CARLSON: Let's get right to it. Do you believe in god? If not and you admit it, congratulations, you're a member of perhaps the least popular minority in the country. America is a nation that will gladly tolerate the most unlikely faiths imaginable. Just ask Tom Cruise. But no faith at all? Not acceptable, at least not in politics, at least this year.

But is that changing? Joining us now is Joan Konner. She is the former dean of the Columbia Journalism School and she has compiled a collection of quotations from notable thinkers, writers and scientists who have questioned organized religion and a belief in god. Her book is called “The Atheist's Bible.” Joan Konner, thanks for coming on.

JOAN KONNER, “THE ATHEISTS BIBLE”: Thank you for inviting a non-atheist who has written about atheism on your show.

CARLSON: There is a quote in here from Bertrum Russell, who is quoted throughout the book, that kind of sums up my personal problem with atheism. And he says this—and I think this is meant in defense of it. But he said, “not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

In other words, zealotry is the enemy of rational thought. Atheists strike me as every bit as dogmatic as any southern Baptist.

KONNER: I think that's in the book too. There is a chapter in the book called the Brimstone Chronicles that quotes atheists and shows how extreme they can be as well. And another chapter called Scientosophy, which is kind of a joke on science, when scientists are more certain than they can be.

My one line introduction to the book is the reason why there are so many opinions is that nobody knows the truth.

CARLSON: Yes, and yet those opinions matter. People who believe that all there is is not all that we can see, who believe in some higher power, whatever it is, it seems to me are going to be more restrained in their behavior than people who don‘t allow for the possibility of god. If you think someone is watching, you‘re likely to be a better person. Right? Than if you don‘t think anyone is watching.

So isn‘t it fair to ask that our political leaders believe in some kind of god?

KONNER: I think that that is kind of a juvenile point of view.

CARLSON: OK.

KONNER: That is—when culture's in its infancy, it needs something to be afraid of in order to act honorably or morally or ethically. There is a chapter in the book that is called the Book of Common Virtue. It shows pages and pages of atheist who‘s are every bit as moral and every bit as committed to being honorable and fair and mature in their relationship to their fellow human beings without a belief in god.

CARLSON: I'm sure that there are many. In fact, I know one, a friend of mine, who is a professing atheist. Here's an adult, rather than a juvenile point. If you look back over the 20th century, the regimes that caused the most bloodshed were all atheist regimes, Mau, Hitler, Stalin. These were not believers. These were people who believed they were the final word. There is a correlation, isn‘t there?

KONNER: There is a wonderful book—an old book called “To The Finland Station” by Edmund Wilson, that traces the course of revolutions. And they all fail because they have fallen into the wrong hands. Those people that you are referring to are just the wrong hands. There really is not a correlation between immorality and a belief in god.

CARLSON: I‘m not saying that there is a correlation. I‘m not saying that people who don‘t believe in god are immoral. I‘m merely saying that when you don't acknowledge that there might be someone more powerful than you, then, by definition, you imagine yourself god. And that's a real problem, because there is no governor on your behavior at all.

KONNER: I think this country has every right to fall back on its founding fathers, who did believe in a deist democracy, but not a theocracy. And it seems that the crumbling wall between church and state and the too often heard today, that we are a Christian nation, is becoming quite scary.

CARLSON: I don't know what country you live in. I bet you probably live in the upper west side of Manhattan. But in the rest of the world, nobody ever talks about a Christian nation. The only people who talk about a Christian nation are people who are upset about the idea that others might be talking about it.

But, in fact, the country is becoming more secular by every single measure. I don't know what America you're talking about.

KONNER: I don't think that's true. I think that with the events of 9/11, and the headlines about fundamentalism and how I'm right and you're wrong and that goes on both sides of this terrible war that we're in, that you've been discussing, that in fact, people of faith are moving to the extreme. And with faith-based grants from public funds—that is an erosion of the absolute wall between church and state.

CARLSON: OK. Unfortunately, Joan Konner, as much as I appreciate it, we are out of time.

KONNER: Can I just read you one quote?

CARLSON: If you can do it in 11 seconds.

KONNER: OK, from Abraham Lincoln. The bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession. And John Adams, referring to the divinity of Christ, mystery is made a convenient cover for absurdity.

CARLSON: OK, well, he's not going to be elected archbishop of Canterbury, but he was a good president anyway. I appreciate you coming on.

KONNER: Thank you for inviting me.
 

###