The Freedom From Religion Foundation, the largest association of freethinkers in North America, is pushing back against President Trump’s recent remarks suggesting that people cannot be good without God.

Speaking in the Oval Office yesterday about his “America Prays” initiative, Trump said, “There’s no reason to be good,” and claimed that his own motivation for goodness is to “prove to God you’re good so you go to that next step,” referring to heaven. He added that he believes it is “very hard to be a good country” without religion.

“Donald Trump is wrong,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “We don’t need religion in order to be moral. Millions of atheists, agnostics and humanists lead good, ethical, compassionate lives every day — not to earn divine reward, but because we care about others and our nation.”

Gaylor noted that the greatest myths U.S. nonbelievers have to overcome is the slander that no one can be good without God, such as found in Psalm 53:1 that declares no atheist can be good. It is unpresidential of Trump to perpetuate this ignorant bias.

FFRF called the comment a classic Christian nationalist talking point that falsely ties morality to piety. Most secular Americans consider morality to be rooted in reason, empathy, and social responsibility — not the fear of punishment or promise of reward.

“The way to be good is to act with the intention of minimizing harm. The avoidance of harm is a natural, not a supernatural exercise,”adds FFRF Co-President Dan Barker, a former evangelical minister who left religion in his 30s and who has written books about morality. “In fact, the divisiveness of religion has led to more harm and violence in the world. To quote my mother, morality is straightforward: If you want to be a good person, be a good person.”

FFRF warns that initiatives like “America Prays,” which encourage publicly sponsored worship, blur the line between personal faith and government neutrality, turning the nearly one-third of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated, as well as non-Christian believers, into second-class citizens. The “America Prays” program is blatant pandering to Trump’s evangelical base — and a defilement of the secular Constitution he has sworn to uphold.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters of nontheism. With more than 42,000 members, FFRF advocates for freethinkers’ rights across the globe. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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