Romney/Kyl '08

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

I find it infinitely hilarious how Jews (sometimes not so) quietly despise the insidious overtures of creepy Mormons.

[Diogenes]

I find it infinitely hilarious how Jews (sometimes not so) quietly despise the insidious overtures of creepy Mormons.

What is hilarious is an anti-semetic twit like you claiming to understand what Jews think or feel about anything.

[Terry in Crapchester]

Dream on, losers. Just because the Dems are a bunch of anti-religious bigots, doesn't mean squat. Romney's Mormonism will matter to less than 1% of the GOP once he's nominated and they find out what he's about instead of the leftist spin on him.

It's the thumpers, not the Dems, who care about his religion. I couldn't care less that Romney is a Mormon. I do care that he's a ninny and a twit, and that's why I wouldn't vote for him.

Care to place a sig bet on whether Romney is your nominee?

[Dinsdale]

I couldn't care less that Romney is a Mormon.

If a person was duped out of their cash by the Golden Plates and that bit how Jesus took a detour through North America after his "second chance" to come and smite down a bunch of people that there's absolutely no evidence that ever existed...


you have no business running a convenience store, much less a country.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

If a person was duped out of their cash by the Golden Plates and that bit how Jesus took a detour through North America after his "second chance" to come and smite down a bunch of people that there's absolutely no evidence that ever existed...


you have no business running a convenience store, much less a country.

Your country did fall for the WMD/Saddam-did-9-11 thing though...

Maybe Dio is right and you should start stocking up on your magical underpants now.

[Terry in Crapchester]

I couldn't care less that Romney is a Mormon.

If a person was duped out of their cash by the Golden Plates and that bit how Jesus took a detour through North America after his "second chance" to come and smite down a bunch of people that there's absolutely no evidence that ever existed...


you have no business running a convenience store, much less a country.

I see your point, but . . .

If you want to dig enough, you'll find something goofy about just about every religion on the face of the planet. As a semi-lapsed Catholic, I didn't want to go down that road. Glass houses, and what not.

And we all know an atheist can't be elected President.

And fwiw, a few years back, I was at the State Fair when I decided to fill out a form for geneological (sp?) information. Unfortunately, I neglected to read the fine print, and it turned out the information in question was being supplied by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Anyhoo . . .

My first encounter with the Mormons came that fall. My wife had gotten this antique dresser from somewhere, free if you take it away. She thought she had gotten a good deal, until we tried to get it in the house and realized the damn thing weighed about two bills, and it was pretty bulky as well. So there we are, struggling to get it up the front porch and into the house, when these Mormon missionaries happened upon us. The conversation went something like this:

Them: Do you need help?
Me: We really can't impose on you like that.
Them: No, really, we don't mind helping.
Me: Well, if that's the way you feel about it, okay.

So four of them pick it up like it's nothing. All I had to do was show them where to put it.

Later on that day, I'm out in the yard raking leaves, and they come back and ask if they can help. By that time, I'm feeling REALLY guilty, so I politely decline.

Anyway, these missionaries (who all got rotated through) would come visit us periodically for the next, I dunno, three or four years. I think they finally realized that we weren't buying what they were selling, and that's when they stopped coming around. I should also mention that for a time, I was employed by a law firm which happened to be located in the town which is the birthplace of the Mormon religion. Of course, for one week every summer Mormons from around the world would descend on this town for the annual Hill Cumorah pageant. So I've probably had a little more exposure to Mormons than most on this board.

By and large, based on my experience it seems that Mormons are unfailingly nice people. Eerily nice, even, at times. Niceness begets niceness, and that being the case, I didn't have it in me to tell them that I found their system of belief to be incredibly loopy.

[Mike the Lab Rat]

Here's the text of an excellent article from National Review Online on the hypocrisy of non-Mormon Christians who criticize the irrationality of Romney's faith:

Rational Questions
Religious issues.

By Jason Lee Steorts
December 7, 2007

Let’s conduct a little thought experiment.

Imagine that scientists in a lab have engineered a perfectly rational robot. This robot appears human in every way: He speaks articulately and spontaneously, is capable of advanced learning, and can pass for human in all social commerce.

The only difference between the robot and human beings is that the robot is perfectly rational. “Rationality” is here defined as the refusal to form beliefs without having sufficient reason to think they are true. It is the nature of reasons that they are capable of clear expression. To believe something rationally is to be able to say why you believe it — and to say so in such a way that an intelligent listener would understand how the “why” supports the belief.

Now imagine yourself trying to persuade our perfectly rational robot that the following statement is true:

Everything was created by an all-powerful and all-knowing being who exists outside of space and time. This being impregnated a human woman through non-physical means and was born as her offspring. Within space and time, the being was executed as a criminal and spent three days in a tomb. But then it came back to life and went up to a place called Heaven, which we cannot detect or observe. We eat this being’s body once a week. By doing this — and sundry other things, such as getting sprinkled with water by a man in a robe who utters an incantation, or telling the man in the robe all the bad things we do — by doing this, we too can go to Heaven after our own bodies come up out of their graves.

What will you tell the robot? Can you marshal empirical evidence demonstrating that these claims are true? Can you show their truth by logic alone?

Think about that for a moment; and then ask yourself whether you would be willing to vote for a Catholic.

Of course, I could just as easily have written a mainline Protestant or an evangelical version of the statement above. We could tell the robot we believe the Bible in toto, Noah and his ark, Jonah and his fish, bears eating boys because they called a man bald, the whole thing. But could we explain what reason we have to think that the Bible is true? Alternatively, we could tell the robot that much of the Bible is metaphor and myth, but that the big things are true: There really is a God, and a Resurrection, and a Heaven for our Immortal Souls, and all that. But will we have an answer when the robot asks: “How do you know which parts of the Bible are true and which aren’t?”

We can’t say, “Because we feel in our heart that certain things are true.” That isn’t a reason: It doesn’t allow the robot — or anyone else, including us — to understand how whatever it is we feel counts as evidence for whatever it is we believe. And we can’t get off the hook by saying, “Look, I believe in lots of things I can’t demonstrate to you. Atoms, for example.” We may not be able to persuade our robot that atoms exist, but we can call in quantum physicists to do the job, and their explanation will be clear and rational. Has anyone in the history of the world explained clearly and rationally how a virgin birth works?

Let’s keep things simple and stick with god, lower-case. I invite any reader to e-mail me what he would say to convince the robot that there exists a god of any sort. Aspirants should consult the efforts of, among others, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant before improving on them. (“Improving”: There is a depressing philosophical consensus that those guys failed. You can disagree — but the robot will make you say why.)

***

Try to keep the robot in mind as you hear commentary on Mitt Romney and Mormonism. Lots of people take it as a given that Mormonism is nuts; the tolerant ones just think this shouldn’t keep Mitt out of the White House. Many who hold the “Mormonism is nuts” position are religious themselves — and they’re the ones I find hardest to understand. I suspect that, almost to a man, they are (1) incapable of rationally defending their own beliefs and (2) completely unaware of how deeply irrational — in the sense of “rationality” given above — those beliefs are.

Which of the following ideas requires the bigger leap of faith: that a resurrected Christ appeared to ancient inhabitants of the Americas, or that the dead can come forth from their tombs at all? That the Garden of Eden was in Missouri, or that there was a Garden of Eden? Why do so many people scoff at the notion that an angel spoke to Joseph Smith, but accept without question that angels spoke to men and women in the Bible? (And since when is it rational to believe in angels?)

Shall we put the history of Mormonism on trial, too? Do we have a hard time voting for Mitt because his church practiced polygamy a hundred years ago, or withheld its priesthood from black men until 1978? Yes? A politician whose church has burned heretics at the stake, on the other hand . . .

You get the idea. People look on Mormonism with skepticism and contempt not because its doctrines are uniquely irrational, but because it is young and obscure. Miracles are easier to accept when viewed from the safe distance of two or three millennia; they have no business in James Monroe’s America. And familiarity with hoary old concepts — God, Resurrection, Heaven — desensitizes us to just how philosophically radical they are.

My intent is not to disparage anyone’s religion. But if you are religious, and you don’t see how an intelligent person could believe what Mitt Romney does, I suggest you think long and hard about the extent to which your own beliefs can be justified by reason. Then try to remember what Jesus said about motes and beams.

Steorts makes some excellent points. For those of us who declare themselves mainline Christians (myself included) to argue that Mormon beliefs are so irrational as to exclude Romney from holding office is completely hypocritical.

The only way that I could see his Mormonism being a legitimate issue is if someone could rationally argue that Romney would make policy decisions based largely or solely on his LDS faith. I really don't see that happening, and he has even made a point of stating that it wouldn't happen.

I'm going to make a point of checking out Romney's actual actions from his time in office and his proposals and make my decision based upon THOSE.

Huckabee, OTOH, I definitely see as someone who would place his demented beliefs (Earth only a few thousand years old, literal creationism, not believing that humans are primates, attacking others' faith and using his own to get votes) prominently in making policy decisions (e.g. science funding, education). Huckabee has made a point of making his beliefs and devotion to them an issue in gaining support with evangelicals. Huckabee is a frigging menace, and his support from whackass fundies just cements that in my mind. Toss in the dirty laundry from his time in office in Arkansas, and I don't see the GOP making him their nominee.

[Dr_Phibes]

Later on that day, I'm out in the yard raking leaves, and they come back and ask if they can help. By that time, I'm feeling REALLY guilty, so I politely decline.

I would have put those wankers to work all right, what an opportunity.

Dunderhead Terry.

[smackaholic]

how commie like of you phibes. those poor mormons would be shackled before they knew it.

[smackaholic]

terry,

'splain to me how mormon beliefs are more "loopy" than catholic beliefs.

Just because there are wayyyyyyy more catholics, it doesn't mean they're any less whacky.

I was born and baptized catholic, but, like many others look at THE church as pretty fukked up. If I was to find jesus one of these days, I doubt very much it would be as a catholic. Would it be mormon? Prolly not, but, if I had to go with one of the two, it would be the latter.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

I would have put those wankers to work all right, what an opportunity.

Dunderhead Terry.

I wouldn't doubt a statist like you to pass up the opportunity to exploit workers.

I'm sure you have some "great ideas" on how hard work should be parcelled out.

[Dr_Phibes]

Yeah, sure.

The Mormons wouldn't accept wages, so there is no exploitation taking place.
Terry could have had his lawn cleaned up for him and he declined.

Rack this thread, I should call up some Mormons and they can come clean away the shit that the lumpen-proletariat pile up against my front door every night. Most mornings I can't get passed it.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

You put the "Boo!" in bourgeois.

Pyongyang (AP) - A seven-year-old Pyongyang, North Korea boy was at the center of a Pyongyang courtroom drama yesterday when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him. The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with child custody law and regulations requiring that family unity be maintained to the degree possible. The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her. When the judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried out that they also beat him. After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him. After two recesses to check legal references and confer with child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the Pyongyang Gymnastics Team, whom the boy firmly believes are not capable of beating anyone.

[Dr_Phibes]

But Marxists, Communists, expose this hypocrisy, and tell the workers and the working people in general this frank and straightforward truth: the democratic republic, the Constituent Assembly, general elections, etc., are, in practice, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and for the emancipation of labor from the yoke of capital there is no other way but to replace this dictatorship with the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The dictatorship of the proletariat alone can emancipate humanity from the oppression of capital, from the lies, falsehood and hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy — democracy for the rich — and establish democracy for the poor, that is, make the blessings of democracy really accessible [...]

^^V.I. Lenin^^

So if Terry got those half wits to paint his fence or mow his lawn, it would in fact be a revolutionary action.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, hippie.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

"It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull."

H. L. Mencken

[smackaholic]

But Marxists, Communists, expose this hypocrisy, and tell the workers and the working people in general this frank and straightforward truth: the democratic republic, the Constituent Assembly, general elections, etc., are, in practice, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and for the emancipation of labor from the yoke of capital there is no other way but to replace this dictatorship with the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The dictatorship of the proletariat alone can emancipate humanity from the oppression of capital, from the lies, falsehood and hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy — democracy for the rich — and establish democracy for the poor, that is, make the blessings of democracy really accessible [...]

^^V.I. Lenin^^

So if Terry got those half wits to paint his fence or mow his lawn, it would in fact be a revolutionary action.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, hippie.

no, it would be the action of a lazy piece of shit looking to get something for nothing. decent folks call that theft, but, i guess since there was no actual exchange of money, you're good with it, huh?

[Dr_Phibes]

no, it would be the action of a lazy piece of shit looking to get something for nothing. decent folks call that theft, but, i guess since there was no actual exchange of money, you're good with it, huh?

No, Terry would be expropriating the expropriator.

When Terry said this:

I think they finally realized that we weren't buying what they were selling, and that's when they stopped coming around.

So when the mormons realised that Terry wasn't interested in servicing the mormon church, their helpfulness came to a screeching halt. They recognise only 'Terry the potential Mormon' rather than 'Terry the member of society'. They were looking to exploit him, so he would have every right to have them come round and scrub his kitchen floor for as long as he could get away with it, IMHO.

[Terry in Crapchester]

terry,

'splain to me how mormon beliefs are more "loopy" than catholic beliefs.

Just because there are wayyyyyyy more catholics, it doesn't mean they're any less whacky.

I was born and baptized catholic, but, like many others look at THE church as pretty fukked up. If I was to find jesus one of these days, I doubt very much it would be as a catholic. Would it be mormon? Prolly not, but, if I had to go with one of the two, it would be the latter.

If I gave you a long, drawn-out answer to this, the thread probably ought to be split into the forum I moderate. With that being said, I'll simply point you to the initial part of my response to Dins' post:

I see your point, but . . .

If you want to dig enough, you'll find something goofy about just about every religion on the face of the planet. As a semi-lapsed Catholic, I didn't want to go down that road. Glass houses, and what not.

And we all know an atheist can't be elected President.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Catholicism isn't "loopy".

It's heretical.

[Cuda]

Catholicism isn't "loopy".

It's heretical.

Only post-Vatican II.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Catholicism isn't "loopy".

It's heretical.

Only post-Vatican II.

Wrong.

[Cuda]

Bullshit! YOU'RE wrong.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

You are wrong about me being wrong.

[Cuda]

Nuh-uhhh!

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Yuh-huhhh!

[Cuda]

Uhhh-ummmmmm!

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

WRONG x

[Cuda]

Well you're WRONG x Infinity[sup]2[/sup]

So there!

[Terry in Crapchester]

Catholicism isn't "loopy".

It's heretical.

Only post-Vatican II.

Saying Mass in the vernacular, with the Priest facing the congregants, is heretical?

And to address Perk's point, if Catholicism is heretical, what would that make Mormonism?

[Cuda]

a cult. pay attention/try & keep up... etc, etc...

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

a cult. pay attention/try & keep up... etc, etc...

~ golf clap ~