BurntOutMom wrote:
Thank you for leading to my next question....
Are we looking for the BEST atheist or the most STRIDENTly atheist?
I would find these to be two totally different things.
Do all parties running agree that "intellectual virtue, compassion for the downtrodden, and solidarity with the victims of religious violence" are the qualities to be judged?
Actually, like a number of voting procedures, the qualities to be judged are rather unclear and subjective. Y'know, the person voting for the democrat and the person voting for the republican (or whatever parties you find most meaningful) often don't have the same metrics.
I don't think that those qualities are meaningful to be judged, but that's mostly because M_P literally gave you a line political BS. Candidates explicitly seek to be judged on the following traits:
1) Conformity to the cultural standards of the rationalist community(pro-science, etc)
2) Anti-theism, particularly actions displaying anti-theism, such as open attacks against/criticism towards religious claims and beliefs.
3) Intellectual virtues, such as the ability to reason well, knowledge, ability to argue, etc.
4) Actually being an atheist.
There are additional implicit qualities though, such as showmanship. Basically, during this campaign, some of the candidates are going to be openly putting on a show to display their humor, and how creatively they can attack their opponents. As well as potentially many many other things.