{"id":9423,"date":"2014-10-01T05:55:47","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T05:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=9423"},"modified":"2014-10-01T06:42:02","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T06:42:02","slug":"george-will-american-atheist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/george-will-american-atheist\/","title":{"rendered":"George F. Will, American atheist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several years ago George Will declared that he was an agnostic on the Colbert Report<\/i><\/a>. Last week he pulled no punches<\/a>:<\/p>\n

RCR<\/strong>: Do you believe in God?<\/p>\n

GW<\/strong>: No. I’m an atheist<\/strong>. An agnostic is someone who is not sure; I’m pretty sure. I see no evidence of God. The basic question in life is not, “Is there a God,” but “Why does anything exist?” St. Thomas Aquinas said that there must be a first cause for everything, and we call the first cause God. Fine, but it just has no hold on me.<\/p>\n

RCR<\/strong>: Were you raised with any religion?<\/p>\n

GW<\/strong>: My father was the son of a Lutheran minster, and therefore he was an atheist. What I mean by that is — he went to so many church services, his father preached in many churches up near Antetum, eastern Ohio, Pennsylvania — my father had had his full of religion. He used to sit outside his father’s study and listen to him wrestle with members of the church over reconciling grace and free will. I think that’s where my father got his interest in philosophy.<\/p>\n

I majored in religion in college. I was very interested, but I just came to a different conclusion. I’m married to a fierce Presbyterian and she raised our kids fierce Presbyterians.<\/p>\n

I’m an amiable, low-voltage atheist.<\/p>\n

RCR<\/strong>: Does that present a problem for you as a conservative?<\/p>\n

GW<\/strong>: No. The Republican Party’s base is largely religious. It would be impossible for me to run for high office as a Republican. Since I have no desire to run for office, it’s a minor inconvenience! I think William F. Buckley put it well when he said that a conservative need not be religious, but he cannot despise religion. Russell Kirk never quite fathomed this, which is one of the reasons why I’m not a big fan of The Conservative Mind<\/em>. For him, conservatism without religion is meaningless.<\/p>\n

RCR<\/strong>: Your friend Charles Krauthammer likes to say<\/a> he’s an agnostic.<\/p>\n

GW<\/strong>: I think he’s an atheist. He flinches from saying it. I saw what he said<\/a>: “I don’t believe in God, but I fear him greatly.” Oh, please!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several years ago George Will declared that he was an agnostic on the Colbert Report. Last week he pulled no punches: RCR: Do you believe in God? GW: No. I’m an atheist. An agnostic is someone who is not sure; … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[711],"tags":[1103],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9423"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9423"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9427,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9423\/revisions\/9427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}