We do not dwell as often as we should on perhaps the most ironic phenomenon in American life.
Namely, we live in a constitutional order that guarantees freedom of conscience, thereby relegating faith to a private concern. And yet the question of faith can effectively dictate political identities.
For instance, a series of survey-based graphs posted Sunday to the social media platform X revealed that 73 percent of young, white, non-Hispanic men and women who identify as “Strong Republicans” never doubt that God exists, compared to only 7 percent of “Strong Democrats” who fit the same description — results that positively cry out for explanation.
73% of young white strong Republicans have no doubt God exists vs 7% of strong Democrats. pic.twitter.com/5pFV7DNmSa
— Smirkley (@Smirkley) June 21, 2026
Moreover, the same X user provided data showing a similar correlation between political affiliation and daily prayer.
Those born-1990+ white-NH who pray every day by ideology. 6% vs 65% at the extremes. pic.twitter.com/0waB5dmiT1
— Smirkley (@Smirkley) June 21, 2026
The credit lines on the graphs show the numbers from the General Social Survey, a project of the University of Chicago’s NORC (formerly the National Opinion Research Center), that has been compiling data on Americans and their attitudes since 1972.
In one respect, of course, those survey results hardly qualify as news. After all, leftists in general have attacked both religion and faith at least since the French Revolution.
Rather than trashing modern liberals for their godlessness, however, perhaps we might examine some reasons for their disbelief. That way, Christians in particular can get better at talking about why we disagree with our atheist brothers and sisters.
As far as I can tell, disbelief stems from three sources, two of which we cannot mock or even deplore.
First, non-believers might have arrived their views through honest inquiry. The evidence, they might say, does not support God’s existence. Look at the fossil record. Organisms grew more complex over time, and no one knew about dinosaurs until a few hundred years ago. Or, they might say, look at the Bible itself. Does not the Book of Psalms feature prayers for the destruction of one’s enemy? How does that reflect the purportedly benevolent God of monotheists’ imaginations?
Believers, of course, have reached a different conclusion. But we cannot deny the respect due to everyone engaged in the honest pursuit of truth, which we Christians regard as a Christ-like quality.
Second, disbelief stems from pain. Non-believers who have experienced tragedy stand on firm ground when they wonder how a just God could allow something that caused so much anguish. More broadly, how could a just God create a world in which 5-year-old children die in car accidents while Nazi war criminals escaped to South America to live for decades?
Believers do not even attempt to reconcile these things with human justice. Instead, we call them “God’s will,” which leaves a non-believer understandably dissatisfied.
Are you surprised that the left is so dominated by godless people?
Third, disbelief stems from pride, the only truly deplorable source and yet also the most elusive. How, after all, can we distinguish between a prideful non-believer and one in pain? We know that such a distinction exists. And yet the inability to read the hearts of others prevents us from knowing their motives with certainty. For instance, consider the title of an anti-God poem penned by a young Karl Marx, godfather of atheistic communism: “Invocation of One Despair.”
All of these things present us with a formidable set of circumstances. The correlation between disbelief and leftism is so striking that, though exceptions exist, it almost seems as if being a non-believer and being a “Strong Democrat” are one and the same thing.
At the same time, much as we detest nearly everything for which modern Democrats stand, we cannot outright dismiss the sources of their disbelief. We must answer them as best we can. But how?
At the risk of reducing a book-length topic to a brief news commentary, allow me to suggest two approaches.
First, to the non-believer who has engaged in honest inquiry based on evidence, we must address the intellect. And since he or she disbelieves the Bible as an authoritative source, we must begin elsewhere.
Start, for instance, by presenting the explanation for the universe as dichotomous. In other words, we exist either by design or by accident. There is no third possibility.
If, as they say, accident alone accounts for the universe and everything in it, then we truly are a mass of atomic and sub-atomic particles floating through endless space on a meaningless journey to nowhere.
Moreover, if the universe and everything in it is random, and if we’re in the universe, then that means all thoughts are random, including the thought that all thoughts are random.
Put simply, we cannot even claim legitimacy for our own thoughts without assuming creation-by-design.
Thus, when atheists say, “I don’t believe in God,” we may, on their terms, rightly reply, “Oh, that’s an interesting movement of atoms under your skull, but that movement, which you call thought, has no meaning.”
Second, to a non-believer in pain, validate the pain while still challenging the conclusions derived therefrom.
When a non-believer asks how a just God could allow suffering, child mortality, Nazi longevity, and the like, ask the source from which the non-believer derived his or her notion of justice. In a cruel, random, and meaningless universe, why do you — a part of the universe, after all — revolt against injustice? Surely that rebellion must have originated in something outside the universe. After all, how could such a cruel, random, and meaningless thing teach you that justice should prevail?
To the prideful non-believer, of course, we have little to offer. Those who place themselves on par with God or above God will not heed appeals to humility without divine intervention.
Still, that leaves us with quite a lot of work to do. And knowing that our political divide is really a faith-based divide should embolden us to do it the right way.
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