Posted on 02/14/2007 7:48:30 PM PST by Utah Girl
The fact that Mitt Romney is a Mormon is no secret. Scads of stories have been written about that very fact, and it's a regular topic of conversation among Washington's chattering class.
What effect Romney's religion will have on his chances at winning the 2008 Republican presidential nomination is much less clear. Some argue that evangelical voters, a core part of the GOP coalition, will never accept a Mormon candidate as one of their own. Others believe Romney's religion will become a non-issue as the campaign wears on.
Who's right? It's still too early to tell, but a look at recent survey data on the Mormon question suggests that Romney faces real skepticism about his religion among the Republican primary voters he needs to woo over the coming year. Thanks to Washington Post pollster extraordinaire Jon Cohen, we have all that information at our fingertips.
Let's parse the polls!
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.washingtonpost.com ...
Um. OK. Abortion won't fly. I'm having trouble with the whole health care system, but sure don't want for our country what they have in England and Canada. It would be worse here, far worse, gangbangers would get preferential treatment over us regular folk, sound outlandish? Maybe. Gunshot wounds need triage and should go first, but their destructive behvavior is already sucking resources from the system that are affecting people who don't engage in those behaviors, very costly to society. Now the other group, we can't turn them away for valid emergencies; it would just be too inhumane, but it is causing problems, too. Being a smoker, I probably don't "deserve" health care at all. That's my one vice like that and is destructive behavior.
Now the guns. I have a problem with that. Some people ought not to have access to them, like that shooter in SLC. But I want stable people to be able to own guns to defend their families when crazies break into their homes or even out in public for that matter. I'm not inclined to violence, but if somebody broke into my home, I'd have no qualms about shooting them. If I had a gun. Personally, I'd like a look at what I was dealing with first, if possible, wouldn't want to shoot blindly some drunk or kid who got goofy, but having it as a threat without shooting might help. Police can get places fast, but not fast enough, and things are going to get worse; they can cut phone lines, cell phone batteries can go dead on you, etc. Big bunch of if's.
Amazing how the left is trying to make an issue out of this but totally ignores the politicians who are members of the ideology that condones death to infidels.
It's hard to tell though how much of the anti-mormon sentiment is not simply a way to tear down a strong opponent, from FReepers who support a different candidate.
It is unfair for people to lump them all together. But for Mormons to go out of their way to say that they are not Mormon is silly. Just say they are some fundie group. That makes a lot more sense than trying to argue that they aren't Mormon. NO one believes that."
People will believe as they wish, but don't tell a Mormon that these fringe nut-case groups are LDS (Mormon). Many of these groups are filled with nutjobs who "convert" from all over the country to get the young women. Many Mormons are just as disgusted by polygamy as anyone else. And yes, many in my family are Mormons (and Catholics and Baptists and Lutherans and you name it).
Thank you for your comments. That is all I ask of anyone who believes in Christ, our Savior.
Source? That's a new one I haven't heard.
I've heard this one mentioned many times. I didn't need a source, but I found some for you.
Michael Marquardt and Wesley P. Walters.
Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record
In June 1828 Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of Mormonism, joined the Methodist Church [probationary class] in Harmony, Pennsylvania. This was a strange thing for this prophet of a new religion to do, and seriously challenges the story he put out ten years later about the origin of his work.
That later story claims that in 1820 Joseph Smith had seen two glorious personages, identified as the Father and the Son, and was informed that the creeds of all the "sects," or various denominations, "were an abomination" and he was twice forbidden to join any of them.
In retelling this same tale to Alexander Neibaur on May 24, 1844, Joseph specifically singled out the Methodist Church as being unworthy of his membership. Mr. Neibaur's diary recorded the divine warning as related by Joseph: "Mr. Smith then asked must I join the Methodist Church - No - they are not my People. They have gone astray there is none that doeth good no not one." (quoted in The Improvement Era, April 1970, p.12).
Perhaps the death of his first-born son on June 15, 1828 induced him to seek membership in the church his wife had belonged to since she was seven years old. Joseph had told his neighbor, Joshua McKune, that "his (Smith's) first born child was to translate the characters and hieroglyphics upon the plates, into our language, at the age of three years." (The Susquehanna Register, May 1, 1834, p.1). When this child died at birth instead, and his wife's life also hung in danger, Smith may have considered entirely abandoning his project of writing a book and decided to join the Methodist Church. At least Martin Harris later told Rev. Ezra Booth that when he went to Pennsylvania to see Joseph about the translation that "Joseph had given it up on account of the opposition of his wife and others," and Martin "told Joseph, 'I have not come down here for nothing, we will go on with it.' " (The Story of the Mormons, by William Alexander Linn, New York: Macmillan Co. 1902, p.36).
The young prophet's roll as a Methodist member did not last very long, however - only three days according to statements made by his wife's cousins, Joseph and Hiel Lewis. In their local newspaper at Amboy, Illinois they told of their earlier years with Joseph Smith in Pennsylvania and of his uniting with their Methodist class:
He presented himself in a very serious and humble manner, and the minister, not suspecting evil, put his name on the class book, in the absence of some of the official members. (The Amboy Journal, Amboy, Illinois, April 30, 1879, p.1). The rest of this page is found at the link below.
http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/josephsmithmethodist.htm
You project and see duplicity where none exists.Using quotations from different sources seems to upset you.
How about some logic?
Jesus tells the disciples to spread his gospel, but... they waver and retreat to the synagogue and commune with those who killed Jesus. Are they following God's orders? Would a LOGICAL God accept such wavering and not notice it?
Smith fumbled and fumbled and fumbled. And rightly so. It is hard to make up a religion out of whole cloth, esecially given his ignorance of all things that are holy in the eyes of God.
I was struck by the too many words Joe used in his book taken directly from the King James Bible, and which had opposite meanings in his day to when they were placed in the KJV from the Septuagint (a glitch in the 'translator stones'?). That sure looked like Joe was converting KJV into Book of Mormon, so he didn't really make it all up from whole cloth ... and we won't even get into the novel he 'borrowed' from regarding a race of people in the Americas shipwrecked from Egypt. Using KJV language made it sound so much more 'official' don'tchaknow.
I better use a better reference? And just who are you to make demands on me, especially when it comes to the contents of my post. You are exceedingly rude.
Let's turn it around...
YOU BETTER USE A BETTER REFERENCE THAN THE Book of Mormon.
Borrowing from the KJV is one thing. But he did it badly. The grammar in which the BOM was written is not really of high quality.
When one reads from the Bible, it does have a certain style that we all recognize. Believeing that the Holy Bible is the Word of God does portray the language in the Bible in a significant light. I am one who believes that the Bible does not have errors, and that it was written by God. It stands alone among all literature.
I don't believe man can create a better Bible. And to attempt to do so is heresy.
I am rude??! You tell me to use some logic, and I do. I answer your accusation and comparison to Joseph Smith / Methodists and Christ going among the synagoges to commune with those who killed Jesus, the Jews. Christ himself said "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." Why would he not go among the unbelieving, that's what His gospel is all about.
I use New Testament examples to refute your hostile point and you accuse me of both being rude and using Book of Mormon passages. Just where does it end with you? You obviously missed these references form the BOOK of ACTS, not the BOM, so let me post them again.
Acts 19:8
And he went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God.
Acts 18:26
And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.
Acts 18:19
And he came to Ephesus, and left them there: but he himself entered into the synagogue, and reasoned with the Jews
Acts 18:8
And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized. Acts 18:4
And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.
Acts 14:1
And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed.
Acts 13:42
And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.
Acts 13:15
And after the reading of the law and the prophets the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. I don't need to go on, there are dozens more.
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