Atheists - turn in your citizenship....
 

“No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.”

President George Bush (sr.) quoted from Robert Sherman in Free Inquiry, 1988

This surprises you?

joeclarke, that is one nation under a public god which is exactly what our founding fathers intended.
Practicing one religion or another isn't a requirement for patriotism. Don't they teach US government is high school anymore?

Holy Crap! You thought America was secular?

"we are all created equal"... except of course the slaves, the women, the pheasants, and the non-believers

Those pheasants are always getting a raw deal. Hunters are clearly the oppressors of the pheasants.

We're all created equal - unfortunately that includes the turkeys (but evidently not the pheasants). :)

Seriously though, why does it really surprise you that someone like Bush would say that? Between him and his hell-spawn, they've set this country back about 40 years in 12 total and done more to turn America into a theocratic aristocracy of sorts than any other administration (or combination thereof) in history.

One's religious beliefs (or lack thereof) has no bearing whatsoever to their fervor, patriotism and love for their country - and willingness to fight for the ideals of same.

Can anone confirm this? Best I can find is that Robert Sherman is a leading atheist activist and is the only source on this.

Has Bush ever commented on it? A spokesman? Anyone else? This just stinks a bit like the "God told me to strike at Iraq and I did" BS from a couple years back.

Bump, anyone? Certainly this would have come up in a daily press conference or something.

here you go, LD: http://www.skepticfiles.org/atheist/bushath.htm

It's true...I have a reference for it somewhere...have to look it up.

Yea, that's the same guy and same paper. Certainly some reporter has asked Bush about this since.

Amazing statement. Not even the darn pope would claim such nonsense.

Here is a link to atheist activists that now believe it untrue .
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=189743

Although his comments are very closed-minded and I'd love to say it's proof of Bush's myopic view of the world and proof of an ulterior agenda to "theocratize" the USA, one has to consider that this WAS almost 20 years ago, at a time when sucking up to the "Moral Majority" and the so-called "religious right" was necessary for political supremacy.

Even so, the ends don't justify the means - although in politics I guess nobody cares about that. If you get the votes, it doesn't matter how one does it, right?

I'm guessing your source is also the author himself:D

Check out the first video on this site:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,621,Panel-discussion-on-atheism-where-no-atheists-are-included,CNN

I have only watched the first one, but it seems a pretty accurate portrayal of the treatment of non-believers in my part of the country.

Secular? Nope.

You're right. I can't prove that Bush said that. I guess it should be said that he allegedly said it.

Wait a minute. Isn't the claim that Bush said that to the author when he saw Bush at an airport in 1988? I don't think Bush ever flew commercial, at least where regular people could see him, let alone in 1988 when he was the Vice President running for President. The setup to the story doesn't seem to track to me. If it was some public appearance he would have been surrounded by press and every word recorded. If it wasn't a public appearance, I don't see how he could have gotten close to the VP/candidate.

And why would a candidate be announcing federal aid to Indiana. He had no federal authority.


It all sounds made up.