An Atheist Should Not be President of the United States

Before I start, I would like to add in one essential argument to the debate. The US Constitution First Amendment: The US Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Now we can look at the first amendment. Which states… "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" The supreme law of the land states that Congress cannot infringe on people's right to freedom of religion. This in fact was used in a US Supreme Court case in 1961, where the court reaffirmed that the first amendment of the constitution prohibits states and the federal government from requiring any kind of religious test for public office. The supreme court and the constitution clearly state, and have reaffirmed, that you cannot hold religious requirements for people running for public office. Fourteenth Amendment: The fourteenth amendment states… "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" It's pretty obvious here, that not allowing atheists to run for president, is infringing upon their privilege as citizens of the US, and would be in violation of the 14th amendment. Rebuttals Declaration of Independence and Founding Fathers: A big argument my opponent has been using is that America was "founded on religious principles." While I have disproved that religion has any authority over the secular law of the land [the constitution is a secular document], my opponent seems to think that simply because the American founding fathers were religious, we are now allowed to discriminate based on religion. Simply because the declaration of independence mentions God holds no importance to the topic at hand. Why does this bar atheists from becoming president? My opponent has failed to address this one main concern. Let's assume for a minute that the declaration of Independence was in fact the supreme law of the land [instead of the constitution], it doesn't say anywhere that people of differing religious beliefs must be given less rights than Christians. The US Constitution: Here my opponent states that the constitution does in fact mention God in it. Let's look at this passage… "the Seventeenth Day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America." How does this refute anything I've said? The main thing that makes the constitution a secular document is that it doesn't advocate for certain religions over others. This little passage has nothing much to do with the topic at hand, because it doesn't concern the election of a president or atheism in general. Another thing that I found interesting was that my opponent continues to assert that the founding fathers were religious. No one is disagreeing here. However the founding fathers are not the governing authority today, they don't hold the power of the supreme court in deciding laws today, and they cannot choose to disregard the constitution. The word of the constitution holds more sway than the religious beliefs that the founding fathers held. Finally my opponent tries to explain the importance of this argument, they say that they already stated "atheists cannot make objective claims about people having rights. With atheism rights are all subjective…" This doesn't even come close to explaining why it's relevant to the topic at hand that our founding fathers were religious, or that god was referenced to in the declaration of independence. Until my opponent explains what any of this has to do with the resolution of an atheist becoming president, this argument holds no value. Morals: I had stated that morals are subjective. And I gave my reasons why, the morals of one person can easily differ from those of another. For his rebuttal, my opponent doesn't even address this argument, and instead tries to start an entirely new debate about the objectivity of "truth." This again, is straying from the topic at hand, and has nothing to do with atheism or the presidency. For his second paragraph, my opponent basically made his point for me. Hitler had values and morals that were completely different than were accepted at the time, and he was considered to have had good morals and values by those who followed him [quite a few people.] My opponent says that most people agree on what is moral and what is immoral. Does this mean that the majority gets to decide which morals are objectively good, simply because they're the majority? We can apply the same concept of Hitler here. He had the support of the majority, he was elected in after all, but simply having majority support does not make his interpretation of morals correct. In the third paragraph, my opponent claims that religion gives reasons to be moral. Then he states that these reasons have nothing to do with fear, but with love instead. He then says that most religious people are moral because they love their God. He has to prove this, because if you look at almost all religions, they promise rewards for those who obey, and punishment for those who don't. Heaven, eternal paradise, is given to those who follow, therefore the only reason that is evident is a reward in the afterlife. Hell, eternal punishment, is given to those who do not follow, therefore the only reason to be moral is to avoid this terrible punishment. It is clear that religions use these two concepts to persuade people to follow them, either in fear of punishment, or in pursuit of a reward. In the fourth paragraph my opponent gives some useless states about 70% of the US being Christian. He doesn't explain what this has to do with the proposal of barring atheists from presidency. He also said that ethical standards were obtained from god, because Thomas Jefferson said so. This is just quoting someone else, who is saying the same thing my opponent is, without any evidence. Next my opponent states that rights are subjective. I never said this, I said morals are subjective. We have clearly defined human rights, and these are objectively enforced. God's objective moral code My opponent states that it would be better to have someone who believes in God's given rights and morality. Let's take a look at some of this. Deuteronomy 22:23 and 22:24 states that if a woman is raped in the city, then both the rapist and the victim can be stoned to death. What kind of morals are these? Where punishing the victim is acceptable? Deuteronomy 23:2 also permits a generational curse, putting restrictions ten generations down the family line. The New Testament has restrictions on women speaking in church as well. "Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law." All this just goes to show that "the word of God" isn't the perfect code of morality, and isn't even that good. But regardless of all this, I could argue that the worst thing about having a religious president is that he strongly believes in a god without any real evidence. However this is not a good reason to completely bar them from becoming president. Anyone can become president if they are a citizen of the US, and that is their right. It is quite sad that people would focus on something as insignificant as someone's personal beliefs instead of their election platform, and what they're actually going to do as president. - That concludes my round 2 entry, and now I toss the ball back to my opponent to continue this fun debate. References: https://en.wikipedia.org... https://en.wikipedia.org...