LA Times Tries to Make the Case for an Atheist on the Supreme Court

Once again people are obsessing about labels as they look for a new Supreme Court justice.  Instead of looking for the best person for the job they're looking for the person who fits whatever particular label that person thinks the court needs.  A "black", a "woman", a "conservative", a "liberal", and in the case of an LA Times column, an "atheist".  Dan Riehl dissembles the weak argument:

Well, here's a ration of stupidity from the LA Times, endeavoring to make a case that can't honestly be made. Cooper conflates religion with a concept of the divine. Once his trick is exposed, his entire argument falls apart.

Though the court without Stevens will be left with six Catholics and two Jews, the open seat should not go to either domination. Nor should it go to a Presbyterian, a Lutheran, a Methodist, a Muslim or even a Zoroastrian. If it did, that would make nine people who all have one religious principle in common: a belief in religion.
Clearly, the next person to take the bench should be an atheist.
While few sitting politicians have the political courage to name a declared nonbeliever, it is something that Thomas Jefferson (and several others among the founders) might well have done.
In an 1823 letter to John Adams, Jefferson was forthright about his views of religion, and Christianity specifically. "And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter," Jefferson wrote. "But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors."

Despite any possible misgivings around the state of Christianity in his time, Jefferson knew precisely in what his existence, his reason and his basic human rights were vested - his sense of a divine God. That's why he reached back to the divine to interpret and even embolden himself when standing for, or against challenging temporal matters.

Believe me, dear Sir: there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America. —Thomas Jefferson, November 29, 1775[5]

Most atheists I've known are a strange mix of cowardice combined with a lack of humility born of fear. They are so afraid of coming to terms with their insignificance and lack of control over so many things, they build themselves a religion of logic that, when put to the test, falls apart faster than any supposed religious house of cards. There may indeed one day be an atheist appointed to the Court. But it will be nothing more than another mark on the road away from our rights being divinely vested, toward their being vested in something of man. And that's simply one more step toward their being taken away.

Dan understands, as I do, that once our rights are no longer "inalienable" and "endowed by our Creator" they become revocable and given by the whim of man. That which is given by man can quickly be taken away.  The founding documents then have about as much lasting importance as last week's TV Guide.

We should not be seeking justices based on anything other than their willingness to obey the Constitution of the United States. No other label matters.