Atheists and Polls

Atheists and Polls

"The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites."

"The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."


Gallup recently conducted a poll asking voters whether or not certain characteristics would keep them from voting for a potential candidate. Here are the results. The format is a little screwy, but it should be clear.

Yes, would vote for	No, would not vote for
	%	%
Catholic	95	4
Black	94	5
Jewish	92	7
A woman	88	11
Hispanic	87	12
Mormon	72	24
Married for the third time	67	30
72 years of age	57	42
A homosexual	55	43
An atheist	45	53

What blows me away is that 53% of voters, according to this poll, would not vote for an atheist. Why are people so afraid of us? It's absurd! Atheists don't believe in the immortality of the human soul, which means that this life is all we get, which means in general we want to make this life as good as possible.

57% of people would vote for someone 72 years old. Doctors at Duke University conducted a study researching the link between a certain set of genes and the age at which Alzheimer's develops. In this study, the average age of patients who developed Alzheimer's was 72.8. I'm not trying to claim that John McCain or any other specific candidate has or will be diagnosed with this terrible disease, I'm just saying that 72 is old. Your body can start to shut down, especially if you're genetically predisposed to certain diseases, and especially if you have the most stressful job in the world.

But we can't vote for an atheist. Godforbid. They might start a War or something.

You know what the best reason to have an atheist in the Oval Office is? We don't have to worry that they're going to think they're talking to god. If they start hearing voices and crafting policy around them, we'll know that he or she has lost his or her mind, and we can remove him or her from office.

The first quote in this post is from Thomas Jefferson. The second is from Abraham Lincoln.