A new Gallup poll has found that a record number of Americans would vote for an atheist President. But religion and culture expert Dr. Alex McFarland says a godless President would not uphold the founding principles of America—and Americans would be surprised at the freedoms and liberties that would eventually slip away.
Likewise, McFarland said, America’s founders would fiercely disagree with electing an atheist leader. The writings of John Locke, for example, heavily influenced the Declaration of Independence, and Locke wrote that atheists should not hold public office, McFarland added.
At the upcoming Truth for a New Generation apologetics conference he’s hosting this fall, McFarland will engage in a debate titled “America’s Future: Better with or without God?” with David Silverman, President of American Atheists.
“John Locke, literally one of the most brilliant thinkers of the past 500 years, said that promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, have no hold on an atheist,” McFarland said. “The denial of God, even in thought, will dissolve a society. He illustrated this point so well by stating, ‘The Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God on the children of men. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture for its matter. It is all pure.'”
Historically, reported CNN, atheists have faced the greatest voter resistance. But according to the new Gallup poll, Americans’ views are changing. Reported CNN, “the percentage of Americans who would vote for a qualified atheist candidate for president has reached 58%, which is 4 points better than it was in 2012, and a whopping 40-point jump from when the question was first asked in 1958. In that year, a mere 18% of Americans could abide the idea of an atheist president.”
“Without God and absolute truth, our freedoms have no secure basis,” said McFarland, who is also Director for Christian Worldview and Apologetics at the Christian Worldview Center of North Greenville University in Greenville, S.C. “Therefore, an atheist could not fully support our Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Americans think they would be comfortable electing a President with no faith convictions or religious beliefs, but they would quickly find that the freedoms and liberties they now enjoy would shift dramatically.”
CNN added that a major survey by the Pew Research Center recently revealed that America’s religiously unaffiliated, also known as “nones,” had for the first time grown to become the second-largest religious identification group in the nation.
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