Bernie Sanders Denies Being a Sinister Atheist

[rug]

Jan. 27, 2016, 11:44 AM
By Ben Mathis-Lilley

Bernie Sanders was raised in a Jewish family that, according to his brother, was "basically secular" and did not frequently attend synagogue. As an adult, he's reportedly not observant and speaks very rarely about his personal religious beliefs—a characteristic that was underlined during Tuesday's Democratic town hall in Iowa when Hillary Clinton described herself as "a Christian" and a "person of faith." Asked whether he believed in God during an October 2015 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show, Sanders answered elliptically. A 2015 Gallup opinion poll, meanwhile, found that 40 percent of Americans say they would not vote for an "atheist" in a presidential election.

With this all in mind, it seems somewhat inevitable that Sanders would be asked about the subject again, and it looks like the Washington Post got to him first:

“I am not actively involved with organized religion,” Sanders said in a recent interview.

Sanders said he believes in God, though not necessarily in a traditional manner.

“I think everyone believes in God in their own ways, “ he said. “To me, it means that all of us are connected, all of life is connected, and that we are all tied together.”

Is that answer enough to satisfy people who don't want to vote for a nonbeliever? It's certainly the most tentative claim of spiritual belief that's been made by a major-party candidate in recent memory, right?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/01/27/bernie_sanders_believes_in_a_version_of_god_he_says.html

[djean111]

1. As an atheist, this makes me feel ten quadrillion times better than any bible-thumping

candidate does. I figure if a candidate feels they have to trot out how religious they are, I had better watch out. I am also, full disclosure, unmoved by adorable families. I figure I don't have to live with the politician, but I do have to live with what legislation they introduce or support. That's my bottom line.

[rug]

2. You were born 200 years too late.

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88), from Adrienne Koch, ed, The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 258, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"

Or he was born 200 years too early.