Polling data shows a correlation between party identification and
regular church attendance. This suggests that pure belief is less important than the social and practice aspects of religion.
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1. We ought to define conservatism before we get too much farther into it. Hal has asked about social conservatism, and I think we all sort of know what that means.
Wikipedia defines it briefly like this:
Quote:
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Social conservatism is a belief in traditional morality and social mores and the desire to preserve these in present day society. While its opponents argue that such beliefs are outdated in the face of cultural change, the proponents of social conservatism argue that "modern" values are vapid and corrupt.
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Sure, it's vague, but it works.
2. Why is atheism thought to be incompatible with conservatism, particularly social conservatism? I think of social conservatism as a religious phenomenon. Strong social conservatism is grounded in the acceptance of certain moral absolutes that atheism tends to inherently reject. It's hard to believe that sodomy is universally wrong without some kind of argument from design or intentionality. "God intended it to be..." or "the world is designed that way." Atheists don't believe the world was created with a plan or a intent (they don't believe the world was created at all!) So, although atheists might have firm beliefs about social issues, they tend to regard them as arbitrary, and not necessarily universally applicable.
3. Libertarianism is a wild card, as it tends to either be socially liberal by ideology, or to be de facto socially liberal on a number of issues by rejecting a government role in their regulation. I have a libertarian friend who's a strong social conservative, but who would agree with many social liberals about the government's role in regulating certain behaviors and practices.
4. A socially conservative atheist would have to find secular justifications for their beliefs. I might say that an ideal society would limit freedom of speech when it might damage children or families. I might say that gay marriage ought to be discouraged because it undermines society (or whatever).
5. I would be interested to meet a socially conservative atheist, just to see how they came by their beliefs. It would be relatively easy to imagine one who converted away from religion, but retained conservative social views about family and such. Much more interesting would be an atheist like myself who never claimed a religion, yet was socially conservative.