Simple question, would you vote for a candidate if they were an atheist? Or would their atheism be a deal-breaker for you?
Is the atheist we are talking about here conservative?
Not typically. Absolutism requires a god, strict law making and literal interpretations of law are absolutist. Atheist are relativistic generally because of this which is really not a conservative mentality. Many libertarians are atheist but.. libertarianism is going to the dumpster in terms of being an acceptable political philosophy these days. Unless the Atheist has dogmatic faith in libertarianism.. which is possible I suppose.
EDIT:Then again libertarianism is diametrically opposed to conservatism in many ways.
So... Atheists generally aren't conservative because strict interpretations of law are absolutist, which requires a God?
When I line up main line conservative beliefs and atheism I really can't figure anything that atheism would somehow prevent someone from believing in it.
Exactly what conservative tenants do you think are most opposed to atheism?
Of course I would. I would 10x rather have a person in office who didn't believe in fairy tales.
As it is though, atheist or not, politicians have to at least pretend to follow some kind of mythology, and I don't really concern myself with which mythology they follow. Whether they believe in the easter bunny or santa claus doesn't really matter to me. However, all other things being equal, if I had a choice between an atheist and a follower of mysticism, I'll take the atheist.
I would vote for an atheist I agreed with on most of the important issues so long as it could be shown that they were not "anti-religion" zealots. One of the cornerstones of this country is freedom of religion, as long as an atheist were able to approach the issue with some modicum of respect and their other political stances were in line with my own, than yeah, I'd vote for the atheist.
I would rather take the one who I agreed the most with policy wise. Their religious views are secondary.
Depends on the Atheist in question.Athiesm All The Way!
Policies that make sense that aren't ordained or influenced by god... couldn't ask for anything better.
Ironically the Atheist is not respected by the religious. It would be a little much to expect respect from an Atheist when the religious are terribly discriminating. But otherwise if that wasn't the case I would agree. Freedom of religion includes freedom from religion. There are things that the religious do that are actually quite offending to non believers. Of course it is all based on some phantom that no one can quantify. Further religion has a thick collectivist mentality. For example drawing pictures of Muhammad is completely unacceptable to Islam and they feel even if you don’t believe in their religion .. your still not allowed to draw this character. Further reasoning that religion should not indoctrinate children into their said cult whichever it is. Atheist in general find this very offending. So getting these groups to be civil with one another is a bit like trying to get oil and water mixed.
Nah...Id have no problem voting for an agnostic...someone who didnt know...didnt claim to know...didnt care to know...but probably not an athiest. Most athiests I know are dicks. They are as idiotic about their zealous non-religous dogma as their zealous religous counterparts.