Atheism has nothing to do with political leaning. There are Atheists who are anarchists, statists, far-right, far-left and anywhere in between.
Atheism is not a political position.
Atheists say that there is not enough evidence to warrant the belief that God exists. That is it.
Nothing to do with government or politics.
How did I know you would show up? I will have a discussion with you on one condition. This is not going to become a discussion about the existence or non existence of God. That is a retarded debate and I refuse to have it no matter how much you want to. If you turn it into that discussion I will just ignore you and report your posts as off topic. Now...
Yes, atheism ABSOLUTELY does have a lot to do with political leaning. I guess it is just a magic coincidence that most religious people tend to be conservative and most atheists tend to be more leftist right? I guess it is just a coincidence every Communist nation that ever existed sought to exterminate religion and the very concept of God huh? Just because there are exceptions does not mean there does not exist a clear pattern in the relationship between Atheism and political leaning.
The concept of a higher power is something DEEPLY ingrained in humanity, whether you believe in God or not. Atheists are making a choice to ignore that part of themselves that suggests there is no God, no matter how small the question is, and as a result it manifests similar behavior in other ways. As I suggested in the op, many atheists substitute the big daddy in the sky with big daddy government and that becomes the thing they have blind faith in. People instinctively NEED to be lead, and for Atheists, government usually fills that void nicely.
In the USA, The Bill of Rights are "God given", natural, or inalienable rights. The concept of these rights being granted by a higher power means the government is barred from the ability to take them, because they did not grant them. Communism seeks to destroy religion because it is competition. Under Communism there is no bill of rights, and the state itself is the highest power on Earth, and it seeks to fill that psychological void in the human psyche with itself as the role of God, and Communism as its religion.
Neuroscience even confirms the brains of religious and Atheists alike activate in very similar ways when confronted with a "religious" or "moral" questions, confirming that both groups share the same neural mechanisms, but experience and explain them in different ways.
"Professor Grafman was more interested in how people coped with everyday moral and religious questions. He said that the latest study, published today, suggests the brain is inherently sensitive to believing in almost anything if there are grounds for doing so, but when there is a mystery about something, the same neural machinery is co-opted in the formulation of religious belief."
https://www.livescience.com/5237-spirituality-spot-brain.htmlHumans have evolved this trait over time for whatever reasons, and just because you ignore its existence doesn't make it go away. Faith is hardwired into human consciousness. Atheism is just a choice to redirect that faithfulness away from religion as most people know it to blind faith in government and the secular world. Without this ability to have faith in something that one can not prove or define, there would be no science, because no one would ever have the capacity to imagine anything beyond what already is known. No one would ever create anything new, because creating something new requires one makes a leap away from logic and use that part of the brain to imagine something that doesn't currently exist, and then in reverse explain how it fits in to the current paradigm. All the most famous inventors describe this process where they have a sudden leap of intuition and logic, imagine an endpoint, and then explain what they saw in reverse. It is my opinion this is one of the primary evolutionary advantages of this hard wired mechanism of faith in the human mind.
To claim that belief or lack of belief in God is not related to political leaning is just absolutely asinine. Lets take a look at some statistics...
Clearly no correlations there!
Again, atheism is not the root cause of your political affiliation. Your education level, problem-solving and analytical skills determine that.
We do not live in a vacuum. Our worldview is shaped by many other things, not just one question: whether a particular delusion is true or not.
Saying that one group or other is homogeneous (mostly one or the other) in their political affiliation is a mistake. Problem is that we have only two major parties, so you are either classified as a 'conservative' or a 'liberal'. Well, it is never that binary, it is more like a spectrum. You might agree with some conservative arguments and disagree with some other ones, and vice versa. If you are that binary in your thinking, you are not thinking hard enough.
Theists are most likely conservative when it comes to the treatment of slaves, women, gays, LGBT, any other undesirables because they follow an outdated worldview presented in the scriptures. Religious misogyny drives their position on things like abortion, yet they support the death penalty, unrestricted access to guns, etc.
Atheists are not bound by the ancient texts, they rely on modern scientific discoveries so their positions on many sociological issues are firmly based on science. So no 'Romans 13' for atheists.
Personally, I feel embarrassed by the Bible thumpers and their 'conservative' stance on many important issues, many of which I agree with.
They sound like imbeciles from the 4th century. I wish conservatives would cull this cohort from their ranks.
If you want to blame atheists, blame them for putting their faith in the scientific method. Anything else is a projection on your part.
Politics is about manipulating voters and winning elections. That is why you see politicians flip-flopping all the time. It is all about creating these two perfectly polarized 'conservative' and 'liberal' camps willing to cut each other's throats.
