Should presidential candidates sign belief statements?

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Should presidential candidates (for POTUS - president of the United States) be asked to sign religious belief statements so citizens know where they actually stand?

Such as:

Signing a paper saying they subscribe to:

- the 21 basic beliefs of Buddha
- the 95 Wittenberg Door theses proving Martin Luther is right
- the Spanish Inquisition as a legitimate religious power play proving the Pope of Italy is right
- the 4000 rules of Mormonism which explain everything
- the ideas of Scientology about the origin of God/the creation of everything
- all 10 commandments of Moses

and so on?

These written statements of belief could then avoid the idea of presidential candidates running to Saddleback Christian Church in California at the last minute so as to wear Christianity on their sleeves so as to attract enough winning votes to make it into the White House?

Topics:

- Politics, Philosphies, Religions
- Effective politicing / Streamlining the public confession of beliefs process
- Campaign Reform

wouldnt the seperation of church and state be a better solution?
religion always complicates any logical debate.

Citizens are allowed to have their religious beliefs change over time and it happens all the time; why should presidential candidates be held to a higher standard on that? You will not get a full honest confession out of a lot of politicians and I don't know what's to be benefited anyway?

A religious test is unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution.

Article VI, para 3.

ruveyn

Thumbs up to ruveyn for addressing the topic well with definitive evidence. See, I can appreciate that, 'cause I know I'm going to go on a tangent here.

So, back to my response.

As of this day and age, a US presidential candidate cannot be elected unless they proclaim to have at least some christian belief. That is the simple truth - there are too many christians. A Democrat candidate might still get some votes, sure, but not enough. And seeing as religion lines up almost exactly with politics, a non-religious Republican candidate... well, there simply would not be one. The party would know not to put one forward.

America seems not to realize that 'freedom of religion' includes the subset 'freedom *from* religion'. Atheists are still seen as second-class: George Bush himself (during his reign as president!) said: "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God."

Are you kidding me?? I thought this was a hoax when I read it, but no, it is verified. How could a president get away with such a prejudiced remark? Because the rich and powerful in America are christian Republicans.

This is *not* how it should be, but it is how it is. Any steps we take should be to try and get farther from this focus on religion over policies, not closer to it. Asking them to declare their religion is therefore an idea I would never support - whether it were legal or not.

I really don't see what the point would be. As Bayes_Freedom said, only a Christian candidate could actually win anyways.

To be honest, I really lose a lot of patients with the United States sometimes. Yes, Americans a free to practice whatever religion they want, so long as they know they will be discriminated against if it is not Christianity or, apparently worse, choosing no religion at all. Yes, there are no arranged marriages so people can marry who they want, as long as it isn't someone of the same sex. Yes, you are free to get the best healthcare you can afford, but you are also free to bleed to death on the street if you can't afford any.

That was very off topic, but I just felt I needed to rant a bit.

Observing from outside, I would even go a step further--a viable presidential candidate must not only profess Christianity, he (and I use the gender-exclusive deliberately) must profess Protestantism.

There are some 70 million Roman Catholics in the United States, forming a little under 25 percent of the population. Yet the United States has had precisely one Roman Catholic president. No president in the 20th or 21st century has failed to profess formal membership in a church--the last being (I think) Chester Arthur.

Clearly the constitution proscribes any religious test--but the cultural history of the United States gives the lie to that presumption. And I see little evidence of a coming paradigm shift to restore real meaning to that important constitutional measure.