there`s something wrong with being a Muslim or an Arab.
General Colin Powell and others would say,”But even if Mr.Obama were a Muslim,so what?’And they`re right,there`s nothing wrong with being a Muslim or Arabic person-and I should add that if Mr.Obama really were a Muslim-I would`ve been fine with it and in the future,if a Presidential Canidate ever comes forward who is a Muslim,I`d be fine with it-as long as that canidate understands that their allegiance is to the constitution and to the country,not to Islam or to Islamic nations.Islam is a great religion that has been hijacked by crazy,nihlistic,violent,fanatics bent on spreading chaos and terror.But here`s what I don`t get when people would say ”if Obama were a Muslim,so what?”Are people going to say that they honestly think Mr.Obama would`ve won the election if he really were a Muslim?Or that a Muslim could get elected President in the current political climate due to 9-11,xenophobia and religious bigotry that exists in some towards Muslims and Middle Eastern people or even in the forseeable future-knowing that terrorism is likely to remain one of the biggest challenges facing future Presidents in years to come?

Correct me if I`m wrong,but the only Muslim politician in the country that I know of is,Keith Ellison,and Ellison had to fend
off scurrlious allegations from raving lunatics like Glen Beck that he was secretly conspiring with terrorists to bring America down from the inside(in fairness to Beck,who I dislike,a lot of people feel the same way as Beck).
It even caused a little bit of a furor when John F.Kennedy became the first Catholic President.Some people were worried that President Kennedy would be taking orders from The Vatican but Kennedy never let his religion affect his thinking or get in the way of politics,(I think JFK was one of the greast U.S. Presidents in history,and and Mr.Obama may get compared to JFK a lot and I like and support Mr.Obama,but Mr.Obama is clearly no JFK).The country may have been ready to elect an liberal Democrat African-American,who had only been a Senator for four years before becoming President(who spent two of them on the road campaigning) and who had a middle name that was the same as the last name of disposed-late Iraqi dictator,Saddam Hussein and a last name that rhymes with the first name of wanted terrorist network leader,Osama Bin Laden, and it shows that the country has made great progress and has further still to go,
but if we`re honest with ourselves,the country isn`t ready for a Mormon or Muslim President.All of us owe it to ourselves as adults to be able have frank,open,no-bulls*** discussions about religion. The Mormonism issue makes Mitt Romney unelectable-in any election year-be it 2008 or 2012 or 2016 and beyond- and a lot of people won`t say it,but I`ll bet they`re thinking it.

We need to believe that there is one, but in this case, “we” means “other people”. That’s very much part of post-modernism.

“Post-modern world”, “modernity project”, “unqualified success”, I don’t have to accept any of the implications of your second paragraph. It’s complete bullshit.

Whatever you think of post-modernism as a philosophy, we all have to accept that we are living in a post-modern world. If the modernity project had been an unqualified success, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Still a bit unclear on the concept.

No, that’s the concept, to be unclear.

If God doesn’t exist, then by what standard do we decide right from wrong?

I think if you scratch at statements like this long enough, the meaning is usually revealed as: “How can I be absolutely 100% sure that I’m right and other people are wrong?”

The answer is that you can’t – but is that a problem? I agree with Old Beezle about Rieff’s statement. What is wrong with being “condemned” to recognizing the human capacity for evil, and especially our capacity to rationalize evil and make it seem “normal”? This is a much saner basis for a free and open society than projecting our fears and desires onto a Supreme Being who is not answerable to human ideas of morality.

Unfortunately we do have some evidence that eliminating religion will not eliminate human self-righteousness.

Aj said:

Postmodernist nonsense…

Still a bit unclear on the concept.

But the crooked timber of humanity is frail indeed. If God doesn’t exist, then by what standard do we decide right from wrong?

Compared to ancient codes written by brutal societies, and the medieval interpretations of intentionally obscure ancient texts?

If a society recognizes no independent, transcendent guardian of the moral order, will it not, over time, lose its self-discipline and decline into barbarism? The eminent sociologist Philip Rieff, who was not a believer, said that man would either live in fear of God or would be condemned to live in fear of the evil in himself.

Postmodernist nonsense…

If a society recognizes no independent, transcendent guardian of the moral order, will it not, over time, lose its self-discipline and decline into barbarism?

It’s a fascinating tension at the heart of most religious thinking: We’re the children of a divine being, yet without an eternal watchman we’d rapidly descend into abhorrent behaviour. It’s like saying “I have the most perfectly behaved child in the world, but the moment he thinks you’re not looking the little f*cker’s setting fire to the furniture and torturing cats.” It’s crazy.

If God doesn’t exist, then by what standard do we decide right from wrong?

And if god doesn’t exist, then by what standard can we decide what smells bad?