I used to think that we should simply ignore a political candidate’s views on religion when assessing his or her qualifications. After all, I grew up in an era when, at least for most politicians, their faith was a private matter. I well remember John Kennedy saying that about his Catholicism (but of course people were dubious about a Catholic President), and also saying that his faith would have no influence on his actions as President. In my youth, religion was not much discussed at election time. Can anybody remember what religion Eisenhower or Truman professed? And, it seemed, religious beliefs didn’t condition many political stands, although of course the Reverend Billy Graham advised nearly every President.
Now, of course, things have changed. Candidates, particularly Republican ones, try to outdo each other in osculating the rump of faith, fervently professing their belief and how it’s changed their lives. This is both unseemly and unwholesome. How could you not have been embarrassed when Fox News correspondent Megyn Kelly, moderating the recent GOP debate, asked the candidates “if any of them have received a word from God on what they should do and take care of first”? Both the question and the answers were cringe-worthy.
Over time I’ve decided that yes, we do need to take a candidate’s religious beliefs seriously when evaluating their leadership potential. If they’re at all publicly religious, especially in an extreme way, that’s a bad sign. For religion is largely a delusion based on wish-thinking, and do we want Presidents and senators who fall prey to that? Now you might answer that public profession of faith is simply a ploy to get votes, but even that tactic is mendacious.
And then there are those like Ben Carson who really are delusional, for he’s a diehard creationist who says it takes more faith to accept evolution than to embrace God. If such ignoramuses reject evolution and embrace Genesis, how can we trust them to accept any science? Their critical faculties have been warped by faith.
Now Jeff Tayler, who’s resumed his production of Sunday antitheistic columns in Salon, weighs in on the GOP debate and Kelly’s inane question. At the end, he warns of the dangers of electing rabid religionists. His piece pulls no punches, even in its title: “These religious clowns should scare you: GOP candidates’ gullible, lunatic faith is a massive character flaw.” Now Jeff, tell us how you really feel!
Here are a few excerpts. First, on Kelly’s question, which you can see, along with the candidates’ responses, in the video below:
Now let’s pause and consider the situation. Kelly is a political science graduate from a major Northeastern university, an attorney by trade with some 10 years of practice behind her, and a citizen of one the planet’s most developed countries. Speaking on satellite television (a technological wonder, whether we still recognize it or not, and no matter what we think of Fox News) in the twenty-first century, this sharp, degree-bearing professional American has just asked, with a straight face, a senator (who happens himself to be a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law) if he is receiving messages from a supernatural being. Yet no one in the audience broke into guffaws or even chuckled. And, of course, no one cried out with irate incredulity at the ludicrousness of the supposition implicit in the question (that an imaginary heavenly ogre could possibly be beaming instructions down to one of his earthling subjects). But since the supernatural being in question goes by the name of “God,” in the clown show that was the Republican debate, everyone – audience, MC, and the clowns themselves – simultaneously took leave of their senses and judged the matter at hand legit.
Tayler goes on to dissect the candidates’ answers in true Mencken-esque style, and of course mentions the odious Ben Carson, who appears at present to be the GOP’s second-choice candidate—after Donald Trump! What a clown car that party is! Carson at least gets a bit of approbation, but only because he didn’t osculate God’s nether dorsal parts:
Kelly last turned to Dr. Ben Carson. Perhaps the most disturbing example of how high intelligence and belief in balderdash myths can jointly inhabit a single mind, Carson, so faith-deranged that he denies evolution and has had himself baptized twice, dodged God entirely and offered a reasonable look into how a neurosurgeon sees the issue of race relations. We can only surmise he felt he had elsewhere spoken enough about God. He gained nothing with his audience by leaving the Lord out, but by doing so he at least offered rationalists a tiny respite from the evening’s madness.
Finally, and this is the best part, Tayler eloquently tells us why we must take religion into account when evaluating candidates. As usual, he ends with a call for action, for he’s a true antitheist:
Presidential candidates have the constitutionally protected right to profess the religion of their choice and speak freely about it, just as atheists have the right – and, I would say, the obligation – to hold religion up to the ridicule and derision it so richly deserves. In that regard, nonbelieving journalists in particular should give openly devout candidates no passes on their faith. Religion directly influences public policy and politics itself, befouls the atmosphere of comity needed to hold reasoned discussions and arrive at consensus-based solutions, sows confusion about the origins of mankind and the cosmos, and may yet spark a nuclear war that could bring on a nuclear winter and end life as we know it. I could go on (and on), but the point is, we need to talk more about religion, and far more frankly, and now, before it’s too late.
Discussing religion freely and critically will desacralize it, with the result that the public professions of faith of which our politicians are so enamored will eventually occasion only pity, disgust and cries of shame! or, at best, serve as fodder for comedians. Faith should, in fact, become a “character issue.”
The advances of science have rendered all vestigial belief in the supernatural more than just obsolete. They have shown it to indicate grave character flaws (among them, gullibility, a penchant for wish-thinking and an inability to process information), or, at the very least, an intellectual recklessness we should eschew, especially in men and women being vetted for public office. One who will believe outlandish propositions about reality on the basis of no evidence will believe anything, and is, simply put, not to be trusted.
Come on, rationalist journos, be brave and do your job. Even if Megyn Kelly won’t do hers.
The video I posted earlier has been taken down, so here’s a newer one. Kelly’s question and the candidates’ answers begin at 1:34:26.
Note: Both Tayler and his friend Inna Shevchenko, head of the feminist and antireligious group FEMEN, will be lecturing at the Atheist Alliance of America conference in Atlanta this October. It hasn’t been announced yet, but I’m doing so here. I’m excited to meet both of them for the first time, and eager to hear their talks.
I recall recently being surprised to learn that Eisenhower got hisself baptized (Presbyterian, I think) right around the time he became President.
And because of his recent conversion, you guys got God on your money and in you pledge to the flag. The flag pledge that wax originally written by a Baptist preacher who DIDN’T think God should be in there.
Hmmmm…
I strongly feel that all politicians, or at least those running for national office, should be asked if they believe the Second Coming is likely to occur during their lives, as an answer in the affirmative has terrifying implications.
Anyone who thinks there’s a good chance for the political rise of an Antichrist, a worldwide Armageddon, mass rapture and the impending end of the world has by definition a profoundly skewed perspective on many critical governance issues, including international relations, economics, fiscal responsibility, the environment, and the status of non-believers.
Those who weren’t raised waiting for Jesus (I was) typically don’t understand how powerful these ideas are (There are credible claims that George W. Bush was driven by these beliefs, at least in part, to invade Iraq).
I agree – I’ve written on my website that Ben Carson should be kept as far away from the presidency as possible because of his belief in the End Times. From his website though, you’d never know – there he takes a Kennedy stance. However, like you, I think such a mindset is simply dangerous anywhere near power. We do not want the nuclear trigger in his hands.
Methinks duplicity? He’s got to be nominated before fire works happens. On the other hand, nah. We don’t need him.
No, you don’t – I’d go so far as to say you’re better off with Trump.
Very much nicer. A Trump-Carson ticket is something I can get behind. ;(
James Watt, Secretary of the Interior under Reagan, supposedly derived his anti-environmental stance partly from his belief in the nearness of the End Times.
Powerful indeed. I was in college during the Y2K scare and my parents along with some of their friends were convinced that the combination of Y2K and the (at the time, unrevealed)Third Secret of Fatima may potentially be ushering in the beginning of Armageddon. Some of these people went so far as to load up on six months of canned goods should there be a worldwide food shortage. On New Year’s Eve 1999, my mother insisted I stay home to be safe and ring in the start of 2000 in prayer.
I was pretty religious myself at the time and thought all of this was overboard. Looking back now, it is pure insanity.
Sorry…that link was bad…should have gone here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Secrets_of_F%C3%A1tima#Third_secret
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I’m wondering if Kelly originally intended for the “message from God” reference in crafting the question as a kind of sanity check on both audience and candidates? When no one proffered an “I wouldn’t quite go that far” response she simply had no choice but to play along with the congregation?
I feel the same way – my interpretation was that it was a “sanity check” question too. It’s not typical of her, and I suspect she was looking to expose craziness, and it backfired. In fact, I’ve thought that ever since she asked the question. I’m surprised Tayler took her seriously, but he probably doesn’t watch her as much as I do.
In fact, I would consider her one of the channel’s leading presenters. I keep looking for things about her to prove me wrong in that assessment, because it’s Fox, and she’s beautiful, but after about a year my good opinion of her remains.
I seldom watch FOX News, so I don’t know her that well. Nevertheless, I thought exactly as you did. I thought she understood exactly what she was doing, and she asked the question in order to see who would answer, “Yes, God called me up this morning and said …” Unfortunately, nobody took the bait.
IIRC it was a question from either an audience member or a viewer. Kelly didn’t originate it and I doubt if she was the one who chose it.
As long as I’m here I’ll say that a candidate’s religion doesn’t scare me half as much as a candidate’s attitude about american “exceptionalism” and america’s declared right to resort to military action against countries that do not do its bidding and america’s status as “the only superpower” and america’s aggression around the world directly and through its NATO superpuppet.
Must admit, the exceptionalism attitude freaks me out a bit too.
‘American exceptionalism’ and evangelical Protestantism are at heart the same pathology, one that goes all the way back to the ‘City on a Hill’ nonsense.
As a kind of sanity check on both audience and candidates a much better question would have been, “have any of you received a word from God on what to do and take care of first, and if so by what means can you reliably distinguish what you think is an actual message from this being from what you may merely be imagining”?
This would have likely prevented everyone from taking leave of their senses and judging the matter at hand legit as Tayler described their reaction to the original presumptuous question.
I had had the same thought.
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In other news, the Kansas state government apparently fired an employee for not being a church-goer.
I don’t know about Truman, but I’m old enough to remember the Eisenhower administration. Eisenhower never hid his religious leanings, (the only president to be baptized in office, when he converted to Presbyterianism), he pushed hard to include “under God” in the pledge of allegiance, and he approvingly signed the bill making “in God we trust” the national motto and pasting it on all the money. He was a strong supporter of prayer in school, leading him to call the Earl Warren appointment the worst mistake of his presidency, when the decision against prayer came in 1962. He began cabinet meetings with a prayer, urging cabinet officers to lead them. Billy Graham was a regular visitor to the White House, and became a close friend whom he asked for on his deathbed.
While religion may not have been as blatant as it is now in politics, it has never been far from the American political scene.
It was slightly before my time, but let’s not forget that Eisenhower was responsible for this fiasco:
And, in 1956 Congress codified “In God We Trust” into federal law as the official National Motto of the United States of America. And hasn’t it been just fun and games for atheists ever since, to have both these things thrown into our faces every time someone tries to breech the divide between church & state? “Divide? What divide? Why, blah blah blah Pledge of Allegiance blah blah blah National Motto.” 1950’s sucked.
In our youths, we probably didn’t pay much attention to what was discussed at election time.
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I really like Jeffrey Tayler, but on Cruz’s responses I am disappointed he says, “Nothing new or even interesting here.” He’s talking about Cruz’s support for multiple Religious Freedom Restoration acts and bills, and his opposition to Planned Parenthood. Cruz’s actions here will result in millions, many of whom are already marginalized in some way, suffering. I consider that interesting and important, and speaks strongly about the nasty, bullying nature of his character. Religion creates out-groups, and the mentality that goes along with them.
There continues to be big issues with the way many people are assigned to groups by one aspect of themselves, and then are treated less well because of being in that group. Republicans cheer heartily about laws that will enable them to make others suffer, and politicians like Cruz make and support those laws. It’s sick, and not something to be brushed over.
I offer to a balm to this insanity
1) In case you missed the debates, here’s the highlights srsly 🙂
2) As for saying what you really feel. NSFW
Believe it or else, Eisenhower was originally from the precursor to Jehovah Witness, pretty spooky stuff. But his religion was meaningless when running for president because of his past.
Truman was same as Carter and Clinton – Baptist.
I was shocked that such a question would be asked and taken seriously.
I would LOVE to meet Inna Shevchenko but have a prior commitment at that time . . . maybe somewhere/sometime else???
Wish I could be in Atlanta. My hands would hurt from clapping, my knees from hyperextending during standing ovations. Probably a good thing I can’t go, so speakers can present without being interrupted!!
JFK was the first, and to date onliest, Catholic to be elected president of these United States. Only one Catholic before him ever secured his party’s nomination for the presidency, Al Smith, who lost the 1928 election to Herbert Hoover largely because of his Catholicism.
Owing to Smith’s loss, when JFK ran in 1960 there were still doubts thick on the ground regarding the fitness and electability of a Catholic to be president — causing Kennedy to make a trip to Houston to abase himself on the topic before a convention of Protestant ministers. Even after JFK’s election, there remained rumors in the reactionary press about a supposed “pipeline” between the Vatican and White House, now that a papist was in the West Wing.
Since JFK, there has also been just one Catholic presidential candidate nominated by a major party, John Kerry — whom the bishops in the Catholic power structure consider “Catholic” in the same sense that a Lubavitcher rabbi might consider a Reform Jew “Jewish.” (Michael Dukakis, who ran against Bush I in ’88, was Eastern Orthodox, which hasn’t been “real” Catholic since the 11th Century Schism.)
Notwithstanding their limited success in the Executive Branch, Catholics pretty much have the run of the joint a short jaunt down Pennsylvania Avenue and around the corner on First Street at the Supreme Court. Catholics now hold six of the nine seats there; the other three being held by Jews, with nary a Protestant to be found anywhere among them.
Catholics holding six SCOTUS seats is a bit of a fluke. Four of those Justices — Scalia, Alito, Kennedy, and Sotomayor; two paisan, an Irishman, and a wise Latina, respectively — are part of the natural Catholic demographic constituency. The other two, Roberts and Thomas — the first from small-town, white-bread Indiana; the second, from the Geechee/Gullah islands off the coast of Georgia — are part of the natural Protestant demographic, but due to some odd historical contingency enlisted in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. (Their being Catholic played no role in their nomination or confirmation — as opposed to the old days when the Court had a “Jewish seat,” dating back to Louis Brandeis, and the nomination of a Catholic was always deemed newsworthy.)
When Elena Kagan assumed J.P. Stevens’s seat in 2010, it became the first time in the history of the Republic when there wasn’t at least one Protestant (or nine) on the Supreme Court. (Stevens was also the last Justice to have served in the US armed forces.)
Speaking of Protestants, guessing the religion of Eisenhower or Truman isn’t hard, since every president but JFK has been one, at least nominally — save Jefferson and Lincoln (and, oh yeah, Andrew Johnson, the accidental president who followed Lincoln, and the only president beside Bill Clinton to be impeached), who professed no religious affiliation at all.
Excessive religion in any judge is usually going to be a bad thing. When the first or last book they reach for before deciding a case is their bible it makes one a little sick in the stomach.
The one exception to the wearing-your-faith-on-your-sleeve orthodoxy in this year’s Republican presidential field is none other than Donald Trump.
The Donald says he’s never seen his way clear to asking God for forgiveness of any kind. (Far as we know, the Lord hasn’t petitioned the Trumpster for absolution either, notwithstanding the tsuris, petty and large, providence has subjected His Donaldness to over the years.)
Seems to me, the Trump-God thing bears a striking resemblance to the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact of 1939.
Just maybe, it will end as well, too.
When Kelly asked the question about God, my first thought was that she was referencing G.W.’s claim that God told him to invade Iraq. It is surely frightening when a leader of the free world claims that he is following a direct and personal command from God.
And Tony Blair was a god-botherer – and what a terrible pair Bush and Blair were…….
It’s obviously true for everyone but even more so for politicians: we can only evaluate their belief claims, not their beliefs.
A month ago, Donald Trump was responding on teevee to questions about his faith with ambivalence and some surprise that anyone might care. He clearly communicated that he didn’t spend very much time even thinking about such things.
This week, he made sure to repeat several times at his “pep rally” while plugging his own book that it was only his 2nd favorite book in the world, and that The Buybull was absolutely his very favoritist book ever written.
I don’t believe for a moment that he just recently read it and came to this conclusion in the preceding few weeks.