Can you be Conservative and Atheist?

The answer to your question is, yes, you can be a conservative atheist. I know a few, and have met more than a few in my lifetime.

Don't believe everything you read about conservative Americans.

 

And they meet every night at their local cafee.

 

Ayn Rand is one of the biggies.

 

Isn't Dennis Miller a conservative atheist?

 

Oh wow, I didnt know that. Never read Atlas Shrugged, but always assumed she was a leftist. I learned something new.

 

Really? My guess would be you and she would've seen largely eye-to-eye on the efficacy of laissez faire capitalism.

 

Of course there are.

 

A gay rightwing atheist! Outstanding!

 

Except she wasn't a conservative. Conservatives simply like to cherry-pick her work when it suits their purposes.

 

sure, the conservative movement is separate from religious conservatives. there is certainly overlap, but there is an essential separation.

 

The debate had been ongoing for years, with neither side having any clear evidence of existence...but yes...Conservative Atheists exist.

 

There is a conceptual disconnect, but the reality is there is a lot of overlap in that there are a lot who actually are both. I can't help but think this creates a massive amount of cognitive dissonance, which the vagaries of religion help to palliate.

My dad is a perfect example. He's largely a social conservative Jesus freak AND a strict Aynrandian free-market fundamentalist. There are a number of them that are almost carbon copies of my dad on this very website. I don't see how the two can actually be combined in any sensible way. Nevertheless a considerable segment of American Republicans jam them together anyway.

 

Her economics specifically are considered conservative a opposed to what is often called a more progressive (social) economics.

 

The Conservative Movement is large enough and ideologically diverse enough to accomodate a number of factions : Libertarian Conservatives, Religious Right Social Conservatives, National Security Neo-Cons, Populist Conservatives, those that blend those stances, and the dwindling traditional GOP Paleoconservatives.

Given the freedom to pick and choose one's beliefs, I can't see any cognitive dissonance, except for non-conservatives who have preconceptions as to what conservatism actually is.

 

You'd be surprised at what combo's people can be. ANYTHING is possible.

 

Atheists in the West tend to be upper class white males - many are conservative on economic issues and race.

Meanwhile many on the left are highly religious. Blacks and Hispanics in the U.S. are both religious and left-leaning on economic issues.

 

ORLY? What is the official conservative position on race? Please include your source.

 

Yes, I think that does require some clarification. Economics I can see. What do you mean by race?

Also, define many? 50%? 10%?

 

I was speaking of the significant contingent of Bible-thumping Randians which are the lion's share of modern American Republicanism, if not in number then at least in decibels. These two positions are incompatible with each other in a number of particulars.

Conservatives love to talk about people not knowing what conservatism really is, but then they themselves almost never talk about what conservatism is. I think the term can be taken literally to some degree. That is, the essence of conservatism involves attempting to preserve some present that is in danger of slipping away or revivifying some past that is now gone.

Tea Party Jesus

 

"bible thumping randians"? could you mean conservative religious libertarians?
a randite is essentially a political libertarian, the religious right is antagonistic to the goals of libertarians, mostly.

I have yet to meet anyone active in the conservative movement or the Republican party who fits the above description. I have to dispute your assertion of their dominance or even large scale activity within the Republican party or the Conservative movement.

that doesn't mean there isn't someone out there who cafeteria style took a bit from Rand and then a bit from the Bible. but that really show a lack of intellectual coherence.

 

Call it what you will...

True free market ideology is a form of social Darwinism. "Libertarianism' is a rather complicated term as well. From what I can tell, the majority of modern Republican-Libertarians can not honestly be associated with liber. I use the example of Christians who seem to think that if you deny them a Christian theocracy that they are somehow being oppressed. They are apparently unaware that seeking a Christian theocracy is to seek oppression and that stopping a Christian theocracy is the responsibility of all who oppose oppression.

There are several on this site, and my own dad is one, so I have at least one in my own family.

I have no problem with the phenomenon you describe. Everyone should read and evaluate everything on an equal level. What I'm talking about is people who pick things that contradict each other.

 

I have...but regardless of any affirmation one way or the other, it's impossible to know what to conserve without God.

He didn't support the poor the way liberals do, which is to say catering to their selfish side to keep them dependent. As for guns, if Jesus was a pacifist He would surely have taken the opportunity to disavow Moses and the prophets; yet He was an openly practicing Jew.

 

the question is are these hybrid Randite/Bible thumpers conservative activists?
do they do more than voice and opinion and vote?

I have been an activist in the Conservative movement since finishing college back in the early 80's and lately have been in the local Tea Party, I don't run into people such as you describe.

 

I know someone, a member of WASH and RAFT, who was a local GOP activist for many years until the campaign of Reagan. He has a very interesting story to tell about how virtually overnight the local Republican meetings were suddenly overrun by Christian activists in the era of the Moral Majority. He stopped being a Republican activist and has never gone back and laments the way his party was hijacked by those holier-than-thou crackpots.

But yes, I was specifically talking about Randian/Christians...who are of the Moral Majority type.

 

She was not a conservative. To be sure, some of her positions were co-opted by conservatives, but she rejected collectivism, for example, as much as she rejected faith and religion. She was an early supporter of gay rights for f-sake! (even though she found homosexuality personally repugnant)

She was an objectivist--something conservatives are not. She believed the organs of government and the initiation of force should only be used to protect individual rights--something that neither modern western conservatives nor liberals believe.