Atheism Poster Fail

"I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth
and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens
and say there is no God. " -Abraham Lincoln

This demotivational poster's been circling the internet for a while, now.
It shows such brilliant men and minds as Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin,
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, and Carl
Sagan. The point of this poster is to show that atheism has contributed some of
the most brilliant men in history. While I don't have a problem in saying there
have been some brilliant atheists, (and there have been many) I do have a
problem with this poster. Why? Because 5 of the 8 men portrayed on it weren't
even atheists!

Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were both deists. They believed in God,
but not necessarily in the Bible or in our construct of the Bible. A large stock
of our founding fathers were members of the deism movement, including Thomas
Paine and Ethan Allen. It was also the viewpoint which I adhered to for some
time.

Mark Twain was pretty much in the same boat. Technically, he was a
Presbyterian, but he often criticized God, the Bible, and Christianity. He did,
however, believe in God, but his critical light on the faith has often caused
him to be mistaken for an atheist.

Now for Abraham Lincoln. To me, this was the most ridiculous one of them
all! While Lincoln never subscribed to any religious titles, he was an avid
supporter of the church, the Bible, and the Christian faith, referring to God as
the Almighty and Jesus Christ as Lord.

Albert Einstein is a tougher one to diagnose. Technically, he is usually
classified as either a deist or an agnostic. He was raised Jewish, and stated
that he believed in a god, but not necessarily the God of the Bible. Many,
however, do classify him in the deist court.

I'm somewhat embarassed to admit that I can't identify the man in the
top-left corner. Carl Sagan was an atheist, however, and Charles Darwin was an
agnostic, losing his faith not with the evolutionary theory, but with the death
of his daughter.

Less than half of the people on this poster were atheist or agnostic, and
if anything, this poster should read: "DEISM/ A BELIEF IN GOD- Good enough for 5
out of 8 of these idiots."