I'll bet you could find a fair number of fiscally conservative non-religious types. The confusion arises in differentiating between that conservatism and social conservatism, however. the USA has this really really sad situation right now where the two forms of conservatives, who don't necessarily have anything in common with each other at all, are basically forced onto a common political platform called the GOP. That leaves social liberals and, erm, "fiscal liberals" (the big-government, controlled market, etc. types) to share the Democrat platform. We need more than these two IDIOTIC parties if we're to sort things out. We should also have a better form of democracy that allows us to get more minority representation in our national government the way it's done in parliamentary systems: by electing a percentage of representatives according to the percentage of the popular vote for a given political platform. Then we could do away with this 2-party oligarchy nonsense and *just maybe* put together a more representative government with some fresh ideas and an incentive to act on them..
How any intelligent person can believe in a deity is beyond me. There are intelligent conservatives and there are intelligent left wingers and centrists. Some of them believe in a deity. But, as I said, I have no idea why they would.
Would an atheist admit that he has no proof of what he believes and therefore no rational reason to believe it?
I do. By in large atheists are all about socialism and lean left. I think the mind set goes something like this. Since there is no God, they then feel compelled to "save the world". That means increasing the states power to stop people from producing carbon emissions, polluting, having too many children that may give rise to over population, not drinking large sodas that increase our medical costs, etc, etc. In short, their salvation comes from the state, not God. The universe would fall apart if it were not for statists saving it. Also, most people are burdened with the notion that the poor need to be helped. The atheist feels the burden but is incapable of forcing himself to act by giving to charity, so to alleviate his guilt he asks the state to force him to give up more in taxes so the state will help them in some way. Of course, atheist conservatives I think are somewhat sociopaths in this regard and usually don't lift a finger.
I agree with pretty much everything you say except for your apparent optimism that there is some way to change the condition. If the only way to get people to vote for a sensical economic plan is to scare them with stories of infanticide and gays taking over the world, then it's entirely worth it. People will not learn economics. They won't sit through a discussion about economics. It's too boring to them. Scaring them with religion is a suitable alternative since religion is pretty much the only thing the common people are interested in.
Its not the liberals that claim the realm of nontheism is actually the conservatives that put them in the same boat.
I would bet there are as many conservative atheists as there are liberal atheists. The conservative atheists simply notice that claiming Christianity is more lucrative than running around whining about it.
