God & Country

Atheists Crash Poll on White House Prayers

April 3, 2009 RSS Feed Print

President Obama is opening many of his public events with prayers from local community leaders. Do you support this new White House tradition?

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Yesterday, the Friendly Atheist blog posted this U.S. News poll about the Obama White House's new tradition of opening the president's rallies with a prayer. The blog urged readers to take the poll and attempt to reverse the results, which had 66 percent of participants supporting the White House prayers and 34 percent opposed.

Mission accomplished. Today, the poll results show support for the White House prayers has dipped to around 12 percent and that opposition has risen to nearly 90 percent.

Where do you stand on White House prayers?

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White House,
religion,
polls

Reader Comments Read all comments (36)

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Law dictates that religion of any sort and public life are to be kept separate. This not only benefits we atheists, but also those who are theists. Consider the blasphemy laws implemented in Ireland and what a cluster@$#% that is. This country is secular and should remain that way, and even to my own death I will defend my right to be an atheist.

I am deeply disturbed by any individual who thinks this country is somehow inherently Christian or Jewish or Islam or considers me a second-class citizen because of the fact that I don't have an imaginary friend. Read some history - and take a Haldol.

Katharine of WI 4:40PM July 20, 2009

The prayers encouraged by the Obama administration are so politically calculated that they are essentially meaningless.

One possible reason for them is to gain political capital with the religious voters, some of whom are blind & gullible to Obama's deceptive charm.

Big Apple of NY 11:57PM April 10, 2009

If you don't believe in something of course it will fail. You don't know what to look for or have the grace to recieve it. i.e If you pray for some relief to a financial problem you being a non-belioever will expect a check in the mail, a billing error etc. When someone shows up and offers to show you how you can better deal with your problem you will not see that as an answer to a prayer but rather as a pushy, nosey person. God works through grace, but you wouldn't know that.

I don't have a problem with people who choose not to believe they are only short changing themselves. I have a problem with people who think that the only way is their way. Newsflash this country was founded on Faith and Prayer through the Grace of God. Perhaps people that want to force others into non-belief should be thankful to a "greater power" to live in a place where they can express themselves without persecution.

I as a believer am sick and tired of the minority trying to take away from the majority, but again I;m sure that the basis of their philosophy is the "squeky wheel gets the grease" as that is about the depth of their arguements.

George Roeser of NY 10:24AM April 08, 2009

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Dan Gilgoff covers religion for U.S. News & World Report. He is the author of The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War, and is a former politics editor at beliefnet. E-mail Dan at godandcountry@usnews.com.

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