51 Comments on “I’m Running Anyway”   rss feed

1. Zeno on Feb 16th, 2007 at 7:39 pm

   Let’s see: 55% would vote for a homosexual and 45% would vote for an atheist. Therefore, a gay atheist could get 55% + 45% = 100% of the vote.

   I’ll send this to the White House and scare the hell out of the president.

2. Austin on Feb 16th, 2007 at 8:17 pm

   Zeno, pity you have to multiply the odds instead of adding them. Nice try though.

3. adam on Feb 16th, 2007 at 8:22 pm

   Probably the odds would be neither multiplied nor added. Many of the people that wouldn’t vote for a homosexual wouldn’t vote for an atheist, either.

4. john merryman on Feb 16th, 2007 at 8:22 pm

   Maybe you could consider reframing the argument. Having grown up on a farm in a large family I tend toward a organic, rather then mechanistic view of nature. As such I call myself a pantheist. As I see it, the problem with monotheism is that the absolute is basis, rather then apex, so the spiritual absolute is the source out of which we rise, not a being from which we fell. Good and bad are not a top down universal dual between the forces of light and darkness, but the basic, bottom up binary code of biological calculation.
   Life has no meaning because meaning is static and reductionistic, while life is dynamic and holistic. It is the purpose of the individual to have a purpose, or else.
   We are nodes in a network and we are conscious. Is it feasible to consider the network might be conscious?(The brain is a network and it is conscious.)
   Obviously much of what physically connects us is not conscious, or even living, yet what is the larger nature of this reality? Physical reality, whether at the planetary or atomic level, is proportionally emptier then the space separating humans and yet forms unitary structures. Our separate identities are based on classic concepts of time and space which are the product of the limits of our perception. Just as our senses are limited in ways circumstances find useful, could the isolation of our individual awareness be a matter of practical necessity? As a small child, my head was full of voices I had to consciously quell. What is to say that some radio connectivity is relegated to the subconscious in order to function as individuals and is simply waiting for humanity to reach a stage where it could be effectively handled consciously? The problem with examining such possibilities is that the very process of examination is necessarily reductionistic and the more ethereal possibilities are the first dismissed.

   I could continue on for pages, but in one last plug for a bottom up pantheism, I would say it is to democracy, what monotheism was to monarchy.

5. Pingback from The Crossed Pond » God-fearing homosexual vs filthy atheist Presidential deathmatch on Feb 16th, 2007 at 8:35 pm

   [...] Kos has a Gallup poll, that I heard about from CV. You can check it out at either of those sites, but the take-home message is that an atheist is only going to win a Presidential election in a three-way contest against a chicken molester and a necrophiliac, and only if neither of those makes a big deal about believing in God. [...]

6. Annie on Feb 16th, 2007 at 8:50 pm

   I think Zeno was making a joke. About the White House? About somebody in the White House not knowing that the probabilities need to be multiplied?

7. Joseph Smidt on Feb 16th, 2007 at 11:54 pm

   Well in 2008 we will see which of members of these groups will get the most votes. There will at least be one Woman, one Mormon, one African American and perhaps a diversity of others.

8. Lord on Feb 17th, 2007 at 12:30 am

   The real difficulty is the “well qualified” since even if the public doesn’t object to a minority, minority candidates are highly unlikely to have attained the experience the public would deem requisite. Discrimination has a long shadow.

9. Sourav on Feb 17th, 2007 at 12:31 am

   Old Hispanic godless lesbians can still get 10% — what a great country!

10. Joshua R on Feb 17th, 2007 at 12:54 am

    You know what has been boggling my mind? I have recenlt become athiest in the last year or so, while still in college. I am constantly surrounded by understanding people who are either also athiest or thoughtfull agnostics. I had no idea athiest where the most distrusted monirty, even getting kicked out of some communities. Thats rediculous. I’m kinda not excited to graduate

11. dileffante on Feb 17th, 2007 at 3:33 am

    OMFSM. Americans are weird. Chile is a conservative and catholic country, where divorce is still a novelty and abortion a taboo word. And yet our last two presidents have been agnostics, without anyone making much fuss about it.

    On the other hand, I guess that Gallup would get quite similar results if they asked the same question in my country. It’s just that, at the end of the day, for most people other factors will be more importante for deciding the vote (regardless of what they say when the question is formulated in isolation). And those that do decide mainly on the base of religion are die-hard red voters anyway.

12. Jeff on Feb 17th, 2007 at 10:18 am

    Another worry is possible variation in the perception of a candidate as “well-qualified”. It may be that many voters claim that they would vote for an abstract well-qualified woman or minority, but in practice they might subconsciously set the bar unreasonably high. This reminds me of that recent study where the CV of a fake faculty candidate was given to a faculty search committee with a randomly-chosen male or female name. Professors claimed to be unbiased, but they rated the female version as less-qualified than the male version.

13. anonymous too on Feb 17th, 2007 at 11:19 am

    I’m sure there have been many atheist presidents. They were just very careful to make sure you didn’t know they were atheists.

14. Annie on Feb 17th, 2007 at 11:30 am

    Jeff — I certainly agree with you there. When I first read this post, my thought was not, “Wow, X% of people would vote for a Y candidate!” Rather, I was dismayed that in this day & age, Z% of people would *openly admit* that they would not vote for a Y candidate. And I know that this means there is a greater percentage of “No”s involved, which includes both respondents who know they wouldn’t vote for Y but feel they should keep that to themselves, as well as respondents who may honestly think they would vote for Y but would actually impose much more stringent requirements.

    I also wonder, however, about the bias that pops up in asking this question once campaigns have been announced. Frankly, if this question were asked of me, I would (subconsciously) be responding to the question, “Would you vote for a woman if she were your party’s candidate?” as though I were asked, “Are you planning to vote for Hillary Clinton?”

15. spyder on Feb 17th, 2007 at 1:33 pm

    I really don’t think it is possible, any longer, to truly have a “well-qualified” candidate for President of the US. The professed religion of the person is one of the most trivial of qualities that need to be assessed, whereas their views and understanding of the US Constitution need to be paramount. Given our current administration’s position of the “unitary executive” (highly dubious constitutional interpretation), we need to rigorously and fastiduously examine the ‘08 choices long before we accept them as even somewhat qualified. President’s can, and in the past did, surround themselves with the best people to advise them. Choosing someone who represents a curious intellect willing to listen to counsel and advise (indeed crave advise) from those who have expertise and hopefully useful wisdom in different fields and disciplines seems to be much more important than whether they believe in dieties or not.

16. adam on Feb 17th, 2007 at 2:27 pm

    Any candidate that hasn’t endured a good radishing at the hands of their Skull and Bones society buddies is clearly unqualified for the office of President of the United States.

17. Belizean on Feb 17th, 2007 at 4:30 pm

    The reason that religion matters is that it gives some indication of the candidate’s ultimate source of values. Knowing this helps a voter better predict the candidate’s behavior in office, were she to be elected.

    I’m an atheist. But if I had to choose between two candidates, knowing only that one is a Christian and the other an atheist, I would vote for the Christian without the slightest hesitation.

    If, however, the atheist had declared himself a Buddhist or a Confucianist (both atheistic value systems), I would not necessarily vote for the Christian. [My vote would depend on a comparative study of the two competing systems of belief.]

    I think that most people distrust atheists, because the atheist’s ultimate source of values is usually undeclared.

18. adam on Feb 17th, 2007 at 4:40 pm

    Sean, you’re not even holding the atheist vote, man.

19. Herb on Feb 17th, 2007 at 5:57 pm

    the atheist’s ultimate source of values is usually undeclared

    That’s a false distinction - knowing that someone is Christian does not tell you their values. You don’t know if you’re getting Barack Obama or Pat Robertson.

20. Herb on Feb 17th, 2007 at 6:57 pm

    Ok sure, the SOURCE of values in a Christian is declared (maybe), but that doesn’t make the values themselves any less of a crapshoot.

21. Scott on Feb 17th, 2007 at 7:53 pm

    I wonder what percentage would not want to vote for a white male? Just wondering.

22. Julianne on Feb 18th, 2007 at 12:05 am

    I wonder what percentage would not want to vote for a white male?

    Perhaps the 56% of eligible voters who didn’t cast a ballot? Not voter apathy, but a massive protest against another slate of white met at the top of the ticket.

23. Belizean on Feb 18th, 2007 at 12:12 am

    That’s a false distinction - knowing that someone is Christian does not tell you their values. You don’t know if you’re getting Barack Obama or Pat Robertson.

    The point is that when you know that someone is a Christian, you know infinitely more about his values than if you were only to know that he is an atheist. The first is a determination of belief, but the latter is merely one of disbelief.

    As modern Christians Obama and Robertson have extremely similar values, viewed from a more distant perspective. [They both agree with the equality of all (irrespective of wealth, race, or sex) in the eyes of God, the fundamentally sinful nature of humanity, the freedom of man to reject God, the importance of loving one's neighbors, the immorality of: murder, theft, adultery, slavery, polygamy, sloth, gluttony, vanity, dishonesty, false testimony, covetousness, female genital mutilation, etc., etc.].

    By contrast, someone who is merely known to be an atheist could believe in literally anything (except God).

24. Ben on Feb 18th, 2007 at 5:19 am

    Chile despite its conservatism has also elected a woman as President, which the US has not.

    Sean, just be glad they didn’t ask what percentage of people would vote for a physicist for President. It would probably be even lower than for the atheist. Knowing a lot of physicists, one might not call this a bad thing.

    I think a lot of people when they hear atheist think of some fictional person who goes around denouncing God on every streetcorner, like a caricature version of Madalyn Murray O’Hair. That said, it would be hard for someone to get elected to high office now without at least nominal gestures of faith.

25. Alejandro Rivero on Feb 18th, 2007 at 12:10 pm

    It seems to me that, except for the potentially senile one, all the other rejected candidates are due to sex issues, or more precisely to sex commitment. A Mormon, a third married candidate and a homosexual have, in the popular lore, the label “promiscuity” stamped on his forehead. In a minor way (with family issues weighting against the prototype of latin lover) also the Hispanic kind fits in this criticism. Thus one could conjecture that the moral charge against the atheism is the same too. Note the usual assimilation between atheism, leftism and free love.

26. John Phillips on Feb 18th, 2007 at 3:26 pm

    Belizean: I think you will find that many of the so called xtian values you attribute to Robertson are incorrect. Not incorrect that they may perhaps be xtian values, though that is an argument for another day, but incorrect in that they apply to Robertson. If Pat Robertson and his brand of xtians had their way many of these so called xtian values along with the constitution would be removed from any that disagreed with them. Thus the label xtian on its own means absolutely nothing unless you first investigate what a particular xtian promotes.

    This is one area that I have some sympathy with the moderate xtian who is constantly being whacked because of what the fundies like Robertson espouse. Of course, if they sit back and allow their more moderate version take a back seat to the fundies then they only have themselves to blame. Additionally, as Dawkins and Harris have said, any belief system that relies purely on faith, even if in the face of contrary evidence, held by moderates legitimises the very same process in the less moderate.

    If I heard that a particular politician was an atheist I would be more likely to vote for them as I would assume, based on the atheists I do know, that they based their world view on rationality. On the other hand, any politician that claims any belief based on faith is either lying to garner votes or is already displaying at least one level of irrationality.

27. chemicalscum on Feb 18th, 2007 at 8:57 pm

    What do you call an atheist seeking political office in the US - a Unitarian

28. Pingback from Tim Hardaway Doesn’t Know How He Feels About John McCain « 2008 Election Watch on Feb 18th, 2007 at 9:22 pm

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29. Belizean on Feb 19th, 2007 at 1:31 am

    I think you will find that many of the so called xtian values you attribute to Robertson are incorrect.

    Which ones? Is he pro female genital mutilation? Pro murder? Anti equality of all before God?

    If I heard that a particular politician was an atheist I would be more likely to vote for them as I would assume, based on the atheists I do know, that they based their world view on rationality.

    I’m more interested in the correctness of a candidate’s world view.

    Unfortunately, those ostensibly most devoted to rationality, e.g. academics, seem to have incredibly naive world views (e.g. men and women have fundamentally similar natures, human beings are fundamentally good, no culture is better than any other, poverty is the cause of crime and terrorism, war is never the answer, the threat of human evil is negligible compared to that of climate change, corporate power is more dangerous governmental power, etc.). A bible-toting country bumpkin is more likely to get it right.

    This is because the bumpkin relies more heavily on traditional views. These have the advantage over the academic’s ideas in having been tested over several generations if not hundreds of years.

    The difference between the ideas of the academic and those of the bumpkin are like that between elegant code that has not been compiled and patch-work code that has been running successfully on at least one machine. As anyone who has written code can attest, a program that hasn’t been compiled and run (on a society in this simile) is almost certainly wrong.

30. adam on Feb 19th, 2007 at 7:56 am

    Because if there’s one thing that we’ve seen this last few years, fakey old down-home wisdom is exactly the right stuff for running a country and a complicated war with its associated Foreign Policy.

    No, wait.

31. David on Feb 19th, 2007 at 10:29 am

    One thing that worries me about such polls is that you don’t get a proper choice of answers. You may have noticed that almost all the options add up to 99% if you add the Yes to the No. This presumably means that the “couldn’t care less” option was not available.
    I often have this problem with questionnaires. At least on the old paper ones I could draw an extra box with a comment and tick that, but online you cannot do that. At times this reminds me of Feynman’s application to join the army as remembered in his autobiography.

32. Chemicalscum on Feb 19th, 2007 at 11:06 am

    Belize said

    “A bible-toting country bumpkin is more likely to get it right.

    This is because the bumpkin relies more heavily on traditional views. These have the advantage over the academic’s ideas in having been tested over several generations if not hundreds of years.”

    And the country bumpkin will thus ensure that he reproduces a society in which he remains a country bumpkin and that will do it’s utmost to ensure his children remain country bumpkins.

33. Chemicalscum on Feb 19th, 2007 at 11:10 am

    Belize

    When the code you are running is malfunctional, it is at least time to debug it or even compile completely new code. You don’t just keep running it again and again and getting the same old errors. Unless of course you are a “bible toting country bumpkin”.

34. Peter Erwin on Feb 19th, 2007 at 12:52 pm

    Belizean said:
    The point is that when you know that someone is a Christian, you know infinitely more about his values than if you were only to know that he is an atheist. The first is a determination of belief, but the latter is merely one of disbelief.

    The reality is that one can assume more about a person’s values from their culture than from a fill-in-the-blanks religious label. In this context, “atheist” would mean native-born American atheist, which already tells you a great deal about their probable values — which would include most of the values you listed (absent specifically theological ideas like “original sin”, though it’s certainly possibly for atheists to hold similar ideas).

    By itself, a self-identification as “Christian” includes a huge array of possible values, from Saint Francis to Torquemada, from 19th Century pro-slavery Southerners to abolitionists, from Mother Teresa to Bishop Desmond Tutu to (openly gay) Bishop Gene Robinson to Pat Robertson to abortion-clinic bombers to the Lord’s Resistance Army of Uganda.

    As for Pat Robertson’s “values”: well, we can note that he has publically advocated assassinating foreign leaders, that he has associated with and supported oppressive and brutal dictators, and that he runs a large business empire (including past mining deals with dictators in Liberia and Zaire). I would suggest that, at the very least, he’s not that concerned about murder or greed.

    Of course, he will publically say that he’s opposed to such things, which may be all that you want: the appearance of morality without the substance. By saying that you’d rather vote for a candidate who declared himself or herself to be a Christian, you’re coming close to admitting that you’re naive and easily manipulated by politicians.

35. Peter Erwin on Feb 19th, 2007 at 1:29 pm

    It occurs to me that a candidate in an American political race who identified as “atheist” would, at the very least, be demonstrating a certain commitment to truthfulness, in the sense of not offering up an easy and politically expedient lie about his or her beliefs.

    This is not something you can necessarily say about an American politician who claims to be Christian.

36. Moshe on Feb 19th, 2007 at 1:48 pm

    The thing that stands out in those results for me is how untruthful they are, for example a majority declares they will vote for an openly homosexual candidate? yeah, right…

    In view of that the results make perfect sense, it just quantifies how much shame people feel discriminating against various groups, evidently people just don’t feel they need to hide their true feelings towards atheists.

37. Herb on Feb 19th, 2007 at 2:46 pm

    By saying that you’d rather vote for a candidate who declared himself or herself to be a Christian, you’re coming close to admitting that you’re naive and easily manipulated by politicians.

    Looking over post #29, I think what’s really going on is that Belizean thinks that atheists may be more likely to have certain political views that he disagrees with.

38. Peter Erwin on Feb 19th, 2007 at 3:40 pm

    Herb said (#37):
    Looking over post #29, I think what’s really going on is that Belizean thinks that atheists may be more likely to have certain political views that he disagrees with.

    Could be… but that would certainly contradict his claim that atheists will believe absolutely anything, and that you have no idea what their values/views are.

39. Herb on Feb 19th, 2007 at 4:36 pm

    True, but I don’t know if he’s claiming that honestly.

40. Elliot on Feb 20th, 2007 at 11:05 am

    “well qualified” what loaded description. On paper Dick Cheney would be considered “well qualified” as a world leader he is an unmitigated disaster. Give me the “inexperienced” Barack Obama.

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42. Belizean on Feb 20th, 2007 at 3:50 pm

    Herb said (#37):
    Looking over post #29, I think what’s really going on is that Belizean thinks that atheists may be more likely to have certain political views that he disagrees with.

    Could be… but that would certainly contradict his claim that atheists will believe absolutely anything, and that you have no idea what their values/views are.

    In the context-free situation that I posed in which one literally knows nothing other than one candidate is an atheist and the other a Christian, I’d choose the latter for the reasons stated (insufficient knowledge of the atheist’s purported values).

    In the context of American politics I’d choose the Christian, because the atheist is more likely to be a Leftist.

    [Pat Robertson] has associated with and supported oppressive and brutal dictators

    There seems to be a lot of that going around, such as the support for oppressive and brutal dictator Fidel Castro among leftist notables (including Danny Glover, Steven Spielberg, Harry Belafonte, Oliver Stone, Norman Mailer, Jesse Jackson, Jack Nicholson, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Spike Lee, Kevin Costner, Alanis Morissette, Robert Redford, Sidney Pollack, Shirley MacLaine, …)

    And the country bumpkin will thus ensure that he reproduces a society in which he remains a country bumpkin and that will do it’s utmost to ensure his children remain country bumpkins….When the code you are running is malfunctional, it is at least time to debug it or even compile completely new code.

    The bumpkin’s only advantage is that his code runs, not that it’s optimal. The lesson to be learned from the programming analogy is not that you should never improve your code. The lesson is humility. You don’t roll out your code changes (irrespective of how confident you are about them) onto a live telephone network lest you bring it down (as an AT&T programmer did in 1990). Similarly, you don’t foist untested theories on an entire society lest you incur massive runtime errors (such as the 30 million needless internal deaths in the Soviet Union, the 30 million in Communist China, and the millions starved in North Korea ). Certain political factions have yet to learn this lesson. In these the prevalence of atheism is significantly higher.

43. adam on Feb 20th, 2007 at 5:10 pm

    The current administration was written in Cobol on VAX and ported to Fortran 77 on Itanium, is what you’re saying, Belizean?

44. Elliot on Feb 20th, 2007 at 11:56 pm

    adam,

    please don’t insult Fortran with analogies to the current administration. It’s still my favorite language.

    

    Elliot

45. adam on Feb 21st, 2007 at 9:23 am

    You really should consider looking into C once it matures.

46. John Phillips on Feb 21st, 2007 at 10:53 am

    Belizean: then so what you are saying is that your problem with an openly atheist politican who you now nothing else about is that in your opinion they are likely to be opposed to your political views while an openly xtian politician who you also know nothing about is more likely to share your politics. In which case, all I can say is, doesn’t that say more about you than either of the unknown politicians. Especially when, from even recent history, it can be seen that most politicians who have claimed the mantle of xtianity act in ways that are invariably the opposite of their apparent core beliefs.

47. Peter Erwin on Feb 21st, 2007 at 12:13 pm

    Belizean said:
    There seems to be a lot of that going around, such as the support for oppressive and brutal dictator Fidel Castro among leftist notables (including Danny Glover, Steven Spielberg, Harry Belafonte, Oliver Stone, Norman Mailer, Jesse Jackson, Jack Nicholson, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Spike Lee, Kevin Costner, Alanis Morissette, Robert Redford, Sidney Pollack, Shirley MacLaine, …)

    But Pat Robertson was not just supporting Mobutu (Zaire) and Taylor (Liberia), and lobbying Congress and the State Department on their behalf — he was making business deals with them (gold and diamond mining operations).

    In any case, at least some of the people in your list are Christians, so we seem to be agreeing that being a “Christian” is no guarantee you won’t cozy up to nasty dictators.

48. Belizean on Feb 21st, 2007 at 2:30 pm

    Belizean: then so what you are saying is that your problem with an openly atheist politican who you now nothing else about is that in your opinion they are likely to be opposed to your political views while an openly xtian politician who you also know nothing about is more likely to share your politics. In which case, all I can say is, doesn’t that say more about you than either of the unknown politicians. Especially when, from even recent history, it can be seen that most politicians who have claimed the mantle of xtianity act in ways that are invariably the opposite of their apparent core beliefs

    Yes, it says that I am rational. That is, I assume that a politician who is likely to espouse my political views is more likely to implement them in office than a politician unlikely to espouse my political views.

    …at least some of the people in your list are Christians, so we seem to be agreeing that being a “Christian” is no guarantee you won’t cozy up to nasty dictators.

    Being a Christian is also no guarantee that you won’t commit mass murder. I would contend, however, that Christians are less likely to coddle dictators than are (their fellow) atheists. Although I know nothing of the business dealings of typical-prominent-Christian Pat Robertson, I’m sure that any of their detrimental effects have been slightly exceeded by those resulting from the activities of typical-prominent-atheists Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Fidel Castro, and Kim Jong-il.

49. Peter Erwin on Feb 21st, 2007 at 4:09 pm

    Belizean said:
    Being a Christian is also no guarantee that you won’t commit mass murder. I would contend, however, that Christians are less likely to coddle dictators than are (their fellow) atheists.

    And your evidence for this is…? Given that there haven’t been any atheist American presidents for at least the last hundred years, it’s kind of hard to imagine you would have solid evidence for this assertion. Admittedly, US presidents have “coddled” numerous dictators — Duvalier of Haiti, Mobuto of Zaire, Habré of Chad, Marcos of the Philippines, the Shah of Iran, any number of Latin American dictators, etc. But those US presidents have all been Christians.

    Although I know nothing of the business dealings of typical-prominent-Christian Pat Robertson, I’m sure that any of their detrimental effects have been slightly exceeded by those resulting from the activities of typical-prominent-atheists Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Fidel Castro, and Kim Jong-il.

    Hmm… but they’re not Americans, and they’re not capable of running for US President, are they? Whereas Pat Robertson is, and has.

    (For what it’s worth, Castro’s supporters have included Canadian Premier Pierre Trudeau, a devout Catholic. And Richard Nixon made supporting Mao and his successors official US policy.)

50. matt on Feb 23rd, 2007 at 3:37 am

    i guess the people questioned assume by default the president is going to be a religious guy of some sort, that tells you right away what her/his positions are on a lot of things, you kind of think you can control better or frame better or at least know better a religious person than an atheist, the latter(especially if you cannot picture some real person as it was for the people questioned) might scare people more.

51. Bryan on Feb 24th, 2007 at 4:21 am

    There’s at least as good a chance of a black Mormon lesbian becoming president of the United States as there is of a black Mormon lesbian existing.

    Though surely, if we’re going to calculate the prevalence over the age of the universe of Boltzmann brains, why have we not also determined the effect on the fate of the universe of quantum fluctuations giving rise to Boltzmann black Mormon lesbians? and defeating Boltzmann atheists at the Boltzmann polls?

    Then again Boltzmann brains are probably biased against atheism - after all, they did just pop into existence with no evidence for development by evolutionary processes, since none in fact took place. Any Boltzmann brain with half a brain is going to reflect that simply having popped into existence out of a quantum fluctuation is an unsatisfactory and highly unlikely model.

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