In the Book the Art of a Deal Did Trump Claim to Be an Atheists?
T he 2020 presidential election has produced the most diverse field of candidates in history. There are women, people of color and an openly gay human being. There are billionaires, socialists and a self-help guru. The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders' view of organized religion is non peculiarly clear but at that place are no known atheists.
Non-believers remain few and far between in American politics. In Congress, the only one to publicly "come up out" equally such is Jared Huffman, a Democrat representing California'southward second district and a leading proponent of impeachment of Donald Trump.
Huffman announced in late 2017 that he is a humanist, not an atheist. In an interview at his Capitol Hill office, he characterized himself equally "not-religious, humanist, spiritual albeit without any particular dogma. I'thousand a spiritual out-of-stater. 'Seeker' would exist a perfectly expert word, too."
Asked how he would ascertain spiritual, Huffman said: "I'm interested in the morality and values that concur united states together, the things that through fourth dimension have really been the foundations of many religions, but I just run across so much in organized organized religion that doesn't piece of work for me that I tin't actually notice a fit there."
Huffman, 55, has no desire to emulate militants such as Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens.
"Disbelief seems to bring with it the notion of being anti-religion as opposed to non-religious," he said. "I prefer non-religious because I merely want everyone to make their own religious choices. I'm not against them having religion.
"I would never phone call religion categorically bad. I see besides many good things happening by people of faith and even organized religion. I think Pope Francis'southward encyclical was one of the virtually impactful statements on climatic change and nature in recent times and I've seen other really great leadership on important moral issues from people of organized religion. I've seen a lot of lousy, immoral stuff likewise. So it's just a mix."
A Gallup poll published in May tested Americans' willingness to vote for presidential candidates from sure groups. About 96% said they were willing to vote for a candidate who was black, followed by Catholic and Hispanic (95% each), a adult female (94%), Jewish (93%), an evangelical Christian (80%), gay or lesbian (76%), under 40 (71%), Muslim (66%) and over seventy (63%).
Bottom of the table came atheist (60%), followed by the ane matter considered even worse: socialist (47%). Nevertheless, the percentage of Americans willing to vote for an atheist was more three times the 18% Gallup recorded in its first measure, in 1958.
About of the 2020 Democratic candidates make references to their faith. Erstwhile vice-president Joe Biden, a Catholic, wears his late son Beau's rosary on his left wrist. The Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, a Methodist, said in June: "My organized religion animates all that I do." South Bend'southward mayor, Pete Buttigieg, an Episcopalian, has been praised for reclaiming religion for the left while Marianne Williamson has alleged: "My religion is Judaism, my spirituality is universal."
Sanders, who is Jewish, is a more ambiguous case. During the 2016 campaign, leaked emails revealed that a Democratic official considered raising the question of whether Sanders is an atheist in the promise of weakening him against Hillary Clinton. Sanders told the Washington Post that year he was "not actively involved with organised faith" but added: "I remember anybody believes in God in their own ways. To me, it ways that all of the states are connected, all of life is continued, and that we are all tied together."
Then what would happen if a 2020 candidate came out equally a non-believer?
"I retrieve they would endure withering criticism," Huffman said. "At that place all the same is, at the national political level, this notion that yous take to put some kind of faith out in that location. I'k non saying that everyone's faking information technology in the presidential field but there yet is this notion that'southward i of the threshold things you have to exercise."
'A respectful conversation'
In Congress, also, Christians are nevertheless overrepresented when compared with the full general public, according to the Pew Research Center. About 23% of the public say they are atheist, agnostic or "null in particular".
The number of not-Christian members of Congress is now 63, Pew says, fabricated upward of 34 Jews, iii Muslims, three Hindus, two Buddhists, two Unitarian Universalists, and 19, including the Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema, who decline to specify a religious affiliation.
Huffman, who falls in the last category, gets along with some colleagues ameliorate than others.
He said: "Information technology's a respectful chat on both sides. Nosotros talk about spirituality and religiosity. Juan Vargas [a Democrat from California], for instance, is a deeply religious Catholic, and we alternate between joking and having serious conversations nigh Christian theology and other things all the time. They're great fun and they're great conversations."
With Bible belt Republicans, all the same, it's tougher.
"I find that a little more tense because I retrieve the evangelical brand is and so at odds with my values right now," he said. "The things that are being washed politically in the name of evangelical Christianity I find so hypocritical and, quite frankly, irreconcilable with the teachings of Jesus Christ.
"I may non think that Jesus Christ is the divine son of God but he was a great instructor, and I'm fascinated by his teachings and there are great lessons and values in them. I tin take that conversation with lots of my religious colleagues. Information technology's harder with the evangelicals who are on the far right and want to believe that their extrapolation of those teachings ways that they're confronting gay marriage, climate change is a hoax and all these other things that they manage to work into their worldview."
There have been bipartisan moments. In June 2017, after the Republican Steve Scalise, then House bulk whip, and others were shot at baseball do, Huffman joined his colleagues in prayer.
He explained: "I promise they don't mind and, thankfully, lightning did non strike. I don't remember there'due south any impairment that can come from prayer and there's unlike types of prayer. At that place'southward prayers that are moments of reflection."
He would draw the line, however, at praying aslope members of Trump'south cabinet.
"I would feel and then creeped out that I don't think there'due south a give-and-take to draw information technology," he said.
Asked if he suspects Trump himself is a secret atheist, Huffman said: "I think he's a narcissist. He worships himself."
Huffman grew up in Independence, Missouri, the one-time habitation of Harry Truman.
Independence is also a celebrated hub for Mormons. Huffman used to be a member of the priesthood in the branch known every bit the Reorganized Church building of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, now the Community of Christ, whose earth headquarters are in the city. Only at 19, he lost faith.
"Once you deign to ask those big questions and yous don't go answers," he said, "for many, information technology's over at that betoken."
Huffman does not believe in life after expiry just the prospect of "total emptiness for ever" that haunted the poet Philip Larkin does non appear to problem him.
"This is all at that place is so we'd amend make the almost of information technology. Now, if you want to be a little more abstract, I too think that in a sense nosotros live on through the skilful things we do and the people we influence and, for those that are seeking something more than but this temporal experience, I'd say that that's what I would bespeak to.
"Merely many people are plain drawn to organized religion because they love the idea of an afterlife, and I hope they detect it. In some ways the idea of living forever sounds kind of exhausting to me."
'I have many fellow travellers'
In 2007 the Democrat Pete Stark, also from northern California, announced he did not believe in God. Stark has since left Congress, but Huffman believes he is still not alone.
"I accept many boyfriend travellers, very few publicly. I think there's however fearfulness of this conventional wisdom that existence an atheist or agnostic or a non-believer is somehow the worst possible affair in politics. My experience has been that that'southward not the instance, but how you practise it matters."
Although current polls propose America volition get its first female, gay or Muslim president before its beginning atheist, attitudes are gradually shifting.
Robert P Jones, chief executive and founder of the Public Religion Inquiry Institute, said: "I recollect Americans are slowly coming effectually to 'a-theist': it means not belief in God simply doesn't necessarily mean not religious.
"I think that is slowly seeping into the American consciousness, this more than complex mode of thinking about religion, and that may open upward some more interesting infinite."
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/03/athiesm-us-politics-2020-election-religious-beliefs
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