There are Americans today, holding themselves up as conservatives, who argue that one can be both an atheist and a conservative. This is absurd.
There is a God, He made us and all things, and His immutable moral laws apply to all men, in all nations, at all times. These fundamental truths--recognition of which is not confined to any particular religious denomination--were embraced by our Founding Fathers. A social and legal order consistent with these fundamental truths is at the very heart of what modern conservatives seek to conserve.
William F. Buckley Jr., founder of National Review, wrote the following in his preface to God and Man at Yale:
“I consider this battle of educational theory important and worth time and thought even in the context of a world-situation that seems to render totally irrelevant any fight except the power struggle against Communism. I myself believe that the duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world. I further believe that the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level. I believe that if and when the menace of Communism is gone, other vital battles, at present subordinated, will emerge to the foreground. And the winner must have help from the classroom.”
Must the modern Conservative Movement be a classroom in which young Americans can be schooled in how to fight and defeat the forces of atheism so manifestly gaining ground in our society today? Of course.