Posted on 06/23/2007 1:28:02 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
(AP) SALT LAKE CITY -- Mitt Romney said Saturday that criticism of his Mormon religion by rival GOP presidential campaigns is happening too frequently.
“Clearly, any derogatory comments about anyone’s faith—those comments are troubling. The fact they keep on coming up is even more troubling,” Romney said during a fundraising trip in the home state of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Mormon church is one of the fastest-growing religions and claims about 12.5 million members worldwide. But many evangelical Christians in crucial primary states such as Iowa and South Carolina consider the faith a cult.
Romney’s remarks follow an apology from GOP rival John McCain’s campaign for comments about the Mormon church allegedly made this year by a volunteer.
Also recently, Republican presidential hopeful, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, issued a similar apology for a campaign worker’s e-mail to Iowa Republican leaders that was an apparent attempt to draw unfavorable scrutiny of Romney’s religion. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani apologized after the New York Sun noted that a campaign aide had forwarded to a blogger a story about unofficial Mormon lore. Legend has it that a Mormon would save the Constitution, the story said. The campaign aide passed the story along with a note: “Thought you’d find this interesting.”
Romney said in a large presidential race there always will be some volunteers or workers who cannot be controlled. But he said the difference between derogatory comments that originated from the McCain campaign and others is that the Arizona senator has not personally apologized to him.
“In the case of Senator Brownback and Mayor Giuliani ... they called immediately. They each spoke with me personally. I don’t have any issue with that at all,” Romney said.
He said McCain “can do whatever he feels is the right thing. There’s no need for me to suggest how people respond to things that go on in the campaign.”
Tucker Bounds, a McCain campaign spokesman, said the McCain campaign has already apologized.
“It’s a very sincere apology. There is absolutely no place for those type of comments in our campaign,” he said.
Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, said he had not spoken with McCain since the last presidential debate, on June 5.
Romney used a fundraiser hosted by Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller to criticize the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. It banned unregulated, unlimited contributions from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals to national political parties and federal candidates.
“The bill ought to be repealed,” he said. “It’s been the wrong course for American campaigns.”
Romney said he favors unlimited donations as long as they are immediately disclosed on the Internet.
Romney was attending fundraisers in Salt Lake City and in Logan on Saturday.
There is no planet Kolob. Mormons do not believe this. There’s no way this could be possible and me not know about it. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of it.
I’m sorry, it’s impossible.
They do believe that native americans are the lost tribes of israel(I think). It’s been quite a few years for me. these are very old memories. They believe there were white people in south america that were exterminated by the dark skinned people. The book of mormon was suposedly written by these extinct white people. They do believe that each of us has the POTENTIAL to someday become a god and have is own planet and create souls to worship him. They believe that the holy trinity is three separate entities each self aware and godlike. They believe that god the father has many many planets of humans and that our planet earth is assigned to the care of his son jesus. There is only one such planet in care of jesus. WE are unique in that respect. Earth is like a training assignment for jesus. We are destined to always be his favorites since we are his first. Mormons do tend to believe in UFOs. They do believe that some or at least one of the bible prophets was visited by a space ship. I can’t recall specifics on this.
Now, I didn’t look any of this up on the screwy internet. This all comes from memory. It is a little fuzzy so I can’t guarantee accuracy.
~”No objection to Jewish candidates here.
Hindu? Fine. Buddhist, Rastafarian, Atheist? Fine.
Muslim? No way.”~
The funny thing about this is that we Mormons are a lot closer in our beliefs to Orthodox Christianity than, say, Jews.
And yet, evidently, we are barred by some from the highest office of the land on religious grounds that Jews, Buddhists, etc. pass.
This speaks to a specific intolerance of Mormons that has little to do with rational thought.
~”This is a hypothetical.
Were Mr LaVey an otherwise perfect conservative candidate, would you or would you not consider his religion an issue?”~
Goodness, Enosh, that’s a lot like asking, “Knowing what you know today, would you still invade Iraq?”
False. Jews in no way blaspheme the Father as you Mormons do.
So, if Google brings it up, it’s true?
~”Especially the part where men are supposed to live on the moon.”~
Joseph Smith never taught this. This accusation is based on rumors about what Joseph Smith might have once said.
Get your facts straight, please, before you spew them forth. For us members of the LDS Church, posts such as these entirely eliminate any credibility you have, and radically change how we are predisposed to interact with you. In short, you don’t convince anybody by propagating falsehoods.
~”You really think Romney wants people to search “Mormon Religion” on the Internet?”~
I Googled it out of curiosity, and the results are actually pretty good.
“I Googled it out of curiosity, and the results are actually pretty good.”
Some of the hits come up quite strange from what I saw.
That concept sounds vaguely Vedic (old Hinduism).
Hmmm. A white mans religion? Great, that will really help him get votes /sarcasm.
No one can accuse Christianity of being exclusively for white people when Jesus wasn't white (well, not European).
“I’m sorry, you are off your rocker on this one. I’ve had extensive experience with the mormon religion...relatives are mormon, some RLDS, as a kid I occasionally went to mormon sunday school...was in the scouting program through the mormon church.”
OK, you’ve just claimed I’m off my rocker. How about you and I put up a thousand dollars and see who is for real nutto as far as past experiences go. I’ll get my list of crooked Mormons together and we can go visit them.
“There is no planet Kolob. Mormons do not believe this.”
They sure as hell do. From wikipedia:
The first known reference to Kolob is found in the Book of Abraham, published in the LDS volume of scripture entitled the Pearl of Great Price. The Book of Abraham was dictated by founder Joseph Smith, Jr. as he read from Egyptian scrolls that accompanied a traveling mummy exhibition. When this show passed through Smith’s town of Kirtland, Ohio in 1835, Smith was approached about the scrolls based on his reputation for having published what he said were translations of ancient texts such as the golden plates. According to Smith, the scrolls described a vision of Abraham, in which Abraham:
“saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God;....and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.” (Book of Abraham 3:2-3.)
In an explanation of an Egyptian hypocephalus that was part of the Book of Abraham scrolls, Joseph Smith interpreted one set of hieroglyphics as representing:
“Kolob, signifying the first creation, nearest to the celestial, or the residence of God. First in government, the last pertaining to the measurement of time. The measurement according to celestial time, which celestial time signifies one day to a cubit. One day in Kolob is equal to a thousand years according to the measurement of this earth, which is called by the Egyptians Jah-oh-eh.” (Book of Abraham, Facsimile 2, Figure #1 explanation.)
“There’s no way this could be possible and me not know about it. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of it.”
Apparently because you are off your rocker.
“I’m sorry, it’s impossible.”
You think Kolob is impossible, wait till you get to seer stones, magic underwear, the translation of Egyptian funery scrolls, three dollar bills and the brass ball that brought the Jews to America on a ship they built in 600 BC.
“They do believe that native americans are the lost tribes of israel(I think). It’s been quite a few years for me. these are very old memories. They believe there were white people in south america that were exterminated by the dark skinned people. The book of mormon was suposedly written by these extinct white people.”
Well, obviously anyone sane enough to believe Indians are Jews has got to be more sane than me.
“They do believe that each of us has the POTENTIAL to someday become a god and have is own planet and create souls to worship him.”
Which I believe too. That’s why I committed suicide this morning “for the good of mankind”, and came back as a God to rule my planet Earth. And you are calling me off my rocker.
“They believe that the holy trinity is three separate entities each self aware and godlike. They believe that god the father has many many planets of humans and that our planet earth is assigned to the care of his son jesus. There is only one such planet in care of jesus. WE are unique in that respect. Earth is like a training assignment for jesus. We are destined to always be his favorites since we are his first.”
Well, when you put it that way, they seem Almost montheistic.
“Mormons do tend to believe in UFOs. They do believe that some or at least one of the bible prophets was visited by a space ship. I can’t recall specifics on this.”
I haven’t even addressed that issue. But now that you mention it, that is obviously another sign that everything I say comes from pure bigotry based on nothing. After all, anyone who believes in UFO’s must be a nice person.
“Now, I didn’t look any of this up on the screwy internet. This all comes from memory. It is a little fuzzy so I can’t guarantee accuracy.”
Thanks for holding me to a higher degree of accuracy, while at the same time claiming I’m off my rocker. I guess this shows who is telling the truth.
“So, if Google brings it up, it’s true?”
Not at all, you just have to have a higher than third grade education to sort out the good from the bad. Of course you know FreeRepublic is Google-able, does that make everything here false?
And besides, there is now more true information on the Internet than in most (if not all) libraries just 15 years ago. I mean, get with the information age. My business is 85% Internet based and is highly info intensive, I couldn’t operate if I couldn’t sort out fact from fiction.
One of the first things that made me go “hmmm” as a youngster regarding the mormon religion was their flip flop on blacks. At one time, blacks were blocked from holding any position in mormon churches. Mormons believed something like this...cain slew able and god cursed him (cain) with black skin. Black skin in humans is a genetic carryover of that curse on cain. The purpose of the black skin was to mark him and his offspring for ease of ostracizing. The fact that this black marker survived is a result of people not fully carrying out their duty of ostracization. Black skin should have died out thousands of years ago or at least been restricted to wilderness regions in very small numbers. The mormons decided to take half measures and allow blacks in the church but limit their participation and responsibilities...not a true ostracizing, but they made a good show so as not to anger god I guess is how they reasoned it.
But in the 70s, I think, they buckled under pressure from the civil rights people and erased all their restrictions on blacks.
What I got to thinking as a kid was this...if it was SO RIGHT that god would disapprove of us not ostracizing those with the mark of cain, then how and why is it possible that this could be repealed? Did god just suddenly change his mind? What gives?
Now, again I need to add the disclaimer that I cannot guarantee accuracy of these facts. This all comes strictly from memory and I was quite young. I don't trust any sources to NOT lie about the subject, so I am not going to look any of this up. It would be futile to do so in my opinion.
~”We live in an age when honest disagreements about docrine are religious bigotry.”~
I reject that. Disagree with me all you want; and I’ll take liberty to disagree with you.
But when you take the fact that I’m LDS and use it to attribute to me characteristics that disqualify me from worthiness to participate as an equal with you in society, that is religious bigotry. This is precisely what many of the anti-Mormons are doing to Romney.
“I assume that Romney is a fine man and cannot look into his heart, but if he is truly a committed Mormon he cannot be a christian.”
That is an incredibly narrow and parochial point of view. Mormons are not Orthodox Christians - but we are Christians. Only one Being has the right to make the judgment that we are not, and you are not Him.
If he wins the nomination, watch for that to become part of the anti-Mormonism whispering campaign. He's Mormon, so he's probably racist. As someone who isn't white and not religious, what I'd like to know is this - how much of Mormonism does he actually believe? I ask that because plenty of people who claim to be religious don't subscribe to a literal interpretation of their faith. Does he really believe in the Thetans? If so, I think he's too stupid to be Prez. Does he really believe black skin is a curse? If so, too bigoted and dangerous. And so on...
I don’t know what you mean by your list of crooked mormons. I don’t know what you mean by putting up a thousand dollars. Are you referring to a wager? That’s a little weird.
I should also add that many of my relatives were also lutheran and presbyterian. I went to church with my grandparents to a nondenominational church. Near as I can tell, this church was lutheranish.
Magic underwear? Get real man.
This is a man who, according to his website, believes that Russia is just waiting for LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley to die so they can launch a first strike at the US based on the writings of Nostradamus. Of the Google links you posted, the first group of listings that come up all refer to the White Horse Prophecy as "discredited" and this from LDS sources. So, my question becomes: just what is your standard for discerning the good from the bad?
If you’re going to issue slams, MHG, at least be above-board about it.
Dude you are totally confusing your cults. Thetans are what scientologists believe in, they are the spirits of aliens dropped into volcanoes in Hawaii to die by the evil Lord Xenu. Laminites are what the Mormons believe in, they are American Indian tribes of Jewish people who came to the United States in 600 BC from Judah.
Doh! *slaps forehead*
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