Does Donald Trump Believe In God?

Amanda Marcotte thinks Donald Trump is an atheist.

If there were only some way to prove it, I would happily bet everything I own that Donald Trump does not believe in God. Not because he's carefully engaged the many philosophical proofs for atheism that are out there, of course. He's simply too much of a sociopathic narcissist to believe in anything higher than himself.

I disagree. Marcotte is a Texan. In her part of the country, religion generally means zealotry. I'm from the urban Northeast, like Trump. Also, I'm much older than Marcotte, though not quite as old as Trump.

Trump and I grew up in an era before the Religious Right existed. We grew up in environments where there were no angry white Evangelicals. There was certainly religious conservatism, but we grew up with what I think of as Bing Crosby religion, where there might be guilt about sin, but much of the God talk referred to him as "the Man Upstairs," or with some similar epithet that suggested he was a kindly old bearded paterfamilias who wasn't much of a day-to-day presence, and who just wanted to keep everyone on the straight and narrow, more or less. I don't imagine Trump ever gives it much thought, but I think he still believes in that God -- with some adjustments, because he's Trump.

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