Comments on: Mitt Romney Sups With The Devil: But Did He Bring a Long Enough Spoon?

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 23:44:51 +0000

Gosh, I don’t see a positive role for atheists in society either. Perhaps that’s because when I read about them at all it’s generally in the context of vocal atheists whinging that Christians ruin their lives by voting based on their moral policy preferences, or in some brouhaha about what’s become an overcommercialized secular holiday.

But I’m an agnostic. I’m too lazy and stupid to make the jump to atheism.

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:48:47 +0000

TPM reports that a Romney campaign spokesperson refuses to say whether Romney sees a positive role for atheists in American society. That's not terribly probative, given how responses to press inquiries work, but it's certainly not soothing.

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:43:07 +0000

Patrick, I didn’t mean to imply that atheists and agnostics should be in a hand-wringing fuss about this. I suspect it’s just part of the general din of politicos equating religiosity with citizenship. And if it were a throwaway line in a more general speech, I wouldn’t focus on it. But when the subject of the speech is the role of faith in America, the language seems to reflect a deliberate choice to exclude non-believers. George W. Bush, for whatever his faults, at least has explicitly acknowledged that agnostics and atheists are just as American as anyone else.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 23:34:59 +0000

Ken, I have many nitpicking points about your very thoughtful (moreso than Romney’s speech) post, most of which I probably won’t get around to bringing up. I just thought you should know that.

But:

Romney implies that both rights and obligations derive from God, not from law. What does this imply about those who are not religious? Do they lack “common humanity” and responsibility? I think atheists and agnostics (as well as members of faiths that are not mainstream) will find cold comfort in Romney’s words extolling religious freedom in America. The rest of his words suggest that such people cannot truly share American values and the American experience.

I’m pretty damned irreligious, yet though I’m one of the little children for whom you’re concerned, I can’t interpret Romney’s speech as saying that I’m not part of a common humanity, nor do I fear for my freedom to be free from religion in Romney’s America.

That sort of worry is best left with worrisome types, like Andrew Sullivan, a devout Christian but one who bears the same sort of almost hysterical “they’re marginalizing me” cross that some but by far not the majority of atheists (and for them it’s a chip) carry about on their shoulders.

In general, I think we deserve more credit than that. I took Romney’s words for the sort of shopworn speechifying that, for instance, a Jimmy Carter would make. He’s probably a very deep man, but it’s we won’t know what he really believes about his faith until it’s time to write the memoirs.