An atheist for President?

[RINO Tom]

As reasonable of a shot as any other category of person that is only ~5% of the population.

[RINO Tom]

As reasonable of a shot as any other category of person that is only ~5% of the population.

I disagree that it's as simple as that; as OP states, there's an unusually high number of people who wouldn't vote for an atheist for president. E.g., comparing to other groups that represent a single digit percentage of the population, 538 shows that people are more likely to say that they wouldn't vote for an atheist than for someone who is Jewish, Muslim, or gay. In fact, the only group that's more unpopular than atheists in the poll are socialists.

Yeah, I mostly agree with what you're saying.  I was just making the point that people lazily conflate "non-religious" with "atheist," and atheists make up a very, very small percent of the country, and a majority of the growth in the "Nones" is not people adopting an atheistic stance, but rather usually an agnostic or "spiritual but not religious" one.

[RINO Tom]

As reasonable of a shot as any other category of person that is only ~5% of the population.

There are a lot more people who are essentially atheist but identify themselves with diffrent terms.

I'd disagree that you even CAN be "essentially atheist" ... I mean, an atheist is someone who rejects ANY higher power or intelligence or first cause or whatever, not just a personal deity.  If one has a hang up believing that the physical Universe (or multiverse) created itself from nothing with no first, external cause ... well, that person might not be a Christian and might not believe in the Biblical "God," but he is not an atheist.  The Pew study says 33% of "Nones" do not believe in a higher power, which would put atheists at around 7.5%.

[RINO Tom]

As reasonable of a shot as any other category of person that is only ~5% of the population.

There are a lot more people who are essentially atheist but identify themselves with diffrent terms.

I'd disagree that you even CAN be "essentially atheist" ... I mean, an atheist is someone who rejects ANY higher power or intelligence or first cause or whatever, not just a personal deity.  If one has a hang up believing that the physical Universe (or multiverse) created itself from nothing with no first, external cause ... well, that person might not be a Christian and might not believe in the Biblical "God," but he is not an atheist.  The Pew study says 33% of "Nones" do not believe in a higher power, which would put atheists at around 7.5%.

wow that's so deep!

Haha, you're such a simple poster.