In All Seriousness, Will Ted Cruz Really Drive People to Atheism?

[LiberalAndProud]

We’re talking someone who would openly speak out against LGBT rights, women’s rights, evolution, climate change… all issues Republicans want to avoid in the next election. When social issues become the focus in a state-wide or national race, they lose. Many Republicans even avoided signing a Supreme Court brief against nationwide marriage equality because it’s such a toxic issue for them. They don’t want another Todd Akin, especially as they’re watching Governor Mike Pence get hammered over his anti-LGBT legislation. You think Ted Cruz is going to avoid those issues? Not a chance. Social issues would become the centerpiece of his campaign.

What does that mean for those of us on the other end of the Humanist spectrum? It means more young people shying away from the label of Christianity and maybe even doubting their faith altogether, because they don’t want to be part of a religion that does so much damage in our society. It takes someone as extreme as Cruz to make them realize how awful their beliefs really are.

I firmly believe the presidency of George W. Bush, with his faith-based policies, did as much (if not more) to drive people away from faith as the New Atheist books and the discussions surrounding them. And when it comes to public pronouncements of religion, Ted Cruz is George W. Bush on steroids.

So laugh at the Borowitz article… but realize it’s really not that much of a joke.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/04/07/in-all-seriousness-will-ted-cruz-really-drive-people-to-atheism/

[beam me up scottie]

1. I've always been an atheist so I can't really speculate.

It would be awesome though, wouldn't it?

I would love to see former believers tweeting about their deconversion and thanking Cruz publicly.

[Warpy]

2. No, but he will continue to drive the young away from nutball Christianity

The more he spews hate and war and confusing rich men with minor deities, the more turned off they'll get.

[LiberalAndProud]

3. Once you break away from "nutball Christianity," the whole thing begins to unravel.

You overestimate the allure of "liberal Christianity," I think.

[AlbertCat]

4. Believing in believing

Don' forget, many religious people don't really believe in the stuff of the religion, they believe it's good to believe. The church and religion are a necessary social thing to many. It's a weird "it's always been there; getting rid of it would destroy everything" kind of mentality. Tradition.

I think Daniel Dennett calls it "believing in believing".

So even if intellectually the whole thing unravels, socially and traditionally it stays tangled together.


I don't think Teddy boy come across as genuine to anyone but the loopy.... and the good ol' boys who pretend he's great so they can keep in power. But the good ol' boys have been miscalculating lately..... I mean, Palin?

[trotsky]

7. "believing in believing"

That's such an excellent way to put it. Such people also have a tendency to over-emphasize the role of religion in people doing good things, as if religion is the only reason they would have done it. Seems like such a negative view of one's fellow humans - much harsher than the "horrible" "extremist" atheist who says "Hey, why shouldn't everyone be able to question this shit?"

[trotsky]

6. Precisely.

I grew up in a fairly liberal Christian church, and even for me that first step of allowing myself to say "This doesn't make sense, and I have a right to not accept 'God's mysterious ways' as an answer" was hard.

[LiberalAndProud]

10. No doubt.

I'm thinking of experiences as related by people like Dan Barker and Jerry DeWitt. Although they both dabbled with more liberal theologies on their separate journeys to disbelief, their journeys did not end there. Once one begins to question, the conclusion is not likely to be a different theological doctrine, but rather the realization that all of it is most likely untrue.

[AlbertCat]

12. 'God's mysterious ways'

I like to point out that if you eliminate the "god" part, the mystery vanishes.

"Why would god create childhood cancer?"

Because he didn't.... he's not there. Mystery solved

"Why did god let all those people die in that plane crash?"

Because there's no god there to stop it. Mystery solved

"Why would god drown all of mankind and save animals and a single family?"

Because he never did that...he's not there. Mystery solved

[trotsky]

13. Amazing how simple the answers get...

when you don't have to make excuses for an allegedly all-loving, all-powerful being.

"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference." -- Richard Dawkins (yes, the atheist pope!)

[Warpy]

11. Not really

People get sucked back in when they have kids and the kids want to be in church groups with their school friends.

They're just not going to get sucked in to nutball religion. Church will be an hour on Sunday and drive the kiddies to the group activities and that's it.

I'm an old Boomer. I've seen this a lot with my friends.

[skepticscott]

5. Interesting thought, because it tends to reinforce what I've maintained for a while

That a lot of mainstream Xstians in this country (Lutherans, Methodists, UCC, Episcopalians, etc) maintain their religious practice because it grants them a necessary social imprimatur, not because they really believe very much of it. But when religion starts to become more and more of a stigma, rather than a benefit, they ease away, at least from churchgoing and open identification, but it has very little if anything to do with their having less belief in "god" than they used to.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. The idea that if we make shit really really bad then things will get better

is a truly fucked up concept. Theocracy now to get to a renewed secularism later is the wrong way to get there.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. Possibly, possibly not, but it's sure as hell going to amplify the voices of non-believers.

[nil desperandum]

14. I am reminded of Heinlein

The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”

Count me among the surly curmudgeons, and substitute politically into religiously and it works equally well. I've no desire to have anyone controlled through religious intent no matter how idealistically good the concept sounds...

Cruz is a tool, one can only hope that such a tool can indeed be repurposed for opening the eyes of those currently on the edge of belief in fairy tales and place them on the true path to righteousness....as it were.

[Gore1FL]

15. He might bring people to question things.

In that way, yes.