Religion and leadership

This post over at Morton's Musings on if you care about the PM's religion had one commenter state that:
Beliefs about the age of the earth don't affect public policy. Disapproving of a candidate over this amounts to nothing more than "He believes something I think is silly, so I don't think he's wise enough to vote for". Of course that would apply to most candidates from religions you don't believe in.
Now as I had replied to the original post, I really don't care what imaginary sky fairy the PM worships as long as he isn't trying to use legislation to force me to act in accordance to that religion. The comment above however needs to be looked at since believing in something that is obviously wrong is different from a belief in that which can't be proven.

So if the PM or other government leader believes in a god or gods in a general sense, that's not necessarily an issue. Since there is no positive evidence for the existence of a god or gods it's as harmful or harmless as believing in the tooth fairy or Santa Clause. One could argue that there is no evidence against the existence of a god or gods, but that's negative evidence and generally something that's not accepted in scientific circles as being a valid argument.

The belief that the Earth/universe is only 6000ish years old on the other hand is obviously wrong in the light of positive evidence. In this case this is important to know about someone with leadership aspirations. If someone who wants to make policy and run a country refuses to accept the evidence for reality, then it becomes an issue to me and should be an issue for anyone else. It becomes an issue because that person has demonstrated a willingness to deliberately ignore reality. If they are willing to do that in one aspect of their life it is likely to transfer over to their decision making in the public space of government where evidence based decision making is vital.

An obvious example of this is Stockwell Day. Well known for being a YEC (Young Earth Creationist) who believes that the Earth is only 6000 years old also shows us that he has a similar believe in the policy sphere of rampant unreported crime which by definition cannot be accurately quantified. So Day is using another unevidenced belief to formulate public policy. This isn't really surprising given his belief of the age of the Earth, in this case due to his religion.

In Stockwell Day's case, his obviously errant beliefs are basically due to his religion, and hence in this case his religion becomes an issue. That being said, I would have the same concerns with an atheist flat-Earther. So strictly speaking it's not Day's religion but the beliefs that stem from it, specifically the beliefs where there is a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.

So what it boils down to is how far divorced from reality the person's beliefs are. If the person's beliefs aren't a rejection of evidence here in reality, then there's no real harm. If they reject reality for the sake of their beliefs, then their judgement is impaired and they shouldn't be in a position where they are formulating public policy. That's the way I see it in any event.