Positive Things Dubya has said about nonreligious Americans

[arcticpenguin]

http://www.secularhumanism.org/conference/index.htm

This is from the program of a Council of Secular Humanism conference, One Nation Without God? Secularism, Society, and Justice which is coming up 11-13 April, 2003 in Washington, D.C.:

Peter Beinart is editor of The New Republic and author of the TRB column in that magazine, as well as of articles in many other publications. Beinart is credited by some with convincing President George W. Bush to say positive things, at last, about nonreligious Americans. A Rhodes scholar, Beinart is a frequent guest on CNN and other television programs

What positive things has Dubya said about nonreligious Americans? Seriously, I'd like to know, because I can't recall hearing anything like that.

[zakur]

Originally posted by arcticpenguin
What positive things has Dubya said about nonreligious Americans? Seriously, I'd like to know, because I can't recall hearing anything like that. Hmmm...I can recall only one time where he even mentions the nonreligious, and that was in his speech at the 2001 National Prayer Breakfast (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/bush_prayer010201.html):
An American President serves people of every faith, and serves some of no faith at all.
...
Men and women can be good without faith, but faith is a force of goodness. Men and women can be compassionate without faith, but faith often inspires compassion. Human beings can love without faith, but faith is a great teacher of love.And this quote can barely be considered "positive," if at all. It is more along the lines of superficial inclusiveness or reluctant neutrality toward the nonreligious.

I'll see if I can dig up some other quotes.

[arcticpenguin]

bump

Anyone heard any other positive things?

[Aoidoi]

Um, "They don't sweat much for hellspawn?"

"Though they are going to be tormented in hell for the rest of eternity they're not that bad?"

(meaning, no, I haven't heard any)

[subgenius]

"They don't sweat much for hellspawn."
You're a clever b*st*rd.

[aerocontrols]

What president has ever had anything positive to say about nonreligious Americans?

[arcticpenguin]

Maybe one of the weekday regulars knows of something.

[subgenius]

What the real president said:
"In a story carried in the latest issue of Newsweek magazine titled "What They Believe -- and Whether It Really Matters," Gore was asked by religion editor Kenneth L. Woodward how he would feel if an atheist were elected president. Would it bother him?

"No it would not. I think that it would depend on who the person was, of course. But do I believe that someone can have an understanding of our Constitution (and) a true spirit of tolerance without affirming a particular and specialized belief in God? Yes, I do. I think that is incumbent upon anyone who affirms a respect for tolerance."
http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/elec5.htm

I read somewhere one of the presidents was atheist. I'm tracking it down.

[subgenius]

James Madison is often referred to as an atheist, but kept his beliefs so private there's no definitive evidence.
The Father of the Bill of Rights did express himself on religion generally:
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
-- James Madison (1751-1836)

Most all of the founding fathers were theist or deist, and their theism and deism drove what they did in several ways.

I'd hope to accomplish even 1/10th of what they did.

[LeFevre]

Originally posted by Whodini


I'd hope to accomplish even 1/10th of what they did.

no *****. It is weird for me to think back on what they did, in the times they were in. What they pulled off seems out of place.

[subgenius]

I like the phrase "We hold these truths to be self-evident..."
A great answer for those who think atheists can't be moral.

[corplinx]

As a nonreligious american, let me say this. I don't want the president to say squat about me. I don't want his pandering. I don't need it.

What I need is for him to handle foreign affairs and the military. That's his job. Not budgets, not healthcare, not mentors for young children, not any of it. The fact that president's have steered legislation is one of the reasons I think people are so apathetic about congressional races. Why worry about who your congressman is when the president acts like a King?

No Mr. President, I do not need or want a warm fuzzy from having you recognzie me. I need you to do you consitutionally defined job to the best of your ability.

[Tom Head]

Originally posted by aerocontrols
What president has ever had anything positive to say about nonreligious Americans? Thomas Jefferson, who once wrote in a letter to John Adams that he'd much rather be an atheist than a Calvinist. (Well, okay, that's borderline.)

I think John Quincy Adams also had some kind things to say--and of course William Howard Taft was a Unitarian, so that might be another good place to look.

For all the talk about faith-based initiatives, I have to admire Dubya's chutzpah--I mean, how many conservatives would have picked a prayer breakfast to say something kind about non-religious people? (He was also the first president or presidential candidate to add "and mosques" to "churches and synagogues"--and this was back in 2000, before anti-Islamic sentiment made it to the front page.)


Cheers,

[arcticpenguin]

Originally posted by Tom Head
Thomas Jefferson, who once wrote in a letter to John Adams that he'd much rather be an atheist than a Calvinist. (Well, okay, that's borderline.)

Jefferson was a deist, and I believe is the one responsible for the odd "Nature and Nature's god" wording in the Declaration of Independence.