A University of Minnesota study found that atheists are the most distrusted minority in America. Why?

The most common argument goes something like this: If there is no moral obligation to tell the truth or no consequence for lying, then a godless person has no motivation to tell the truth (especially if the truth works against his or her own interest). Therefore, atheists are inherently immoral, and the atheist’s word is worth nothing.

To ensure that we’re on the same page, we’ll say that atheists, in an American context at least, are people who do not believe in a personal deity like the Judeo-Christian example.

In response to the study, I ask: Would America elect a politically competent atheist to our highest public office? The reason I ask this question in response to the University of Minnesota study is because Fred Greenstein, professor of politics emeritus at Princeton University, compiled a list of qualities that make a competent president. The first was “effectiveness as a public communicator.” How can an atheist be a good communicator if his audience does not trust what he says? To understand the mistrust of atheists, maybe we should look to theists.

Unfortunately, there is a popular claim among atheists that religious people are “delusional.” To be delusional, though, one must hold a belief against which there is indisputable evidence. By this definition, the religious are not delusional. But, does a lack of evidence for either argument call for polarity in the issue? No. In fact, most will agree there are verses in Deuteronomy and Leviticus with which a human rights advocate would be forced to disagree. Even in the New Testament’s Luke 19:27 Jesus says, “Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king, bring them here and slay them before me.” The point is that a modern leader must understand that owning slaves is wrong and murdering those who don’t follow Jesus is unacceptable.

This means that most responsible Christians must choose which teachings of the Bible are helpful and ignore those that are dangerous. A religious argument against atheists is that they have no basis for morality. Christians, though, have the Bible or word of God as their basis for morality. What about the ignored verses, though? How can people decide which verses to skip and which to accept when the book from which they’re choosing is the very book that forms the basis for their morality? A reasonable conclusion is that humans have the inherent ability to decipher between right and wrong. Or could it be that “morality” is just a desire for order? Immorality leads to chaos. If a person kills, lies, cheats and steals, then an ordered civilization cannot function. As an alternative to the word of God, maybe a desire for civic organization is a basis and motivation for morality.

I recently read Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris in which the author compared the minimal murder and burglary rates to growing atheist populations in Nordic countries, asserting that he is aware there may be no correlation. Interestingly, religious responses fought the potential correlation passionately. A popular argument was that “desperate times call for desperate measures.” An atheist in a desperate, lesser-developed country will be more likely than a faithful person to act immorally for the cause of survival. It is easy to be moral in a developed nation, they say, because morality is not as tested. This argument seems appropriate, but it backfires. The comparison of murder and burglary rates in the Nordic nations to those of lesser-developed nations, as the numbers relate to the hypothetical actions of atheists, offers an unwanted claim that monetary wealth and a stable government are statistically effective moral replacements for God’s word.

So could an atheist become president? Earlier, the same question was posed regarding women and blacks. Candidates for 2008 are challenging those doubts. The problems that blacks and women face are false concepts of their inferiority in the eyes of and in respect to the Man. Atheists, I think, face a different challenge. The concept of moral superiority plays a role, but there are other issues.

An atheist must admit his lack of belief to be seen as such. An atheist cannot be picked out of a crowd like other minorities. By appearance, John F. Kennedy may well have been a Protestant, but he was open about his Catholic beliefs. He had the choice to share his beliefs, but women and blacks are recognized before they even get the chance to speak. This main difference clumps the atheist struggle with, ironically, belief-based minorities, such as Catholics in American government. JFK may have broken the Christian sect barrier, but will America ever reach a point when atheistic views are not the basis for one’s moral or political character?

Andrew Stein is a senior in the college of communication.