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<\/a><\/div>\nLast week\u2019s post \u201cTrying to Love My Enemies<\/a>\u201d ended up generating a comment thread that was more focused on how people became my enemies than discussion of how best to seek their good. \u00a0A number of Christians raised questions about what was signified by the reluctance of most Americans to vote for an atheist and whether my aggrieved\u00a0feelings\u00a0were merited.<\/p>\n Poll numbers alone make it hard to suss out the feelings and motivations of the respondents, and some Christian commenters seemed concerned that other atheists and I were impugning the motives of people who were merely concerned that atheists tend to support\u00a0policies\u00a0that they oppose. \u00a0I\u2019m sure that accounts for some proportion of opposition to atheist politicians \u2014 respondents may not be able to honestly imagine the atheist who agrees with them, as most polls ask them to do. \u00a0However, I believe that there is a deeper distrust motivating many of these responses, one that is well illustrated in an essay by Pantheos\u2019s Warren Cole Smith.<\/p>\n Smith\u2019s essay is meant to persuade Christians that Mitt Romney\u2019s Mormonism<\/a> means they cannot licitly support him<\/a>. \u00a0Although Smith has no equivalent essay against atheist candidates (and we have no candidates to offer) the logic of his argument would seem equally applicable to me as to Romney. \u00a0Here are the key paragraphs:<\/p>\n What Weyrich understood was that you can\u2019t have it \u201cboth ways\u201d when it comes to Romney\u2019s faith. You can\u2019t say that his religious beliefs don\u2019t matter, but his \u201cvalues\u201d do. The Christian worldview teaches that there is a short tether binding beliefs to the values and behaviors that flow from them. If the beliefs are false, then the behavior will eventually\u2014but inevitably\u2014be warped. Mormonism is particularly troubling on this point because Mormons<\/a> believe in the idea of \u201ccontinuing revelation.\u201d They may believe one thing today, and something else tomorrow. This is why Mormons have changed their views, for example, on marriage and race. Polygamy was once a key distinctive of the religion. Now, of course, it is not. Mormons once forbade blacks from leadership roles. Now they do not. What else will change?<\/p>\n \u2026Placing a Mormon in that pulpit would be a source of pride and a shot of adrenaline for the LDS church<\/a>. It would serve to normalize the false teachings of Mormonism the world over. It would also provide an opening to Mormon missionaries around the world, who could start every conversation: \u201cLet me tell you about the American president.\u201d To elect a Mormon President is to advance the cause of the Mormon Church<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Atheists, like Mormons, would benefit from the legitimizing effect of having one of us elected to the highest office in the nation. \u00a0The first argument is probably less universally accepted when applied to atheist, but it\u2019s not unusual. \u00a0It depends how much of the moral law Christians believe is written on the hearts of men<\/a> and accessible to the heathen. \u00a0If it\u2019s only a small proportion, then any agreement between Christians and atheists will only be coincidental and transient.<\/p>\n This is what Christians are implying when they tell be my moral beliefs are arbitrary and ungrounded, while theirs are ordained by God. \u00a0They can\u2019t trust any of my moral\u00a0judgments. \u00a0No matter how many correct answers I give, it\u2019s only a case of a stopped watch being right twice a day.<\/p>\n And, in the eyes of many Christians, the result of these beliefs is that, as an atheist, I am not just a bad American, I\u2019m a threat to everyone I meet. \u00a0If me or someone like me is the worst-case scenario, the best-case is that I am marginalized and isolated, that, no matter what I argue, my words are dismissed. \u00a0I am to be treated as an existential threat.<\/p>\n And that means that Christians like Warren Cole Smith are a threat to me.<\/p>\n These Christians succeed when they push me out of public life and the public sphere. \u00a0They are strengthened when judges deny custody to one parent simple because s\/he is an atheist<\/a>\u00a0and therefore they are a threat to their child. \u00a0(They deny us adoptions<\/a> for the same reason). \u00a0They rejoice when billboards that so much as mention our existence are banned as too controversial<\/a>. \u00a0They are upset when the classmates of their children have the gall to discuss their beliefs in the cafeteria<\/a>\u00a0(and if the school won\u2019t crack down on the atheists, the Christian parents pull their kids out of school<\/a> any day they might be exposed to them).<\/p>\n Atheists are treated as subversive, enemy agents. \u00a0That might be a more reasonable attitude in a church or during a debate on Christianity, but it\u2019s an\u00a0inappropriate\u00a0way to treat us in the public sphere. \u00a0Don\u2019t forget that Smith\u2019s arguments can and have been applied to plenty of Christian sects. \u00a0I imagine that, as an evangelical, Smith takes a pretty dim view of the\u00a0infallible\u00a0authority of the Pope, and many evangelicals would see any correspondence between Sacred Tradition and sola scriptura<\/em>\u00a0as coincidental and untrustworthy. \u00a0Although firmly opposed sects fear any respect or attention that their enemies win for themselves, they don\u2019t try to censor or isolate them the way they do atheists.<\/p>\n Whether that\u2019s because opinions have softened since the day Thomas Nast drew the cartoon below or because rival sects no longer have firm majorities to\u00a0wield, I don\u2019t know. \u00a0I only hope some kind of acceptance for us comes soon, and I suspect the best thing we can do is to come out as atheists and reap the benefits of familiarity just as the gay movement has.<\/p>\n