Should an atheist be allowed to be president?

I don't have a problem with it, and I'm sure those statistics are skewered in some way. Atheism has been on the rise for a while, and statistics aren't usually very reliable.

I'd like to say "religion does not matter" in the matter of presidency, but this is not necessarily true considering some religions are incredibly violent regarding non-believers to that religion, and giving someone who follows that religion power over a country with so many mixed cultures is scary, to say the least.

So in some cases, religion does in fact matter. I guess that's a different issue though. If someone's non-religious, there is no issue at all.

 

there is such thing as "gerrymandering" where they only put the survey's in area's which they know they will get certain results out of them, ontop of the fact that it doesn't tell you specifics i.e. the range of people, the gender or religion of these people, the area's in which this survey took place. this is, as dr. manhattan(john) says in watchmen "A figurative clock (in this case survey) is as nourishing to the intellect as a picture of oxygen is to a drowning man".

 

Even a broken clock's right twice a day.
Not sure if that has anything to do with your quote, but yours reminded me of it. (EDIT: directed at daxma. Forgot to quote)
EDIT by Styx: Fixed that for you.

I'm Christian, becoming more observant slowly, but i think an atheist president would be a great thing. He won't be as inclined to make decisions based on their morality and would make a more just decision. The problem with that is, a great number of people will disagree with him and it'd just make Christian presidents seem like a bad idea afterward (or any other religious president).
Not to mention, some Atheists (in the same way that believers are) are stubborn about their beliefs. A perfect example being some members on this site. He could make a very controversial decision simply because God was brought up because he believes Christians are ignorant or something of the like.

 

A very good point, but aren't all faiths stubborn? Whether it be atheism, christianty or something else, we put ourselves under that banner because we firmly believe in it. While atheism is on the rise, we are a minority and so we get very edgy and defensive about it, which is why we may seem that way. And as we tend to rely more on facts and logic, that natrually inclines us to be more argumentative or judgemental. I can see how making choices because God is involved would be bad- not really any different from the judgemental religious extremists.


As an Atheist myself I am obviously bias, but I like to think I am fair when dealing with faiths other than my own. I don't think christians as a whole are ignorant, in fact many of my friends are christian. I wish that they could see things from my point of view, but I guess everyone feels that way about something.

Hopefully if an Atheist President was elected, he would have other good qualities and maybe not be judgemental.




And on a sort-of related note, I'm very disapointed with the leadership in my own country. Here in England, our PMs are getting worse and worse. How did we go from the great Winston Churchil to the monotonous Gordon Brown?

 

The people are the system. If there are no people then there is no system.

 

But it is the people's use, or rather abuse, that is the problem. Not necessarily the system itself.

If my reply makes no sense it's because I have no idea what I wrote before ;D

But it is the people's use, or rather abuse, that is the problem. Not necessarily the system itself.

If my reply makes no sense it's because I have no idea what I wrote before ;D

 

I don't think so... :(

 

Why not?

 

Yesh. just plain yes. personally i think in this country don't we have enough issues to deal with?

 

51% is barely something to worry about when you consider normal error rates for polling. it's still practically split half and half. That extra 1% is most likely a combination of variance and the majority rule of Christianity, which isn't surprising. People focus on the wrong thing during elections. Democracy as a whole is a problem in general, but it's the best solution out of all the terrible options out there.