On the one hand, Mitt Romney wants questions about his lunatic religion off the table; on the other, he thinks representation in government should be proportional to the popularity of their religion, which he uses as an excuse to exclude Muslims for consideration in his cabinet. I don't think this means he's going to allow the roughly 10%+ of the population who are atheists/agnostics to be represented, though—after all, he considers only people of faith fit to govern.
Oh, heck, it's probably not fair to call him a hypocrite. He's a consistent religious bigot, he's just unwilling to admit it.
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The mor(m)ons are coming. Hide your canned goods.
Now he says that account is wrong. He opposes quotas. "I don't have boxes that I check off." He uses his boxes to carry the dog.
Would he be in favor of Jewish quotas then?
A particularly distasteful and politically active Roman Catholic priest, Richard Neuhaus, not too long ago argued that it was perfectly legitimate for voters to shun Romney for his weird religion. Asked what he thought about voters similarly shunning a RC candidate, Neuhaus remarked that that was different, because irrational.
I deplore violence. Still, there's something stirring in the thought of X proponents of the various sectarianisms, locked in a room with X-1 knives.
Picking on Romney just because he's Mormon seems pretty pointless--the next president will almost certainly be a member of some church or other, what the hell difference does it make. That was true of the last 43 presidents too. Some still managed to do a good job in spite of it. In fact, the fact that Romney being Mormon makes the Xtian right squirm is a point in his favor as far as I'm concerned.
The Catholics at 25% are the largest US sect. There is a history of enmity between them and the Mormons. They both claim to be the one true church, receive divine revelations regularly, and have Popes*.
A common Mormon belief is that the RC church is run by demons, although I don't know if this is official dogma. I wonder how many Catholics will be in Mitt's cabinet?
The US constitution says flat out that no religious test shall be used for anyone seeking elected office. Someone should read that part to Romney, but read it very slowly.
*The Pope heard from god not too long ago. God said I have good news and bad news.
The good news. I'm coming down to earth.
The bad news. I'll meet you in Salt Lake City.
Raven wrote; "The US constitution says flat out that no religious test shall be used for anyone seeking elected office. Someone should read that part to Romney, but read it very slowly.
Yes the Constitution does say that, but a seat in a presidential cabinet is not an elected office. A president may use any criteria whatsoever to seek appointment of a candidate to his cabinet. Not picking a fight, just saying.
Moopheus:
I half agree with you, bovine dreamer.
The difference between Mormonism and, say, Catholicism, is that one is widely accepted and the other isn't. It's quite possible to be a "nominal" catholic -- someone that calls themselves catholic, and doesn't really do anything about it -- doesn't go to church, doesn't watch PopeTV, doesn't order buy holy water from CostCo. When a politician says they are christian, there's a good chance they're just saying they want to get elected in a predominantly christian society and it doesn't mean much more than that.
But on the face of things, I'm guessing being a Mormon, with a different core set of beliefs from the majority population, requires a little more effort than being a christian. And that implies a more sincere belief.
As a Massachussetts politician, I can't help think Mitt is really an extra-super Mormon believer, because I'm sure being Mormon has come at some cost to his appeal in the Northeast.
And you're right that we can't discount people merely on their religion. Al Gore, much to chagrin, is deeply religious, by all accounts -- or at least pretends to be -- but he doesn't scare me because I know he respects reason and separation of Church & State.
Anyhoo.
inkadu: "with a different core set of beliefs from the majority population"
Like what? Don't misunderstand me, I'm not defending mormonism, it's a con plain and simple. But it's not a very differant con than any of the other xian faiths. The *core* beliefs are all pretty much the same. I'm just curious what you think is so differant, not trying to pick a fight.
Mike Huckabee's devotion to his religion scares me a whole lot more than Romney's. Mitt has shown that he doesn't let his religion influence his politics very much, but Huckabee is placing religion in the front and center of his.
jba - Hm. I guess the definition of "core beliefs" is debatable. I was referring to the recent revelation of Jospeh Smith, and the golden discs, and the special reading glasses, and all that nonsense.
Ok. Just looked up the "mormonism core beliefs mormonism" and there really isn't anything too different there than a lot of Christian sects.
Number 10 is the only one that seems explicitly kooky:
Of course, when you come right out and say it it looks weird, but most far-right Christians would probably agree to something similar.
Anyway, thanks for the catch. It doesn't look as if the core belief of Mormons is that different. So let me vague up my thesis a bit: Mormons are likely stronger believers because their religion is not mainstream.
Also, if anyone can point to a deist Mormon or an agnostic Mormon, let me know. "Mormon" carries more weight with me than "Christian," because most Christians never really have to question their beliefs. Also, being a Mormon seems to require a larger investment. Don't most Mormon men go on missions in their adolescence? It just seems like they're a much more dedicated bunch than the average person who checks off "Christian" on the survey form.
That would be a good point, if it were true. Article Six reads, in part, thus:
Romney's alleged proposed criteria would and should be judged to be in violation of this article.
Just sayin'... :-)
Romney's a fraud anyway. His solution to the health care problem here in Massachusetts is to lay a tax penalty on the uninsured. How odd that a rich Republican can't see what's inherently wrong with that approach. </sarc>
Fortunately for Romney, there's no Constitutional prohibition of magic underwear.
Mormonism is a fundamentally racist religion You don't see too many black Mormons do you? There's a reason for that.
Kseniya #12
Oh. I thought the only Constitutional requirement for a candidate for cabinet was that they cannot be a member of Congress or hold any other elected office. I thought that being appointed rather than elected they would not be subject to the religious test restriction in Article 6.
Thanks for the correction. Learn something new every day.
And it's a GOOD thing, isn't it? :-)
I suppose that's open to interpretation, but I can NOT believe that Madison et al. meant for the Article to apply only to elected offices. If anything, it should apply more to positions filled by appointment. How easy it would then be for an elected closet theocrat to fill his Cabinet (and Court) with like-minded individuals by simple virtue of their religious alignnment.
Which they can basically do anyway, but at least they can't overtly exclude a qualified candidate on that basis. Likewise, neither can Congress deny an appointment based on the religious affiliation (or lack thereof) of the candidate.
[off topic] shiftlessbum, I answered your request on the squidmas craft thread.[/off topic]
There once was a Mormon named Mitt
Whom some thought was pure hypocrite
I don't see an Omni-
Benevolent Romney,
But still--yes or no--is he shit?
Inkadu @8:
It's quite possible to be a "nominal" catholic.... When a politician says they are christian, there's a good chance they're just saying they want to get elected in a predominantly christian society and it doesn't mean much more than that.... But on the face of things, I'm guessing being a Mormon... requires a little more effort than being a christian. And that implies a more sincere belief.
Up to point, Lord Copper. You're probably right that Mormons in places like NY need to cleave fast to Mormon teaching and practice, lest they lose their identity. But that's not so in the Mormon heartland, where one may easily be a Mormon who does not believe or practice as the Mormon church demands, yet maintain the identity for all that. (Here one might profitably google the term "Jack Mormon".) In this the Mormons are, mutatis mutandis, no different to any other religion.
Mormons are 2% of the American population, which I would presume using Romney Rules means we should have 5 atheist presidents for every Mormon president. So I say 2-3 atheist presidents and then Romney gets his shot.
It's only fair.
Based on my experiences with LDS missionaries on campus, I'm surprised that Mr. Romney is against quotas. "Crap, we've only handed out three tracts so far today - hey, that girl looks lonely! GO GO GO!"
Also, if anyone can point to a deist Mormon or an agnostic Mormon, let me know.
I think I might be an agnostic Mormon. I haven't seen any compelling evidence that any religion is true, but I do like the Mormon view of the afterlife...you're allowed to convert after you die, and under certain circumstances you're allowed to run your own planet. (I would start with a carbon copy of Earth and see all the movies that I won't have time to see in this lifetime.)
So I'm hoping that those aspects of Mormonism are true. (Obviously I'm hoping that the racist and sexist aspects are false, and that the moral bar for getting your own planet is set low enough that I can qualify.)
What do you expect from a demented fuckwit?
I do like the Mormon view of the afterlife...you're allowed to convert after you die, and under certain circumstances you're allowed to run your own planet.
Uh... the mind boggles. That sounds like a contest to see who can think of the bigger stupid.
Christians: when you die you go sing hosannahs eternally
Muslims: when you die you get 17 virgins
Mormons: when you die you get a whole planet
Me: when you die you get your own UNIVERSE and an Xbox and an iPod and 50 gallons of vaseline
I win!
Sure, Willard is a hypocrite. And he believes batshit insanity. But the real knock is that he is a worthless government manager, a hate monger, and a power-mad incompetent.
We don't need any more of that, thank you very much.
So what? People have killed each other over the iota that distinguishes homoousios from homoiousios.
Also, the virgins are 77, not 17.
Oh, so the e at the end of hypocrite is a bad joke, like that at the end of intestine?
<long, drawn-out snarl with exposed canine teeth>
This guy is right. The English orthography doesn't need a reform, it needs a bloody revolution.
BTW, Cuttlefish, you committed a hypercorrectivism. "Who, some thought, was pure hypocrite" is correct, because he, not him, was. :-)
David M-OM--
You are quite correct
I will hang my head in shame
And hide in my ink
Which, Lawful Evil? ^.^
And the constitutional passage quoted says "all executive and judicial officers." It's hard to see how, with that statement in it, it could be construed as inapplicable to appointed officials.
They always overstate their numbers, always remember that fact. Most studies show the claimed numbers to be 1/2 to 1/4 of what they claim.
"if anyone can point to a deist Mormon or an agnostic Mormon"
I really don't want to get bogged down in semantics, but I don't think you can be an agnostic any-branch of xian. I would think if you thought god was unknowable then you wouldn't belong to a group that claims knowledge (which the mormons do). Deism is simply not compatable with mormonism, they beleive in a personal, intervening god.
" "Mormon" carries more weight with me than "Christian,"
Mormon is simply a type of christian, unless you beleive that only members of a certain sect are christian.
"Don't most Mormon men go on missions in their adolescence?"
Some do, some don't. It's strongly encouraged (in Utah even expected) for young men to and even many young woman. I was raised in the LDS church and I beleive only 2-3 guys from my age group, at least in the ward I was in, went on missions. But I am in the Boston area, it's much less culty here.
But if you want the crazyest, freakyist and most glaringly obvious reason that the LDS church is wrong I can give it to you in one sentence.
They think the garden of Eden was in Missouri. Seriously.
Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, Dumb. I like to remember Southpark's halfhour take on the Mor(m)ons. Right now, I'm exposing myself to PBS's American Experience episode on the Mor(m)ons... A couple of quotes... "There's a great fear in the church that if you do ask questions, you will begin to doubt... and if you doubt, you'll leave the church." "Intellectualism is against the church". Friggin idiots.
Not going to pick on the Mormons too much, but many Xians don't think they are really Xians. They have some odd beliefs but really, what is a religion without something counterintuitive?
1. God is married. To Mrs. God. She gets laid a lot and makes spirit babies who cycle to earth and become...(drums, fireworks, lasars) US.
2. There are many, many Gods. All married. They all have their own planets to fill up and fool around with.
3. You too can become a God. Just contact the nearest LDS missionaries and they will tell you how. They have 3 afterlives, hell for really bad people only, a middle kingdom for J6P, and the best....become Gods themselves. You have to be married, presumably to another Mormon. The religion puts a lot of pressure on its members. You have to work your whole life to become perfect otherwise you end up in J6P heaven, no planet for most people.
There must be more but this is all I can remember. You won't find this in most other Xian sects.
You are probably right. They might just count baptisms and never mind that some of those haven't been in church in decades and others joined another denomination. OTOH, they all overstate so it evens out. The numbers game is a source of influence and too important to leave to facts and semantics.
I already am one. So sayeth Eddie Izzard.
There aren't agnostic or atheist mormons? Assuming I understand what you mean, I have to say you are mistaken. They do exist, and they aren't all that rare. Most of my immediate family are either agnostic or atheist and we were all raised mormon, with a long family history of being mormon in Utah. I personally discovered my lack of belief after we moved back to Utah when I was in high school.
I think mormon beliefs look especially weird to people who weren't exposed to them as children. I found catholic beliefs to be pretty strange when I started running across them - what's with the no-meat-eating-on-friday thing? And when I went through my religious research phase, I came to the conclusion all religions were weird to the same degree, and every single one had at least two or three completely bizarre ideas that just beggared belief.
If you sat in an LDS church service on Sunday, I think you would find that it looks a lot like any other denomination sunday service.
Reason enough to avoid doing so.
And that thing about the LDS renouncing polygamy? Only here on earth. Mrs. God will have many celestial sisters to help Her with the production of spirit babies.
Not sure how they expect to make the numbers work. Presumably there will be very few women in the middle layers, as the Gods will have been competing to grab every one they can.
Note that a woman has to be really compliant, etc. here on earth. Otherwise her husband won't want to call her to heaven with Him. She'll be stuck waiting around for some stranger to decide to make an offer. Or something like that.
Still, if a patriarch is going to make things up, why not stack the deck the best he can for himself, while he is at it? All the other Abrahamic patriarchs did much the same, in their time.
On Olbermann's show tonight they noted Romney's comeback remarks.
His comeback is to say he would be willing to hire Muslims...for lower level jobs...hmm.
Some comeback.
I am not trying to single out Mormonism for any reason other than the one I am putting forward now.
In the recorded history of the CJCLS, no Mormon allowed to be in power of a city, territory, or village, has failed to use the power granted to force their own superstitions upon the populace. JFK was able to allow meat to be eaten by Americans whenever they wanted. Even Reagan didn't force us to accept his idiotic and embarassing belief in astrology.
Mormons have always believed that they are going to ascend to power, and use this to force others to accept their truths. Look at Utah. A hellhole of fanaticism, where the tiny minority of Mormons control every aspect of the lives of their subjects. Oh, and they also don't really care about the rampant child-rape that goes on within their state's borders, because the command to practice polygamy, while renounced by the CofJCofLDS, still appears as a command in the "Doctrine and The Covenants", which is believed to have been dictated by God to Smith.
They are a much more dangerous breed of whack-job than theists who have had centuries for their beliefs to have ben proven silly, and who therefore follow them only tangentially.
I would like to add to our wonderfully mannered conversation that Mormons should not be thought of as "christian" in the way we normally use that term. It's something I see stated quite a bit and I believe it happens to be a common misconception. They are actually more like muslims, in the sense that they have bastardized the religion around them at the time and stated that any who are not a part of their new, slightly skewed (read: perfected) version will have no salvation. Though they may include Jesus as an integral part of their delusion, they should not be given the everyday label "christian".
When we normally think "christian", (after the laughter has subsided) we are aware of the different sects, but we are also aware that protestants do not have doctrine stating that baptists or non-denominationals for example, will not be saved. They are part of the same tent. Mormons however are not. They do not include christians and are commonly not included by christians for many reasons, not the least of which is the difference in many of their core teachings on salvation, original sin, number of gods, Jesus' divinity, etc.
The Catholics at 25% are the largest US sect....
They always overstate their numbers
This is probably true. I was conversing with a lapsed Catholic a number of years ago. He had been baptized into the RCCi (the Roman Catholic Church, Inc) as a baby. A number of years later, he wanted to renounce his "membership" in the RCCi, but the clerics refused to remove his name from their rolls.
"There aren't agnostic or atheist mormons? Assuming I understand what you mean, I have to say you are mistaken"
I think we are defining mormon two differant ways. I was raised mormon but don't consider myself mormon anymore. Hell, I tried to get them to take my name off the records, but that's a lost cause. When I think mormon I think someone who believes in the doctrines and does all the mormon crap, not just someone who is socially mormon. But again, that might be a regional thing. In my area there aren't any jack mormons to speak of, if you don't believe then you are not mormon. Of course that's when they start harassing you to 'rejoin the fold'. Even after 15 years I still get calls a couple times a year from people wanting me to come back. I have no idea how they find my number after I move...
Raven: Not to nitpick, but they actually have four afterlives. Three types of 'heaven', the terrestrial (just like earth, where most people go), telestial (better than earth, where the ok mormons go), celestial (where you become a god and get your own world) and outer darkness (cue scarey music, its basicly hell). Sweet mother of fuck, I can't believe I actually remember that shit. :)
What? There are denominations that believe you don't need to be a member of that denomination to be saved?
(But then, Catholicism has the Purgatory, so hell and heaven are not such an either-or question as for Protestants...)
Teach the Controversy!
I have made Cuttlefish lose his rhyme :.-(
Based on his own criteria, a Mormon (maybe 2% of the population, at most) is statistically unfit to lead the other 98% of the country.
(Fortunately for Mitt, the Constitution forbids such religious discrimination. If only he would read it sometime, he might know that.)
#44: cuttlefish did not lose his rhyme, he chose to haiku instead.
Don't the Mormons have a habit of retrospectively baptising every ancestor they can identify into the church? They're very big on geneology.
This is where it all begins, the story of how Cuttlefish got his groove back.
David, if you were successful in running Cuttlefish off, and he never posted here again, I'd personally lead a campaign to strip you of your OM ;)
Long live the Ink!
Mormons tend to hire other Mormons - no equal opportunity for them. There is a reason that the Federal government has to clean house in Utah every several years - when Mormons assume hiring roles, they hire people they know from their wards or stakes. I think Romney is going to put a lot of Mormons in the second and third tier of appointed office in exec branch. Then, pull a GHW Bush and try to move as many as possible into the career workforce.
It wouldn't happen over night, but if Romney is elected, Theocracy won't be far behind.
Umm...yes? The church I grew up in was very ecumenical. As long as you say the magic words to Jayzus Lawrd and agree to be his slave forever, the specific songs and wine/grape juice and when/how to baptize and words of praise and affirmation didn't matter in the least whether you get to heaven. My brother's a Lutheran, though we grew up RCA, and it's a complete non-issue.
Romney's answer was just weird. He could have said that he didn't view a person's religion as relevant to a potential Cabinet position. He could have said that if he wanted someone on his Cabinet, he wouldn't let their being a Muslim stop him from appointing them. But this reference to the number of Muslims in the country makes it sound as if he is thinking in terms of representing the demographics of the country. I'm reminded of James Watt's infamous comment about his staff in 1983, "I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple."
So what? People have killed each other over the iota that distinguishes homoousios from homoiousios.
Also, the virgins are 77, not 17.
Oh, so the e at the end of hypocrite is a bad joke, like that at the end of intestine?
<long, drawn-out snarl with exposed canine teeth>
This guy is right. The English orthography doesn't need a reform, it needs a bloody revolution.
BTW, Cuttlefish, you committed a hypercorrectivism. "Who, some thought, was pure hypocrite" is correct, because he, not him, was. :-)
What? There are denominations that believe you don't need to be a member of that denomination to be saved?
(But then, Catholicism has the Purgatory, so hell and heaven are not such an either-or question as for Protestants...)
I have made Cuttlefish lose his rhyme :.-(