“I’m not happy about this!”
Congressman Says He Doesn’t Believe In God: Highest-Ranking Elected Official To Do So
Cue the jokes about godless politicians and Bay Area liberals.
Secular groups Monday applauded a public acknowledgment by Rep. Pete Stark that he does not believe in a supreme being, making the Fremont Democrat the first member of Congress — and the highest-ranking elected official in the U.S. — to publicly acknowledge not believing in God.
And here’s a longer article about him.
The American Humanist Association took out an ad in the Washington Post on Tuesday, congratulating Stark’s stance.
“With Stark’s courageous public announcement of his nontheism, it is our hope that he will become an inspiration for others who have hidden their conclusions for far too long,” the group’s executive director, Roy Speckhardt, said in a statement.
Stark’s beliefs garnered attention after the Secular Coalition for America offered a $1,000 prize to the person who could identify the “highest level atheist, agnostic, humanist or any other kind of nontheist currently holding elected public office in the United States.”
A man with the balls to admit his beliefs
Uncle Dave: Isn’t it spelled — atheist — and not — athiest –? [fixed]
It’s interesting / sad that it has taken until 2007 for this high-ranking a politician to admit not believing in a god.
[IRONY]
Hallelujah!
[/IRONY]
$20 says he isn’t planning to run for reelection. Any takers?
A man with the balls to admit his beliefs
After waiting to the end of his career.
Honestly, who cares?
#5: People who are fed up with the holier than thou attitude of the religious right who has taken over the Republican party.
#6 – Testify Brother!
5. Ask anyone over 70 what they think. I would guess that over 80% would care. Religion is dieing off in this country. Unfortunately, it is going to take a long time. Atheists have to keep their beliefs a secret if they want to make it anywhere in a career.
#6 – Right on! I’m fed up with judgemental people who try to justify their hatred with biblical quotes. Secularism now!
This reminds me of a survey I read (link originally posted by Max Bell). If the attitudes expressed in the survey are even close to representative, any politician coming out of the theist closet is pretty brave if he or she wants to continue in politics. Americans tend to think less of atheists than even Muslims.
On the other hand, the last few years have possibly made it a little safer for atheists to publicly declare their lack of belief. Daily prayers for wisdom and guidance don’t seem to have done our Christian President a lot of good.
His NON-belief he professed, not his belief. This isn’t semantic quibbling, this is core. One usually does not have one’s lack of faith in Allah or L. Ron Hubbard classified as a “belief”. Belief is belief – unquestioning faith in something that cannot be tested.
For the most part, you all don’t self-identify as non-Hindus, which would make you aBrahmanists. It’s really a pain to identify yourself as an “atheist”, a term of art which has too many negative connotations. I myself simply don’t bother to label myself such. Confering on yourself the title of “atheist” automatically labels you an outsider, a infidel. Why define yourself by something you are not? It’s conceding the game in a way I can’t yet express. “I don’t believe in God” automatically has a capital “G” implied. You can’t win when you concede the language.
This is all SO stupid…
12: If you were living in a country, such as Iran, where being non-muslim pretty much kicks you out of holding office, you’d howl. Americans don’t perceive themselves as intolerant, yet coming out as a non-believer in the general American God will get you several things: inability to achieve public office; a hard time with your workplace, and a real difficult time finding someone to help you reproduce. You may also, if you keep it up, find yourself with broken bones and a torched house. Atheists stay secret for a reason.
This conversation has been going on for a while on MoJo Blog as well. I wonder if I can increase readership and participation on both blogs by cross-linking them. Do I dare?
[Editor: Only if you use tinyurl.com for the long url]
http://tinyurl.com/2bsu98
MATT 6:6
I’m not an Atheist! I just don’t believe in YOUR God.
Editor: Thanks for the tinyurl. Sorry about the formatting problems caused by my prior post.
catbeller, you are entirely correct. Atheism is a non-belief rather than a belief. I also do not like to define myself by my non-belief in any deity. However, I have recently found a way to define myself by a very active belief that I do hold.
My belief is that theism, while it has had some locally positive effects at times, has had a severe overall deleterious effect on humanity, as evidenced by its many deletions of actual humans. I have learned that there is a perfectly good pre-existing term for this, antitheism. So, I am an antitheist.
This defines be not only as a non-believer, passively, but as actively against the unfounded and destructive belief in a deity. I personally like the term a lot and have begun to use it when asked about my beliefs. Perhaps you’ll like it too.
17 – Good term. Not all heavily freighted. When I was in the military they asked me for my religion so they could put in on my dogtags. When I wrote in “None” they asked me what the “ne” stood for after the abbreviation for “Northern.” The guy was serious. “Antitheist” would have worked better.
Good for Pete Stark, even if he did have the good sense to wait until the end of a political career.
He can forget any Presidential aspirations, at any rate. I would hope, however, that it doesn’t end his career.
But a belief system that defines itself as being against something else, strikes me as limited at best. Atheism is a religion. I can respect the agnostic (“I don’t know what to believe”), but atheism is a kind of act of faith, isn’t it?
Yeah lets just all worship things like money, power and fame….
/sarcasm
19,
Atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color. — Not original on my part.
Seriously though, the difference between atheism and religion is that atheism is merely an assertion that no credible evidence for a deity has ever been put forth. Literally zero data does not provide any reason for doubt to an atheist. This is a key difference because it does not preclude a change in opinion in light of new data.
Pete Stark is one of the looniest of the loony left and has been in office for several decades now. This isn’t going to affect his chances for getting reelected yet again in the slightest.
#21, belief in a creator does not require or necessarily imply the belief in “a virgin birth, rising from the dead, walking on water” or anything, frankly, associated with Christianity. My personal beliefs would most closely be called deism, although that term can mean different things to different people.
You claim that atheism is “the only logical way to look at the world, based on evidence, science, and frankly common sense.” Yet your common sense probably has nothing to offer for the questions about how the laws that make everything we know function even came into being… you know, things like laws of physics, why there are different types of matter and why they interact with each other as they do, how and why the various macro-molecules essential to life randomly formed and came together to function as a unit? How and when life became sentient? Sure we can observe things as they exist today, as well as make assumptions based upon evidence left by the past; but neither science nor your “common sense” have any real explanations other speculation and your own form of “faith” that everything we know, and don’t know, just miraculously came into being without some sort of initial design or set of parameters. Men much smarter than I have reached the conclusion that a “creator” exists, even if he isn’t some white guy in the clouds looking down upon us and passing judgement when we die.
Agnosticism is not a cop out. It merely recognizes that we do not know everything there is to know about the universe, and leaves the assumptions and snobbish condescension to people like you.
There’s not a unanimous consensus on the issue, but I have found that those persons who posess a greater familiarity with fine logical and semantic distinctions (scientists, mathematicians, legal scholars) tend strongly to subscribe to this clear taxonomy:
Theist (similarly; monotheist, polytheist, pantheist) –
asserts belief in existence of supernatural deity(-ies)
Atheist –
asserts belief in nonexistence of supernatural deity(-ies)
Agnostic –
refuses to assert any belief regarding supernatural deity(-ies)
Theist: ‘It is correct to conclude that “God does exist”.’
Atheist: ‘It is correct to conclude that “God does not exist”.’
Agnostic: ‘It is not correct to conclude either “God does exist” or “God does not exist”, since no evidence whatsoever exists to support either conclusion.’
The first two are believers, the third is not. IOW, believing in nonexistence is NOT the same as not believing in existence. It’s a very important distinction.
Lauren the Ghoti, You’ve got it partly right. Your second example is correct.
Atheist: ‘It is correct to conclude that “God does not exist”.’
This is based on the available evidence, i.e. none.
Your first example, however, is somewhat incorrect. Instead of:
‘asserts belief in nonexistence of supernatural deity(-ies) ’
A better wording would be:
‘asserts that no evidence has been presented for the existence of supernatural deity.’
You see the subtle difference is that atheism merely asserts that theism should be given no more credibility than any other hypothesis with zero evidence. Why not believe in Thor, The Flying Spaghetti monster, The Great Pumpkin, Santa Claus, Zeus, Baal, Ahura Mazda, gnomes, hobbits, and many many other fictional characters? What do you really believe makes a deity any different?
By the way, I would also add that most atheists would probably change their opinions if some credible evidence were actually put forth. Most theists, IMHO, would not. In fact, it is one of the tenets of theism that it cannot be proven. It is almost a source of pride for theists to ‘have faith’, despite the total lack of evidence.
Lauren, with all due respect, you forgot an important fourth taxonomic category:
Dog…
enthusiastically asserts belief that anyone with a tasty treat in their hand is a deity, and gladly worships same until tasty treat has been devoured.
#27 – Misanthropic Scott
Sorry, but no cigar.
“Atheist: ‘It is correct to conclude that “God does not exist”.’
This is based on the available evidence, i.e. none.”
You haven’t escaped the atheist’s error. The phrase that applies is “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Both “God exists” and “God doesn’t exist” are hypotheses. No known fact can be shown to support either the proexistence or the antiexistence hypothesis. Therefore they both remain equally devoid of validity.
The agnostic’s statement, however, is valid, since is not a hypothesis, but an observation of the very principle’s application to the present case. “Neither God’s existence nor nonexistence is supported by the available evidence.” is all one can say truthfully.
That in no way stops us from observing that the Xian, Jewish and Muslim deities are so incredibly absurd and ridiculous that the actual odds of any of them being real are so astronomically low as to not even merit any sane adult’s consideration! 🙂
#19
Do you believe that my cat is the Supreme Being? Why not? Lack of evidence perhaps? That is the gist of how atheists feel about theist beliefs: lack of evidence to support the claim. As someone once said, “Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.”
#25
> Yet your common sense probably has nothing to offer for the
> questions about how the laws that make everything we know
> function even came into being…
On the contrary, atheists have a perfect response: we don’t know. Theism has no place in the universe for “unknown.” Everything is known because created it. This is called a “god of gaps” belief.
#26
>asserts belief in nonexistence of supernatural deity(-ies)
As #27 stated, it should be: “asserts that insufficient evidence exists to support the claim that a supernatural deity(-ies) exists.”
As someone once said, “We are all atheists. I just believe in one fewer deity than you.”
#28 – Gary Marks
My bad, you are of course correct. Dogs exist to show us humans how easy it is to be a deity… and after all, why do you think they call it ‘dogma’?
Which reminds me to ask if you heard about the dyslexic atheist who claimed “There is no Dog.”
#30 – Thomas
I’ve always said you’re a very sensible fella, Thomas, but you too, I’m afraid, are missing the boat…
An atheist asserts the opposite of what a theist does – but it’s still an assertion, regarding God. He says that ‘It is a fact that God doesn’t exist.’
But the agnostic, not the atheist, is the one who makes no assertion. And he’s the only one of the three who doesn’t do so… He only says that ‘Those other guys both wrongly assert as fact things for which no evidence has been shown.’
Anyway, I have long been called a nitpicker for rigidly adhering to strict definitions, but that’s just me. There’s also the distinction between ‘soft’ atheists who say that maybe some kind of deity exists, just not the Judeo-Xian-Muslim ‘personal’ God, and ‘hard’ atheists, who deny the existence of all supernatural entities.
But we hardcore agnostics don’t like these atheists trying to steal our thunder, since they ain’t nothin’ but the flip side of the theists, and we simply refuse to flip that coin.
When you say ‘the atheist says there’s not enough evidence,’ you’re actually attributing the agnostic’s stance to him – but the lack of evidence is a fact, not an ‘-ism’, a belief, which is what the atheist’s very label defines him as professing. Seewhutimean?
After the Bush re-election, there was a lot of handwringing among liberals/Democrats about how to take back the religious issue from the GOP and the “Religious Right”.
The most common suggestion I heard was for Democrats to strengthen their ties to churches. My suggestion was very different.
We liberals and Democrats should do what we’re known for: tolerance of diversity.
Every liberal and Democrat should “out” themselves as whatever they really are (Christian, Muslim, Jew, atheist, agnostic, pagan, couldn’t-care-less, etc.) and pursue that with whatever level of dedication is genuine.
And then liberals should accept other and get on with the business of making America the great country it should be.
Wouldn’t this be appealing to the majority of Americans? Far more appealing than the our-way-or-the-highway Christianity of the Religious Right?
For example, what percentage of Americans were won-over by Gingrich’s confessional pilgrimage to Falwell and Dobson?
I’m an evangelical Christian and I found it both funny and a little vomitous. I’m guessing most Americans felt something similar.
So, I’m going to watch with high interest in how he is treated by fellow Democrats. The treatment by Democrats of (Muslim) Keith Ellison has been quite good, I feel. Many Republican were absolute jerks to Ellison and I think this backfired on them, except among their base.