Can Atheists Be Good Citizens?

rocketdodger said:
Did anyone ask the question of whether "being a good citizen" is a good thing to begin with?

I try to be a good person. I could care less about being a good citizen.

The two categories often do not fully overlap.
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True... of course, neither depend on belief in imaginary beings.
 
America is one nation UNDER GOD. Atheists are not as patriotic as Christians are. If you hate God so much, than go to godless Sweden or the Netherlands, where its crime ridden, and abortions galore, because it doesn't believe in God.
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You forgot Poland! Er, I mean Norway!
 
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Stone Island said:
That's just not right. Now, I'll happily admit that we can't get inside their heads and actually read their thoughts, but otherwise the amount of counter-evidence to that claim is simply staggering.

Unless, of course, you mean that they were not members of any church or sect. Which is true enough, I suppose. However, both believed in the importance of divine providence and Christianity was incredibly important for and taken seriously by both.
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Anyone who doesn't take seriously the world's largest religion, a cause that people die for, they're called crazy. We all take that tripe seriously. We just think its seriously deluded.

Jefferson was at best a deist.
 
Stone Island said:
On what basis could we reason about positions if our reasons made no deeper reference than to our preferences?
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What's wrong with our preferences?

Stone Island said:
If you read the Declaration Independence then you'll know that the Supreme Judge of the World supports the principles therein because they're good.
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We'll know that? How would we know? How did the author of the Declaration know that the Supreme Judge of the World supports those principles, and how can he demonstrate that to others?

Stone Island said:
I suppose that even the Founders read The Euthyphro. We would lose the protection of divine providence, to which the appeal is made, if they were not.
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The same divine providence that gave the monarchs of Europe the authority to rule their subjects?
 
Here's a good question:

Do either of these bigots(Stone Island or Neuhaus) believe that Jews, Muslims, or Buddhists can be good citizens? Do they even consider people with differing political views "good citizens"?

Or is it important that we all pick THEIR moronic viewpoints on all things, in order to qualify? Frankly, Stone Island and Neuhaus both strike me as people whose values directly contradict the sort of values that America at least pretends to stand for.
 
Stone Island said:
That's just not right. Now, I'll happily admit that we can't get inside their heads and actually read their thoughts, but otherwise the amount of counter-evidence to that claim is simply staggering.

Unless, of course, you mean that they were not members of any church or sect. Which is true enough, I suppose. However, both believed in the importance of divine providence and Christianity was incredibly important for and taken seriously by both.
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Well, that's just not true either. Unless, of course, your definition of christianity is so broad as to mean, "A person who I want to be able to call christian."

If, on the other hand, a person needs to believe that Jesus was the son of god, then it is CLEAR that Jefferson was no christian.

Remember that Dawkins considers himself a cultural christian. Would that mean that he's a christian as well, simply because he identifies with certain elements of the religion?

BTW, I agree, Jefferson wasn't an atheist. He was a diest. And diests aren't christians.
 
Why won't Stone answer the question directly? He even went so far as to quote whole paragraphs from posters, all while editing out of the question out of the quote. How rude.

Stone, I'm not going to ask you if you think atheists can be good citizens or not. But I do want to ask you: why do you not simply answer the question with your own opinion?
 
Morrigan said:
But I do want to ask you: why do you not simply answer the question with your own opinion?
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Well, it's mainly because he knows he can't answer how he would like to answer. He's provided the best possible argument against the OP and he doesn't want to admit error.

Stone Island said:
A theist who is wrong disproves the argument that theists are never wrong and not the arguments that atheists are always wrong.
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Foster Zygote said:
And an atheist who is a good citizen disproves the argument that atheists cannot be good citizens. I'm glad we cleared that all up.
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So, all that's needed is an example of 1 good citizen whose also an atheist.

Thanks to DR:
Darth Rotor said:
Yes.

My friends Pete and Su in Seattle, for starters, and Tricky for the next.

Note that it took me 15 words to answer your question.

Note how many words it took your source.

I win.

I pithed all over him.

DR
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Stone Island's argument has been killed even before it was started.


*PS, I kept DR's posting fetish in tact for his pleasure.:D
 
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joobz said:
Well, that's just not true either. Unless, of course, your definition of christianity is so broad as to mean, "A person who I want to be able to call christian."

If, on the other hand, a person needs to believe that Jesus was the son of god, then it is CLEAR that Jefferson was no christian.

Remember that Dawkins considers himself a cultural christian. Would that mean that he's a christian as well, simply because he identifies with certain elements of the religion?

BTW, I agree, Jefferson wasn't an atheist. He was a diest. And diests aren't christians.
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Is it too much to ask for you to read what I wrote instead of what you think I should have written? Remember, charity is the most important of the virtues when it comes to philosophical argumentation.
 
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