Kavanaugh comes across to me as a "typical Catholic" …. who is clearly "hiding something" about himself. Are there any Supreme Court Judges who are professed atheists?
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Not in the U.S.. The best way to not get elected or appointed in the U.S. is to be an open atheist. Our greatest atheists are artists! Mark Twain, George Carlin, Kurt Vonnegut, Katherine Hepburn for example.
"The best way to not get elected or appointed in the U.S. is to be an open atheist."
Do you have any data that can corroborate that claim, or is it anecdotal?
John: Would you vote for or appoint an atheist?
I mean, what's the difference between an atheist and a catholic when neither of them represent my beliefs.
@John 61X Breezy: what's the difference between an atheist and a catholic when neither of them represent my beliefs.
I agree. But would you consider a candidate's religious stance irrelevant when deciding which way to vote? Would you expect any candidate to represent your religious beliefs?
It depends on what emphasis they give to it. I probably wouldn't vote for an atheist that made their atheism their selling point as opposed to their politics. Likewise I wouldn't vote for someone trying to reestablish the papacy. I want a candidate to protect my beliefs, not represent them.
I'm pretty sure very few people actually care about the represention, which is why I want to see the data.
Why should your beliefs be protected?
"Atheists are one of the most disliked groups in America. Only 45 percent of Americans say they would vote for a qualified atheist presidential candidate, and atheists are rated as the least desirable group for a potential son-in-law or daughter-in-law to belong to. Will Gervais at the University of British Columbia recently published a set of studies looking at why atheists are so disliked. His conclusion: It comes down to trust."
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/study-of-the-day-reli...
"Atheists Are Trusted Less Than Rapists"
"The distrust of atheists is well known, but did you know that atheists are distrusted as much as or possibly a bit more than rapists? When presented with an apparently random person doing illegal and unethical things, few people were willing to identify the person as a Christian, more were willing to identify them as a Muslim, and the most were willing to identify them as a rapist or an atheist.
These are the results of research done by Will M."
https://www.thoughtco.com/atheists-trusted-less-than-rapists-248477
"The Atheist Menace: Worse Than Rapists, a New Study Shows"
"At a moment when religious zealotry poses a greater threat to Western civilization than planetary warming and Wall Street combined, it’s logical to ask ourselves: Why are we so scared of atheists? Why are we so phobically threatened by people who don’t believe in God when faith itself is causing the terror hanging over our heads like a toxic menace?
A revealing new study at the University of British Columbia and the University of Oregon provides some startling clues. Attempting to understand why people need religion, psychologists asked 350 American adults and 420 Canadian to answer a simple question: If a fictional driver damaged a parked car and left the scene, then found a wallet and took the money, was the driver more likely to be a teacher, an atheist teacher or a rapist teacher?
Weirdly enough, participants in the study (who were from religious and nonreligious backgrounds) most often chose the atheist teacher. Indeed, atheists are among society’s most distrusted groups, “comparable even to rapists in certain circumstances,” in participants’ minds."
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-matousek/why-we-hate-atheists-fear_b...
"Do you believe in atheists? Distrust is central to anti-atheist prejudice."
"Recent polls indicate that atheists are among the least liked people in areas with religious majorities (i.e., in most of the world). The sociofunctional approach to prejudice, combined with a cultural evolutionary theory of religion's effects on cooperation, suggest that anti-atheist prejudice is particularly motivated by distrust. Consistent with this theoretical framework, a broad sample of American adults revealed that distrust characterized anti-atheist prejudice but not anti-gay prejudice (Study 1)."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22059841
One of the reasons I left the Catholic Church
https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/knights-columbus-urged-membership-...
What, I wonder, will American politicians make of Sajid Javid ... who has a good chance of becoming the UK Prime Minister? Raised as a Muslim .. he says he is now "non-religious" .. his wife is a practising Christian.
I'm not sure he has a good chance, he has some chance of becoming Prime Minister, but then so do I.
" Raised as a Muslim .. he says he is now "non-religious" "
Good for him, but to be honest atheism isn't really a big deal at all in the UK. Even in public life. I was more annoyed that Tony Blair broke a long standing pledge by Labour party and used state funds to set up faith schools. A divisive disaster we will all have to suffer eventually.
https://mobile.twitter.com/justintinsley/status/1045723168537624576?s=12