Posted by Helen on: 08.20.2008 /
Rick Warren on Nightline this week (h/t Hemant)
Interviewer: [...] test that you’re giving these two men?
Rick Warren: I’m testing their character, I’m testing their convictions, I’m testing their confidence -
Interviewer: A religion test?
Rick Warren: No, absolutely not. I’m totally opposed to religious tests for the Presidency. I think it’s appropriate to know what a person believes, what their religion is; but I don’t think that’s the test for the Presidency.
Interviewer: I’ve heard you say you want to understand what their personal relationship with Jesus is. Does that mean a Jew or a Muslim would be out as far as you’re concerned?
Rick Warren: Not at all, not at all. I could vote for a Jewish President easily. The only kind of President I don’t think I could vote for would be an atheist. I could not vote for an atheist President because I just think that’s pretty arrogant. I think that the Presidency is too big for any human individual and I think we do need God.
You can see the video excerpt here (I can’t embed this particular clip - embedding is disabled)
The way some Christians equate arrogance with not believing in God has bothered me for a while. To me arrogance is thinking oneself better than others, period. In my opinion whether a person believes in God or not is a separate issue having to do with whether they believe the evidence points to God’s existence or not.
If an atheist could ever overcome the prejudice of people like Rick Warren enough to get elected President, I expect he/she would surround himself/herself with trusted advisors and respectfully listen to them. If so, he/she would not be an arrogant person. No matter what Rick Warren may believe.
Comment by: benjdm
1I love how conceiving of myself as a fallible, mortal primate of limited rationality means that I’m arrogant. As opposed to the humble Christians who conceive of themselves as immortal, superior to animals, with an invisible friend who can do magic and happens to be the one who created the entire universe.
Makes perfect sense.
Comment by: joe
2What an arrogant idiot. Grrr
Comment by: Jim J
3An atheist may not be arrogant per se, but what could an atheist president counter with if he doesn’t believe there is any authority above him? Atheists have the right to not vote for someone because he or she is Christian. I’ve lost a business opportunities because I’m a Christian. That’s life.
Comment by: Jim J
4(There was something I added via edit but didn’t take.) In any event, the atheist presidential candidate will invariably disagree with Christians on a host of issues. “As a man thinketh, so is he” as the Proverb goes. Thus, I’m not being bigoted by saying I wouldn’t vote for an atheist president. I wouldn’t vote for him in the first place because our worldviews are diametrically opposed.
Comment by: Andrew
5Hi Helen,
While I can’t speak for Warren, I think there is an arrogance associated with atheism. I’m not saying an atheist will be arrogant in every area of their life. I know and call friend a number of wonderful atheists, however to be an atheist is to lay claim to a complete understanding of the universe, it’s origins and operations. Obviously (well, it’s obvious to me) this is simply not possible, therefore the atheist position is arrogant.
I think agnosticism has a humility atheism simply cannot have.
Cheers,
Andrew
Comment by: benjdm
6No, neither atheism nor atheists make any such claim.
Do you need to have a complete understanding of lightning in order to be an aThorist? Do you consider yourself agnostic on the existence of Thor?
Comment by: joe
7Anyone who wants to be president is by default arrogant (and arguably inappropriate to occupy such a position). I can’t get my head around anyone thinking that a non-deist is more arrogant than anyone else.
Comment by: Helen
8Jim, I respect peoples’ voting choices when they do research and make them based on what is actually true about the candidates.
In my opinion Rick Warren’s statement indicates ignorance about atheists and a misunderstanding of what constitutes arrogance. Not careful research and a thought-out decision.
Andrew, what definition of atheist are you using? If you look up the word you’ll find nothing about claiming to know everything. An atheist is simply someone who lacks sufficient evidence to have a belief in God or gods. I don’t know how you made the leap from that to ‘atheists claim to know everything’. Some atheists are more dogmatic than others, but in general I’ve found Christians more likely than atheists to claim more knowledge than they can possibly have. I often run into Christians who claim to ‘know’ what God thinks about this or that, when I don’t see how they can know since they aren’t God (if he/she even exists).
Joe, perhaps you’re right and if so I suppose it’s a Catch 22. But maybe some people who run for President are aware of how huge a role it is and are relying on trusted advisors (and God if they believe in God) to help them. Maybe they go into it wanting to make a difference and hoping that they can, rather than feeling sure they can handle this. Of course they need to come across as somewhat confident - no-one would vote for someone who seems as if they’d hide under the Presidential desk, paralyzed by fear, and not be able to do anything. The President (and other leaders) need to be willing to act and do their best. Anyway I appreciate you seeing that there’s no intrinsic reason why an atheist would be more arrogant than a theist.
benjdm thank you for responding civilly to Andrew. I know how frustrating can be continually coming up against misconceptions about atheists. One of my hopes for this blog is that it will help undo a few misconceptions Christians and atheists have about each other, since they both have opportunity to speak for themselves and share what their perspective really is.
Comment by: Stephan
9You have to admit that many of the most outspoken atheists appear to be quite arrogant. But, then again, so do most outspoken pastors, so I guess it’s a push.
Comment by: Helen
10Stephan, yes, some outspoken atheists do strike me as arrogant too.
But it’s not because they’re atheists per se, so it’s not for the reason Rick Warren gave. It’s because they say condescending patronizing things about other people.
And as you say, outspoken pastors sometimes do that too.
Comment by: no offense
11I’d be interested to hear what those misconceptions are, in your opinion.
So far, in my reading of the posts and comments, I’ve had my notions about both groups confirmed by what I have seen.
Comment by: Helen
12No offense - perhaps you don’t have any misconceptions then :)
If you’d like to email me what you’ve seen confirmed then I can post that and see how people respond.
Sometimes I post on a specific misconception when I run across it, especially if it seems to be one I keep running across, but I don’t have time to compile a general list.
Comment by: Jason Horton
13I think it is terrible arrogant to assume that an atheist would be a poor president because they lack a belief in gods. How many presidents have there been who would be considered poor and what were their religious views? I can certainly see a correlation between poor presidents and religiosity. Give an atheist a chance and see if they are better or worse than average. Better yet, try a dozen atheist presidents over a century. We can then perform a more reasonable test of value.
For Jim J who said
I’d also like to say that, given the number of theist presidents, what proportion have always agreed with your own political views? I’d suggest that religious opinion is irrelevant for suitability for political office. Only ability is relevant.
I also think that it is arrogant to assume that you know the cause of …well…everything. We’re only human. Can’t we not know yet and still be trying to work it all out?
On the subject of atheism vs agnosticism I think they answer different questions. Atheism is about belief, do you believe that there are gods or not? Agnosticism is about the nature of the question, can we know if there are gods? I’d count myself as an agnostic atheist because I do not believe in gods and I do not believe that the existence of gods can be proven or disproven. I believe that the question of God must be answered by faith and agnosticism does not examine faith only the nature of knowledge in relation to the divine.
Comment by: David H
14Rick Warren has come some distance from where he was a few years ago. In the not-too-distant he was an ardent Bushite. He has stepped away from that, but probably not far enough. He has attempted to widen his world view to accept people who don’t necessarily share his personal religious beliefs, he just needs them to believe in something outside themselves. Maybe he just needs a little more time to grow. Who knows maybe we can help him with that. Maybe that would be our purpose in this life;-).
Comment by: Pops
15Oh, do people actually care what Warren has to say?
Quiet day at the office Helen then?
I reckon the easiest way to sort this out is to listen to a later discussion with Warren, he is bound to contradict himself, just like in his 40 day book and he’ll go on to tell you how he would vote for an atheist - give him time, he makes a habit of talking in circles!
Lots of laughter!
Pops
Comment by: Helen
16David, thanks for the perspective. I’d like to think he will learn better in this area but I’m guessing he probably spends most of his time with Christians and isn’t around non-arrogant atheists enough to find out what they’re really like. I hope I’m wrong.
Hi Pops, people listen to Rick Warren - I’ve heard that about 25,000 people go to his church and hear him preach and his book The Purpose Driven Life sold extremely well. (Perhaps you’re thinking all those people who bought it should have bought Bibles for people without Bibles instead). That’s why I care: because he’s spreading misinformation in a culture where people often accept what the leader says without checking it for themselves. He’s a role model and what he’s role modeling is making thoughtless statements based on prejudice rather than a good understanding of what he’s talking about.
I think it’s unlikely he’ll contradict himself on this one. I didn’t realize he contradicted himself in his book. I didn’t like it but that was for other reasons. (I didn’t actually spend money on that one - I borrowed it)
Comment by: Bob
17benjdm wrote:
Easy now –you’re going to hurt my feelings… Gotta run — I’m off to magic class. ; )
Comment by: Pops
18Hi Helen!
Hell no, they should have bought 10 bibles as penance for wasting their money on trash! ;-)
Boy, you don’t let go do you!
er, that should be “contradicts” plural!
IMO “Purpose Drivel Life”
Comment by: Helen
19Pops, no, I’m not very good at letting go :) (I’m working on it)
But I don’t think I’ve ever slammed The Purpose Driven Life as much as you, on the other hand!
Comment by: Andrew
20Helen,
I agree- there are plenty of arrogant Christians out there. To claim to know, with certainty, there is no God is to claim to have access to complete knowledge about pretty much everything. You would have to know that there wasn’t a god involved in any creative processes, in any “answered” prayer in claims to divine intervention etc. It is simply impossible to completely rule any of this out without some form of super-knowledge. So to be an atheist is, in this sense arrogant. Atheists generally don’t claim that they think the possibility of God existing is slim, by definition, an atheist has ruled it out completely.
Interestingly, in the first and second century followers of Christ were labeled atheists by the Roman Empire because they denied the divinity of Caeser.
Yep, thanks benjdm for allowing me to have and express an opinion!
Andrew
Comment by: Jason Horton
21I’m sorry Andrew but that is completely wrong. The only claim an atheist makes is that we have no belief in gods. There is no claim to absolute certainty or access to super-knowledge just that, as far as we are able to tell, there are no gods.
Almost every atheist I know or have read, including Richard Dawkins, conceded that there is a small chance that gods exist.
Comment by: Helen
22Thanks for your comment, Andrew. Where did you get the following information from?
It doesn’t match my experience of atheists.
Comment by: Bob
23There are plenty of arrogant people of all belief systems out there and there are plenty of reasonable ones. The problem is not the belief (although we may disagree on it’s validity) but the attitude and consideration of the person sharing or disparaging a belief with others. Sometimes a belief can seem arrogant to until you get know the person and what led them to believe what they do. Fortunately we are all sensible and reasonable enough here to listen to each other without disparaging the believer just because we don’t share their belief.
Andrew, that is very interesting about the perception of Christianity within the roman empire. I had never heard that or thought about the possibility. Goes to show how much the dominant culture shapes the common perception of others.
Comment by: Helen
24Bob wrote:
I hope so :)
Comment by: benjdm
25Ummmm…..OK…..
You ignored my return questions that make the point, though:
Do you need to have a complete understanding of lightning in order to be an aThorist? Do you consider yourself agnostic on the existence of Thor?
Comment by: Christian Buzzwords and the Political Arena « The Libyan Sibyl
26 09/14/08 5:26 PM | Comment Link |[...] Case in point: Rick Warren is awesome. He’s just one of the many famous Clerical leaders who understands that faith is a matter of building personal belief and politics is a matter of finding common values. Yet when he tells Larry King or Nightline he could never vote for an atheist president, people go batshit insane: [...]
Comment by: Lazareus
27I wanted to comment more on the use of language I see throughout this topic than anything else. I hope to clarify thinking to improve future debate, and increase the real contact with people over this belief in gods issue.
First, the word “atheism” shouldn’t really exist. It makes it sound like there’s something you have to study to be an atheist.
For many people who cannot believe in gods, actually sort of the reverse is true. The more you study the bible, in my widely shared opinion, you more you have to eventually say to yourself - “Unbelievable”. There’s nothing I’ve seen in the 35 years I’ve been an unbeliever to tempt me to change my mind.
Second, “Arrogance” appears to be a word that the religious fail to comprehend. In my 35 years as a believer, I never considered it my business to disabuse people of their silly notions. Until, for example, they show up at my door offering to change my life for me.
Based, for crying out loud, on the perfect knowledge of Life, the Universe and Everything offered them in a 2000 year old book.
The only claim I make is to be a better judge of how I live my life than that genocidal maniac, the Abrahamic God.
To look around at the world today, and make the claim that all is in the hands of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God, is the height of arrogance. Organized religions around the world should hang their headss in shame at how they have encouraged the world to be so divided, and uncaring in their self-righteousness.
So, on the matter of Rick Warren, he would be better off promoting the idea that we all need to learn to live together, than that our leaders must buy in to the apocalyptic course of Christanity.
Comment by: Martin Gugino
28I would be interested in a vague way in finding out where his “line” is on the topic:
1) if not for president, how about for vice-president, senator, governor, mayor …
2) if not atheist, what about agnostic, satanist, vodoo, native american, mormon, branch davidian
Probably an annoying line of questioning…