Holocaust Memorial Day – the assualt on atheism

The assault on atheism

From early on in the Nazi Party’s history atheism was clearly marked for elimination given its relationship to socialism and communism – the ideological competitors of National Socialism.

“And now Staatspräsident Bolz says that Christianity and the Catholic faith are threatened by us. And to that charge I can answer: In the first place it is Christians and not international atheists who now stand at the head of Germany. I do not merely talk of Christianity, no, I also profess that I will never ally myself with the parties which destroy Christianity. If many wish today to take threatened Christianity under their protection, where, I would ask, was Christianity for them in these fourteen years when they went arm in arm with atheism? No, never and at no time was greater internal damage done to Christianity than in these fourteen years when a party, theoretically Christian, sat with those who denied God in one and the same Government.”

(Adolf Hitler, in a speech delivered at Stuttgart, February 15, 1933)

Raising children in a religion – abuse or stability?

Next up to take on Richard Dawkins is the Guardian’s Anne Karpf. She begins:

If Richard Dawkins had his way, a fair number of you and, as it happens, me, would be had up for child abuse. According to him, that’s what religious indoctrination of children by their parents is. And if you can sue for the long-term mental damage caused by physical abuse, he argues, why shouldn’t you sue for the damage caused by mental child abuse?

If you accept Dawkins’s characterisation of religion, you’d probably agree. Religious parents, to him, are Mr Dogma and Mrs Bigot: they terrify their kids with tales of eternal hell, fire and damnation, when – that is – they’re not carrying out female circumcision or coercing them into forced marriages. Flat-earthers the lot, they’re brainwashers, fanatically opposed to science and rationality.

Isn’t it curious that we tolerate the stereotyping of religion in a way we’d never abide with race, religion [sic] or gender? I certainly don’t recognise myself in this caricature.

Hmmm in fact Karpf is the one doing the misprepresenation here.

Bishop implies UK gun crime is a result of secularism

The Church of England website Religious Intelligence reports that the Bishop of Carlisle, the Rt Rev Graham Dow, (yes he who blamed Britain’s floods this year on pro-gay legislation) is now suggesting that the tragic murder of Liverpool schoolboy Rhys Jones is the direct result of the country’s low religiosity.

In an open letter to his diocese he wrote that

“the Government has highlighted respect as a key issue which our society faces in the hope that this will bring about change. But respect will not come just by talking about it….I was in discussion recently about these issues with someone who declared herself to be an atheist. Her answer to the problem was education. Proper education, she insisted, will direct people in right paths.

Note that he specifies that she was an atheist

When I said to her that she was ignoring the Christian history from which our values have come, I could see her anger was beginning to rise. Many people think like her – that better education will solve the problems.

But that ignored the fundamental Christian truth that we are by nature sinful and need to be changed – on the inside, says Bishop Dow.

And to ignore the Christian faith is to ignore the way to inner change….People do not like to hear that so much of what we cherish in our society has come with our Christian history and that by ignoring Christian faith we are undermining the very values we want to keep.

Not only does this opportunism make the Bishop sound like he’s playing the worst political games with a terrible event but it’s untrue – religious belief actually correlates with high murder rates (not to mention abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published in the Journal of Religion and Society in 2005).

Two very different religious responses to the ‘new atheism’

Firstly we have Dinish D’Souza. He’s not at all happy with the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris and responds to their descriptions of the harm caused by religion with counter-claims that actually atheism is behind history’s mass murders. This is also the man who just days after the Virgina Tech high school killings rather insensitively decided it would be a great opportunity to attack atheists for apparently not doing anything, which drew this sensitive response from an atheist professor at the college). In short he’s pretty rabid in his hatred for atheists.

Anyway he’s now laying into Pat Condell, who although quite witty and charming is pretty hardline in his attacks on religion – on his website he states: “Hi, I’m Pat Condell. I don’t respect your beliefs and I don’t care if you’re offended.”; The trouble is that Condell and D’Souza are almost a perfect match, confirming the very worst they see in each other’s beliefs. The video post of Condell that D’Souza includes on his site responds to the angry ‘burn in hell’ comments he has received from earlier videos and so the cycle continues.

Military probes atheist GI’s harassment claims

An Associated Press report claims Military officials in Iraq are investigating allegations that an Army specialist is being harassed for being an atheist but said Saturday that they cannot find an officer the soldier has named in a federal lawsuit.

Spc. Jeremy Hall and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation filed a lawsuit against Maj. Paul Welborne and Defense Secretary Robert Gates in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas. It alleges that Welborne threatened to pursue military charges against Hall and to block his reenlistment because he was trying to hold a meeting of atheists and non-Christians in Iraq.

The suit also alleges that Gates permits a military culture in which officers are encouraged to pressure soldiers to adopt and espouse fundamentalist Christian beliefs and sanctions activities by Christian organisations, including providing personnel and equipment. It also says the military permits proselytising by soldiers, tolerates anti-Semitism, placing of religious symbols on military equipment and allows the use of military e-mail accounts to send religious rhetoric.

Hall has also alleged that he had been harassed and threatened on blogs with being killed by friendly fire for filing the lawsuit.  Some postings on military-related blogs have been critical of Hall, with some people wondering how atheists can claim religious freedom if they practice no sanctioned faith. One individual, posting under the name “Hidog,” suggested Hall put on an orange vest and carry a sign “Bong hits 4 Allah” through the streets of Iraq, “because apparently, your Bill of Rights trump your CO’s (commanding officer’s) orders.”

But others said the U.S. Constitution protects “freedom from religion,” and defended Hall, adding that they were glad he spoke up against the pressures from some Christians.

Vandals target outspoken atheist

Chicago’s Daily Herald reports that the home of a local outspoken atheist was vandalised with eggs tossed at the house and cars, and crosses and religious words scrawled in chalk on the driveway.

A church bulletin also was stuck on the front door.

The incident comes days after Rob Sherman‘s daughter, Dawn, led a successful effort to have the song “God Bless America” yanked from Buffalo Grove High School’s homecoming celebration. Dawn Sherman is a freshman on the student council.

The vandalism likely was the retaliatory work of youngsters, police Sgt. Mike Millett said – since it came on the heels of the school incident and because one of the chalked words, “Jesus,” was misspelled. adsonar_pid=440757;adsonar_ps=1066704;adsonar_zw=300;adsonar_zh=180;adsonar_jv=’ads.adsonar.com’;

Boston Globe’s profile of Greg Epstein and American humanism

The Boston Globe’s cover story the Nonbelievers reports that “an increasing number of young people in America – and adults around the world – don’t believe in God. Greg Epstein, who advises fellow atheists and agnostics at Harvard University, wants to create a kind of church for those who reject religion.”

In describing the growing confidence and popularity of atheism and humanism in the USA, the report includes encouraging signs such as Lori Lipman Brown, director of the the Secular Coalition for America who says “When I’m on right-wing radio or Christian radio, I no longer hear people say as much that I’m immoral or liable to commit murder,” she says. “Now, it seems, they acknowledge it’s possible that I could be a good person.”

It also quotes Epstein’s belief – shared by the O Project – in the importance of looking to build links with religious compatriots, a belief that has seen him criticised by fellow atheists and humanists.

“On his blog at Harvard, Epstein wrote that he hopes atheists avoid vilifying believers as they have disparaged atheists. “I don’t even have a problem with all the people who are blogging about me right now and slamming me as some kind of representative of ‘appeasement,’ ” he wrote. “We want to be treated as equals? Let’s raise hell about it, fine, but perhaps think twice about slamming me so hard as some kind of Uncle Tom (I definitely heard that one on a few blogs) if I want to speak for myself, and for the millions of atheists and Humanists out there who actually *like* and care deeply about a lot of religious people and don’t feel the need to hurt their feelings in addition to disagreeing with them.”

We are barbarians. They hate us. Right?

Martin Bright wrote in the News Statesman last month about the Government’s engagement with Muslims in its response to extremism. What caught my eye was a response online from ‘Iftikhar’ which states that:

“Drugs, crime, incivility, bing drinking, teenage pregnancies, anti-social behaviour and institutional reacism [sic] are common part of life in modern Britain. Muslims do not want their children to become integrated into such barbarity.

Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models. The need to be well versed in English language to follow the National Curriculum and go for higher studies and research to serve humanity. They also need to be well versed in Arabic, Urdu and other community languages to keep in touch with their cultural roots and enjoy the beauty of their literature and poetry.

A Muslim is a citizen of this tiny global village. He/She does not want to become notoriously monolingual Brits.”

This echoes views revealed in a January report by the Policy Exchange showing that younger Muslims feel a profound unease with the culture of the West.  It is also something found in John Sniderman’s research that I blogged about yesterday : We found that views typically held by otherwise tolerant Dutch people – that Muslims treated women badly and were too authoritarian with their children – were counterbalanced by Muslim attitudes towards the Dutch,” says Sniderman. “Muslims believed the Dutch were disrespectful towards women and failed to discipline their children properly. So this wasn’t about prejudices held by religious fanatics on both sides; it was a genuine conflict of values between two communities. It was the focus on these differences, through the pursuit of multiculturalism, that tipped the balance towards prejudice in some cases.”

There appear to be three types of moral conflict in play:

1) The real: “Drugs, crime, incivility, bing drinking, teenage pregnancies, anti-social behaviour and institutional racism” may all be real issues for the UK to tackle. It may be that we need new ideas, new values to address them. As a humanist I feel quiet comfortable to draw on religious ethical traditions  – just as humanism emerged in a Christian context there is nothing to say it cannot evolve within a multi-faith context.  So we might look to the Islamic (but also Confucian) emphasis on responsibilities to balance our current emphasis on individual rights. (And maybe those of us with one mere language do need to go back to school or get left behind globally). Humanism’s strength is that has no dogma, no fixed creed and so can adapt in this way.

2) The imagined. We can’t escape the fact that the UK is one of the worst places to be a child in the developed world, for example, but it may be that in some areas we are being judged unfairly by some people. Is there good comparative data to assess Western states with for example Muslim states today? Or with Islamic states of the past? I don’t think there is so it’s hard to make assesments even about specific issues like drug use let alone attempt to weigh up societies in their entirety. Of course in this void of data it is easy to weigh one another up unfairly with mere rhetoric.

3) The fundamental: These are the issues about which there may be no disagreement about their existence, only whether they are good or bad. As such there is no negotiation and imposition must follow. Homosexuality is one of the most contentious examples (although some very religious states will flatly deny that it exists at all) but there are others.

How do we deal with this? Is it really irreconcilable? A clash of civilisations? Maybe a scuff. Two principles seem important to follow to to put this in perspective. The first is to be clear about what is actually irreconcilable by addressing types one and two which may reveal the clash to be much smaller than first thought.

The second principal is to remind ourselves that amongst any group there is a diversity of opinion. Not all Muslims think homosexuality is harram, just as not all British people love the tea and the Royal Family. This again shrinks the problem area to a less terrifying size.

It does not remove it altogether but if we are to impose a set of values (like equality) on people who do not hold them (which surely any state must do) – be it religious homophobes, working class racists or selfish rich people – we can do so knowing they are actually not so numerous and that there are also gay believers,  working class anti-facists and rich philanthropists that are to be encouraged and championed.

Muslim scholars must come forward with an understanding of a “Land of Co-existence”

In the wake of heighened security across the UK, ex-Islamic extremist Hassan Butt writes in the Observer that “foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a dualistic model of the world. Many Muslims may or may not agree with secularism but at the moment, formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion. There is no ‘rendering unto Caesar’ in Islamic theology because state and religion are considered to be one and the same. The centuries-old reasoning of Islamic jurists also extends to the world stage where the rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) have been set down to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

What radicals and extremists do is to take these premises two steps further. Their first step has been to reason that since there is no Islamic state in existence, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr. Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world. Many of my former peers, myself included, were taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.”

He argues that a “reasoning that has struck me and a number of other people who have recently left radical Islamic networks as a far more potent argument [which] involves stepping out of this dogmatic paradigm and recognising the reality of the world: Muslims don’t actually live in the bipolar world of the Middle Ages any more.

The fact is that Muslims in Britain are citizens of this country. We are no longer migrants in a Land of Unbelief. For my generation, we were born here, raised here, schooled here, we work here and we’ll stay here. But more than that, on a historically unprecedented scale, Muslims in Britain have been allowed to assert their religious identity through clothing, the construction of mosques, the building of cemeteries and equal rights in law.

…If our country is going to take on radicals and violent extremists, Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I’d like to term the Land of Co-existence. And when this new theological territory is opened up, Western Muslims will be able to liberate themselves from defunct models of the world, rewrite the rules of interaction and perhaps we will discover that the concept of killing in the name of Islam is no more than an anachronism.”

Doesn’t this suggest then that for secularism to succeed  in the UK it requires theological justification as well as traditional non-religious arguments?

Hitchens refuses to engage authentic religion

Chris Hedges, author or “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America” reviews  Christopher Hitchen’s God is Not Great  for the Philidelphia Inquirer!

“…Unencumbered by serious theological or biblical knowledge, Hitchens taunts religion with the same bigotry and ignorance that fundamentalists use to delegitimize those who do not submit to their rigid belief system.

What he and the other writers of the new atheist manifestos, such as Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins, attack is not religion, but the ossified forms of religious orthodoxy that have been misused for centuries to instill fear and obedience. The charlatans and demagogues who today dominate Christian radio and television stations, the James Dobsons and Pat Robertsons, continue a long and sordid tradition of claiming divine sanction to justify personal enrichment and empowerment. Piety, like blind patriotism, is an effective cover for the corrupt and the venal.

There is a case, of course, to be made against institutional religion. But there are great theologians from Paul Tillich to Ernst Kasemann to William Stringfellow who skewer institutional religion, indeed brand it as a dangerous form of idolatry. They write with a deftness, nuance and erudition that shame the tired cliches that pad out this book.

…Hitchens, as a secular fundamentalist, endorses the myopic and disastrous imperial agenda beloved by the Christian Right. He does so because he imbibes the same toxic mix of self-aggrandizement and intolerance. He supports the war in Iraq and the waterboarding and torture of Muslim detainees.

Hitchens’ blind embrace of American imperialism and disregard for the rule of law makes him no better than the apologists for radical Islam and Christianity he seeks to discredit. His moral certitude and arrogance are no different. The consequences are as dangerous.”

O Project article calls for non-religious to be included in ‘inter-faith’ dialogue

I have an article published in Catalyst today – “Faith no More?” – looking at inter-faith dialogue and calling for non-religious groups to be included. 

Catalyst is a magazine at the forefront of new thinking on race relations and racial equality today, both in Britain and abroad.

Memoirs of a “nothing”

Austin Line form About.com reviews Something to Believe In by Nica Lalli which “explores the ways in which her skeptical, freethinking atheism has intersected with the religious beliefs of the people who have moved in and out of her life. Lalli remembers that even as a child she and her family were different: everyone else she knew was “something” — Catholic, Jewish, or Presbyterian — but according to her father, her family was “nothing.”

For her parents, this was simply the way things were — with one originally Jewish and the other an Italian Catholic, it probably seemed easiest to be “nothing” if neither had any strong attachments to their ancestral religious faiths. Young Nica was devastated, though. How could she be “nothing” if all her friends were “something”? Where’s the fun in that? Nica eventually grew out of this disappointment — in large part because as she had more and more encounters with people who were “something,” she found that that something could get pretty ugly. In far too many cases, being something also meant not being a very good and friendly person.

On the one hand, Lalli’s memoir demonstrates how “nothings” like her are much like everyone else: they have many of the same concerns, fears, hopes, problems, joys, etc. On the other hand, her memoir also reveals how different they are — or perhaps I should say how differently they are treated by “somethings.” In many ways, religious theists didn’t treat Lalli so much as a real human being but rather as an object for conversion or a lesser person to be pitied and prayed for. Religious theists rarely treat each other with such contempt, even when coming from different religions; but when they encounter atheists, freethinkers, skeptics, and other nonbelievers, so much changes….

Contrary to the title of the book, though, I’m not so sure she’s a “nothing.” She may be nothing from the dominant perspective of religious theists, but why should their perspective be accepted as the natural default? I think that Nica Lalli believes in a number of things, like other people and the importance of human values — that’s definitely something.”

Pastor incites culture war against secular humanists

Dutch website Reformatorisch Dagblad (Reformation Daily) reports that Pastor Rod Parsley – the founder of the Center for Moral Clarity – “says Christians in America must be equipped to stand against secular humanist worldviews and choose to get involved in the culture war.”“If we don’t engage in this fight, in one generation we are going to look like post-Christian Europe”, Parsley warns. He cites an example. “In Austria, scientists appealed to the government of Austria to give apes human rights, since they believe we are descendants of apes”, he says.

Parsley says his new book focuses on what he calls the real “war of the worlds” as it urges Christians to action in the culture war. It deals specifically with situations like secular humanism, with Marxism, with post-modernism, with nihilism, and all of the countering worldviews that are in opposition to the solid Christian worldview”, he shares.

Parsley says liberals and secular humanists have a clear agenda to silence the Christian witness. But the biblical worldview, says the pastor, is the only worldview that offers true hope.

Is the Church’s anti-secular rhetoric aiding the far right?

Co-Directorof christian think tank Ekklesia Jonathan Bartley (pictured) asks whether the Church’s ‘Christian nation’ rhetoric is aiding the far right.Leading figures within the Church of England have also become more vocal in their calls to stem the tide of secularism, and to defend the predominant ‘Christian culture’ of Britain, making the same political point about national identity as the BNP.“Of course the rationales of these messages are very different. The agenda behind the BNP’s claims is essentially a cultural one – partly in opposition to an alleged liberal elite, and partly in an attempt to whip up fear of minority faiths. In contrast, few would question the commitment of the Church of England to combating racism. But the time has come to face the fact that when it uses ‘Christian nation’ rhetoric, it risks encouraging support for right-wing extremists.

It may be no coincidence that it has been the Church’s two most senior black leaders,  Archbishop Sentamu and Bishop Nazir Ali, who have made the most prominent pronouncements against ‘the secular tide’. The Church must surely be aware of the dangers of its arguments.”

He continues, “It is easy to make a claim to speak for the sentiments of an, albeit dwindling, majority of the population. It is far harder to mount a practical stand for justice, and base one’s political authority on the quality of one’s actions in the here and now. But in an increasingly plural society, it will be the quality of contemporary political witness, not appeals to a bygone age, which will sort the sheep from the old goats.”

If this boy were in the closet about his atheism, he’d never be able to set a good example

Austin Cline writes about how a mother has expressed concern on a Christan message board about her daughter dating an atheist.“I would be angry but, that boy has done a lot of good for her…Her previous boyfriends, who claimed to be christians, have only caused her trouble.”

He comments that this is “a great demonstration of why it can be important for atheists to come out of the closet and live openly as atheists, refusing to apologize for what they are or for the fact that they don’t share others’ religious and theistic beliefs.” Read article here 

Young British Muslims unease at loss of values in secular Britain

Policy Exchange has released Living Apart Together: British Muslims and the paradox of multiculturalism, a major new survey of the attitudes of Muslims in
Britain. The research finds that there is a growing religiosity amongst the younger generation of Muslims and that they feel that they have less in common with non-Muslims than do their parents. The research shows that younger Muslims feel a profound unease with the culture of the West. “There is a particular concern for the perceived loss of values in
Britain, and a belief that Islam at least offers a moral alternative:  

‘A lot of the values that used to be in Western society about fifty years ago have been lost. To me it seems there are no values left. I find that my religion at least provides us with a way of life where these values aren’t lost. Whether we choose to abide by them or not is a different matter’”  

Female, Muslim, 24,
Manchester 

The clear implication is that young Muslims feel that immorality is the result of a decline in religion: “Some discussed how religion in general could be used as a helpful moral framework, and a way of living that could ensure a harmonious society…“Muslim respondents commented on how they felt much in common with people of other religions, who were also struggling against what they saw as the lack of values in mainstream of society:  

“This isn’t because I’m a Muslim, I think that this is because I’m religious. I think if you ask any religious person this question, you will get the same answer because secular education for some reason doesn’t teach morals.” Female, Muslim, 21,
Manchester 

But the report does challenge this view in its commentary: “Many of us could sympathise with the view that adult authority has been undermined to too great a degree in
Britain today. A bit more respect from young people would be welcome. But how far should we accept the claim that these are “Muslim values” or even immigrant families’ values? Many ordinary families in
Britain adhere to…common standards of decency….To suggest that white or non-Muslim people need better values is to ignore the reality that most people do try to bring up their children with good intentions. There may well be lapses, but on the whole, people in the West live their lives and engage with others in a trusting and humane way, and are not the decadent, amoral beings that some Muslims seek to portray. 

However some of the moral judgments of respondents are based on “ people’s lifestyle choices, rather than socially oriented issues such as justice, equality or fraternity. When young Muslims complain about the lack of values, they reveal a remarkable intolerance for other people’s personal behaviour. The overwhelming concerns for the more religious Muslims we spoke to were homosexuality, the overt sexuality of women, drugs and binge drinking…. 

The report does not engage with this fundamental clash of values but points out that these lifestyle choices are not as prevailant as they are characterized: while many non-Muslims would probably sympathise to some extent with such concerns, is it an accurate description of life in
Britain? Are we really a nation of hooligans, louts and abusers? Such a gloomy picture seems removed from the reality of life for most decent ordinary people.” 

The report warns that “it is important to recognise that the conservative/ moralising views held by some young Muslims are not alien to British society stating that “we should consider the way in which its animosity towards the West chimes with certain ideological trends that have long been fashionable amongst the Western intelligentsia. For instance, prominent members of the anti-globalisation movement attack the ‘greedy’ consumerism and materialism of capitalist society; culturally relativist social theory bemoans the dominance of ‘euro-centric’ scientific and cultural knowledge; environmentalist groups celebrate the spiritual richness of pre-industrial, rural life; and certain strands of radical feminism condemn the sexualisation of women in the West.” Read report,

In religious region of the US, atheists fear retribution

The Lexington Hearald Leader reports how atheists in the US’s southern states fear retribution. One man whose car had an atheist-themed bumper sticker,found anote placed under his winscreen wiper reading ‘You’re going to hell and you’re going to burn in a lake of fire.’“I think the key to this animosity is probably this idea that somehow morality and religion are deeply linked and if you lose any kind of religious doctrine, you inevitably lose some purchase upon morality,” said Sam Harris, author of Letter to a Christian Nation.

“People think unless you’ve found Jesus, you can’t love your neighbor in any significant sense,” he said. Read article here

Atheism has high priests and dogmatic beliefs, just like fundamentalist religion

Tonight in Channle 4’s The Trouble With Atheism Rod Liddle (left) argues against those who turn to atheism for a rational and moderate approach to today’s problems, and says that atheism has high priests and dogmatic beliefs, just like fundamentalist religion. See Discussion page on Channel 4 website

…No. Your belief system has killed more than my belief system

The Christain Science Monitor in an attempted attack on the recent high profile books by Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins challenging claims made that religion is the most potent source of human conflict. The article argues that a) conflict involving religious groups is not the same as ‘religious conflict’ and b) Stalin, Hitler and Mao killed more people anyway.This kind of thinking – who has the highest body count, what were the real motives? – characterises many religious and atheists self-justification. But this argument gets us nowhere: Switching religion on or off universally ain’t gonna happen and wouldn’t make us all friends in itself.

The real question is whether those members of religious and atheist communities who are not intolerant or vengeful (and I’m guesing that’s the vast majority) can work together for social justice in opposition to extremists of all persuasions. Read the article

Most US voters would never consider voting for an atheist

A recent survey by the Rasmussen Reports has found that 35% of American voters say that a presidential candidate’s faith and religious beliefs are very important in their voting decision. Another 27% say faith and religious beliefs are somewhat important. Ninety-two percent (92%) of Evangelical Christian voters consider a candidate’s faith and beliefs important.Forty-three percent (43%) of American voters say they would never even consider voting for a Mormon Presidential candidate. Sixty-one percent (61%) of Likely Voters say they would never consider voting for a Muslim Presidential candidate. Sixty percent (60%) say the same about an atheist. Read press release