Student Body Prez at Northwest Christian U Is An Atheist

The Student Body President, Eric Fromm, at Northwestern Christian University admitted in the student newspaper that he is an atheist and has been one for a long time.  Predictably, some of his fellow students have complained, but so far, the school has not forced him to resign his position or to disenroll.  Certainly there are some "christian" universities that would run him out on a rail.  The school leadership doesn't sound happy either, but are expressing a grudging tolerance with condescending remarks like, "If we all had our wishes, we wish Eric would be a strong Christian man". 

Interestingly, Fromm indicates that he has found some support on campus, and that there may be a few closeted atheists like himself on the campus.  I suspect that, in actuality, there are huge numbers of people who don't believe in God, but realize that it is more advantageous to pretend.

In fact, I propose that many rational atheists are living a modified version of  Pascal's Wager, that I will dub Aaron's Wager. In my version, it is a safer bet, if you truly don't believe in God, to pretend publically that you believe at least superficially, because of the advantages that religiosity confers.  There is little or nothing to be gained from a rational Game Theory perspective, by professing your true atheistic views, by and large, unless you are trying to write a book like Richard Dawkins.  But for every Richard Dawkins, there are a ten thousand people who might think like him, but pretend to be religious anyway, because, for them it confers more advantages.  I would venture to say that many televangelists are actually atheists, but, if they admitted that, they would have to get a real job.  Instead, they can live on easy street, exploiting the gullible.  And is it really such a big deal to pretend to believe something that you know is nonsense.  You know what you actually think.  But it makes believers happy for you to pretend that you are one of them.  All kinds of people pretend to be religious in order to keep peace in the family.  And if you actually admitted your beliefs, all it would do is upset people for no reason.  You would not change any minds by admitting your views.  If there really is no afterlife then atheists still benefit more by pretending to be religious, and enjoying the benefits in this one and only physical world.