Atheist and Agnostic Politicians

The Atheist

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The Atheist
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Something I've been trying to find - with great difficulty, is how many politicians are atheist or agnostic.

Francois Mitterand seems to have been the most prominent in recent times, while our own dear Helen Clark is the only openly agnostic or atheist I can find who is currently in a senior political role. Jacques Chirac certainly seems to be, but I can't find any statements to the effect that he is.

I'm sure there are others tucked away in our parliament, being the bunch of godless heathens we are, but most of the prominent ones around the world seem to lean towards the church. Whether this is an outward ploy to appear christian to appeal to christian voters, I don't know, but I'd appreciate any details of senior politicians - Cabinet Minister or above - who has openly admitted to being an atheist or agnostic.

Blair, Bush, Howard and Harper are all outwardly christian, as are both Clintons, Gordon Brown, Kim Beazley and even Peter Garrett! (The sell-out scumbag!)

Come on, tell me about some good, solid heathens in politics.
 
I guess the closest I can think of in Canadian politics would be Svend Robinson. I cannot find a link where he asserts his religious (dis)belief, however he did bring a petition to Parliament from the Canadian Humanists seeking to remove any reference to 'god' from the Canadian Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. That took stones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svend_Robinson
 
The Atheist said:
Blair, Bush, Howard and Harper are all outwardly christian, as are both Clintons, Gordon Brown, Kim Beazley and even Peter Garrett! (The sell-out scumbag!)
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From some discussions I've had with a man who worked for him in the past, Bush is no more a Christian than I am. However, he couldn't have hoped to have been elected otherwise.
 
It appears possible that Jesse Ventura (Minnesota's current governor) is an atheist. There seems to some waffling based on reading the "information" I find via Google(tm) but, given this is the US of A we are talking about, this may be expected.
 
Isn't it important to appear "delusional" in order to capture the "delusional" vote, especially when it seems to be in the majority?

Charlie (delusion free zone) Monoxide
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
It appears possible that Jesse Ventura (Minnesota's current governor) is an atheist. There seems to some waffling based on reading the "information" I find via Google(tm) but, given this is the US of A we are talking about, this may be expected.
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Er, Ventura left office in 2002.
 
Charlie Monoxide said:
Isn't it important to appear "delusional" in order to capture the "delusional" vote, especially when it seems to be in the majority?

Charlie (delusion free zone) Monoxide
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure that it is.

Clinton's a guy who never struck me as a christian in any way at all, unless he was wanting to appear devout.

Given the recent survey in USA which showed atheists on a similar popularity to criminals, I doubt an aspiring presidential hopeful in the US would have roughly the same chance as a convicted rapist of getting elected.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
It appears possible that Jesse Ventura (Minnesota's current governor) is an atheist. There seems to some waffling based on reading the "information" I find via Google(tm) but, given this is the US of A we are talking about, this may be expected.
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I've seen some of his comments which certainly suggest that he is, but alas, as pointed out, he's gone.

Has he gone back to Rasslin'?
 
Antiquehunter said:
I guess the closest I can think of in Canadian politics would be Svend Robinson. I cannot find a link where he asserts his religious (dis)belief, however he did bring a petition to Parliament from the Canadian Humanists seeking to remove any reference to 'god' from the Canadian Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. That took stones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svend_Robinson
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Ok, there's one, but I see that he's out of office now as well, which is a great shame. He seems to be a bloke I'd vote for, given his public statements.
 
Freethinker said:
From some discussions I've had with a man who worked for him in the past, Bush is no more a Christian than I am. However, he couldn't have hoped to have been elected otherwise.
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I know his conversion is supposed to be reasonably recent, so maybe that's why. Based on how he is now, I'd vote for him being a real [-ly stupid] born-again.
 
I'm cynical enough to think that there's a huge discrepancy between what a politician actually believes and what s/he represents him/herself as believing. I have no concrete proof of this (after all, you can't prove what's going on in someone's head), but at the risk of falling into the "No true Scotsman" fallacy, George W. Bush's born-again rhetoric doesn't match up with the culture of the Methodist church to which he belongs. His personal beliefs may match those of most Methodists but he alters his public displays of faith to appeal to less liberal constituents, or maybe he does have a more fundamentalist belief and chooses to be a member of the church of his wife's family, or something completely different. I just couldn't say.

I'm optimistic in that I hope that there are more atheist and agnostic politicians than we know of, and that they're just private about their (lack of) faith. I know that if I went crazy and decided to run for office, I'd go back to church.

Edit: Remember awhile back there was one of President Bush's "town hall"-style press conference, and a woman asked him point-blank, "Do you believe that Jesus Christ is returning in the near future, and if not, what are your reasons?" The way he squirmed trying to come up with a response leads me to think that he doesn't actually share his constituents' fundamentalists beliefs but really, really doesn't want to lose the support he's garnered by acting like one of their own.
 
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In the UK I would say being seen to be or known to be very religious is, if anything, a slight impediment to public office.
 
Darat said:
In the UK I would say being seen to be or known to be very religious is, if anything, a slight impediment to public office.
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Same here, but unfortunately, it didn't stop that twat Blair - or has his christianity only become manifest in the last couple of years?
 
Forty-Two said:
I'm cynical enough to think that there's a huge discrepancy between what a politician actually believes and what s/he represents him/herself as believing.
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Agree entirely. Bush strikes me as easily dumb enough to actually be a fundy. His views on foreign affairs are at odds with everyone else's so I can't his doctrine being anything but personal.
 
Darat said:
In the UK I would say being seen to be or known to be very religious is, if anything, a slight impediment to public office.
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I once saw Kim Campbell (former Prime Minister of Canada) say something similar on Real Time with Bill Maher. They were discussing how no politician in this country could get elected without these grand public displays of religioisity. She said that in Canada, no politician could get elected if they DID those types of things.

I'm not sure if she's an atheist or agnostic, but she sure sounds a lot like one when she's on that show. Being a native Canadian, I'm so proud of her!
 
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