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Can Atheists Be Good Citizens?

Stone Island

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Stone Island
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Can Atheists Be Good Citizens?

by Richard John Neuhaus, (August/September 1991, First Things)
The question is asked whether atheists can be good citizens. I do not want to keep you in suspense. I would very much like to answer the question in the affirmative. It seems the decent and tolerant thing to do. But before we can answer the question posed, we should first determine what is meant by atheism. And, second, we must inquire more closely into what is required of a good citizen.
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Full Article
 
Wonderful, more bigotry from you. Why are you so full of hatred towards atheists?

My first guess is that your beliefs are so weak that attacking people who don't believe is all you have to prop yourself up.
 
This was very decent of them:
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So here is the entire article:
Can Atheists Be Good Citizens?

by Richard John Neuhaus

Copyright (c) 1991 First Things (August/September 1991).
The question is asked whether atheists can be good citizens. I do not want to keep you in suspense. I would very much like to answer the question in the affirmative. It seems the decent and tolerant thing to do. But before we can answer the question posed, we should first determine what is meant by atheism. And, second, we must inquire more closely into what is required of a good citizen.

Consider our late friend Sidney Hook. Can anyone deny that he was a very good citizen indeed? During the long contest with totalitarianism he was a much better citizen than many believers, including numerous church leaders, who urged that the moral imperative was to split the difference between the evil empire and human fitness for freedom.

On the other hand, Sidney Hook was not really an atheist. He is more accurately described as a philosophical agnostic, one who says that the evidence is not sufficient to compel us either to deny or affirm the reality of God. Sidney was often asked what he would say when he died and God asked him why he did not believe. His standard answer was that he would say, “Lord, you didn’t supply enough evidence.” Some of us are rather confident that Sidney now has all the evidence that he wanted, and we dare to hope that the learning experience is not too painful for him. Unlike many atheists of our time, Sidney Hook believed in reason and evidence that yield what he did not hesitate to call truth. They may have been false gods, but he was not without his gods.
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Do not post copyrighted material in its entirety.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Lisa Simpson
 
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The author makes some surprisingly interesting observations considering his bias, but from what I understand, I disagree with what he thinks constitutes an atheist as well as what he thinks constitutes a good citizen. When it comes to good citizens, I suppose that's a subjective term and can not objectively be wrong, but I'm certain that my definition of atheist is correct and that his is not. He can not hijack that word just any way he wants.
 
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Rufo said:
The author makes some surprisingly interesting observations considering his bias, but from what I understand, I disagree with what he thinks constitutes an atheist as well as what he thinks constitutes a good citizen. When it comes to good citizens, I suppose that's a subjective term and can not objectively be wrong, but I'm certain that my definition of atheist is correct and that his is not. He can not hijack that word just any way he wants.
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Lying for Jesus, while attacking atheists as being "immoral"... same old, same old.:rolleyes:
 
Stone Island, are you unfamiliar with what the First Amendment means by "there shall be no law respecting an establishment of religion"?

If you think belief in a particular god should be a requirement for citizenship, I suggest you move to Iran. The UK dropped that requirement several decades after the US declared independence.
 
To be fair, I didn't read the whole thing. But I think the beginning displays a lack of understanding of what atheism is, and the ending displays a view of what a good citizen is that I can not agree with. I'm not sure how much time I wish to spend reading something written by someone whose definitions of the most important words on the subject matter (Can atheists be good citizens?) are not the same as mine.
 
godless dave said:
Stone Island, are you unfamiliar with what the First Amendment means by "there shall be no law respecting an establishment of religion"?

If you think belief in a particular god should be a requirement for citizenship, I suggest you move to Iran. The UK dropped that requirement several decades after the US declared independence.
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Somebody didn't read the article.:p
 
Stone Island said:
Can Atheists Be Good Citizens?
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Yes.

My friends Pete and Su in Seattle, for starters, and Tricky for the next.

Note that it took me 15 words to answer your question.

Note how many words it took your source.

I win.

I pithed all over him.

DR
 
Stone Island said:
Can Atheists Be Good Citizens?

by Richard John Neuhaus, (August/September 1991, First Things)



Full Article
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Can these atheists be good citizens? It depends, I suppose, on what is meant by good citizenship. We may safely assume that the great majority of these people abide by the laws, pay their taxes, and may even be congenial and helpful neighbors. But can a person who does not acknowledge that he is accountable to a truth higher than the self, external to the self, really be trusted? Locke and Rousseau, among many other worthies, thought not. However confused their theology, they were sure that the social contract was based upon nature, upon the way the world really is. Rousseau’s “civil religion” was apparently itself a social construct, but Locke was convinced that the fear of a higher judgment, even an eternal judgment, was essential to citizenship.
It follows that an atheist could not be trusted to be a good citizen, and therefore could not be a citizen at all. Locke is rightly celebrated as a champion of religious toleration, but not of irreligion. “Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God,” he writes in A Letter Concerning Toleration. “Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.” The taking away of God dissolves all. Every text becomes pretext, every interpretation misinterpretation, and every oath a deceit.
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And this is what you call logic? I call it bigotry and ignorance and, more appropriately, self centered conceit.
 
Rufo said:
I'm not sure how much time I wish to spend reading something written by someone whose definitions of the most important words on the subject matter (Can atheists be good citizens?) are not the same as mine.
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Not a very skeptical or scientific attitude. In any case, here's a bit of advice: stay away from philosophy and political science. If you merely want to be confirmed in your prejudices you won't find much support there.
 
Stone Island said:
Somebody didn't read the article.:p
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Well, it's hardly with it. the argument can be summed up as "morality is necessary for good citizen ship, and if we define atheists as those who lack morality, they cannot, by definition be good citizens".

It's a complete straw man, filled with special pleading.
 
godofpie said:
Well I read it and the author calls the separation of church and state political atheism. I would call the author anti-american.
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Was James Madison an anti-American, then? :confused:

James Madison in his famed Memorial and Remonstrance of 1785 wrote to similar effect. It is always being forgotten that for Madison and the other founders religious freedom is an unalienable right that is premised upon unalienable duty. “It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.” Then follows a passage that could hardly be more pertinent to the question that prompts our present reflection: “Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, who enters into any subordinate Association, must always do it with a reservation of his duty to the General Authority; much more must every man who becomes a member of any particular Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign.”
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Stone Island said:
Somebody didn't read the article.:p
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This is the same sort of lie that the article contains: is someone disagrees with your position, clearly there's something wrong with them. If someone disagrees with the stupidity in the linked article, you lie to yourself and pretend that they didn't read it. People don't depend on superstition to live their lives, so you pretend that they are bad people.
 
JoeEllison said:
This is the same sort of lie that the article contains: is someone disagrees with your position, clearly there's something wrong with them. If someone disagrees with the stupidity in the linked article, you lie to yourself and pretend that they didn't read it. People don't depend on superstition to live their lives, so you pretend that they are bad people.
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The author explicitly says that they can be citizens (they follow the law, don't they?). That's why I know you didn't read the article. He denies that they can be good citizens.

It's an important distinction.
 
Stone Island said:
Somebody didn't read the article.:p
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I wasn't addressing the article, I was addressing you. Why do you think a belief in a god is necessary to be a good citizen of a country whose basic law explicitly forbids the government to establish a religion?
 
The conclusion was spectacularly predictable. :rolleyes:

It is an exercise in semantics - if one defines atheist in a certain way and citizen in another way it is possible to obtain any answer one fancies. The fact of the matter is a great many Western societies function as well if not better than the US with less crime, social dysfunction and murder and less religion too. To argue that such communities do not meet this one specific definition of citizen is largely irrelevant. It is what people do that make communities not what they say they would like to do.
 
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