A recent poll by Gallup asserts that only 45% of Americans would consider voting for a candidate who is an atheist for public office. To me, that means 55% of Americans are being bigots, and since religious conservatives make up only a fraction of that 55%, then that bigotry obviously extends to millions of people who call themselves religious moderates, religious liberals, or religious progressives. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/...
Perhaps this 55% needs a lesson in the Constitution. Article VI of the Constitution states:
"no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
But if I'm being too "wild eyed" for you, I want to go on the record as stating that I believe that
"Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion nor prohbit the free exercise thereof."
I do hope that one day that 55% dwindles down to 10% or less for I do hope to live in a country where we judge people by the content of their character and not the color of their religious label.
I know of no person in America who supports stamping our currency with verbiage such as "In Atheism We Trust" or "God is Dead." Nor am I aware of any movement in America to force school children to say "One Nation, under Atheism." And I know of no person in America who believes that government should actively fund organizations which use those funds to preach atheism to large congregants assembled in some large edifice. So what's the problem? The problem is twofold.
First, many people are uncomfortable with the possibility of there being no god and fear the lack of an afterlife. Instead of acknowledging this fear, they avoid it and the easiest way to avoid it is to cloak oneself behind a religion and virulently attack skeptics and atheists. As part of those attacks, many religious people equate radical atheists (fundamentalists who would be a carbon copy of the Religious Right in reverse) with atheists as a whole.
Second, what ever happened to judging a person by his or her values? There's an old rabbinical proverb about climbing a mountain. Simply stated, "There are many ways to climb a mountain but the person who thinks there is only one way will inevitably fall right down to the bottom." Good values can be found in atheism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Wicca, Buddhism, Shintoism, and a whole host of other philosophies. Judge the core of the apple not the label.
I simply believe in following Article VI of the Constitution along with the First Amendment when it comes to the subject of religion. So too do many religious people. As for me, I'm agnostic so I wonder how I would do in that poll?