Posted on 10/04/2007 9:40:06 AM PDT by greyfoxx39
When Mitt Romney appeared last week (via closed circuit from California) before the Council of Retired Chief Executives meeting in Washington, he faced kindred souls: rich Republicans who had managed big enterprises. Yet the second question from the audience was whether Romney's Mormon faith was hurting his quest for the Republican presidential nomination. He replied that about the only people who brought up his religion were members of the media, an answer that simply is untrue.
Romney is asked about Mormonism wherever he goes. In my travels, I find his religious preference cited everywhere as the source of opposition to his candidacy. His response to the former chief executives that only reporters care about this issue sounded like a politician's tired evasion. Romney was either too obtuse to appreciate his problem or was stalling because he had not determined how to deal with it. Contact with his advisers indicates that it's the latter.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I'm a lifelong Catholic Christian and I see no difference between "mainline" Protestants and so-called "Evangelical"Protestants. They're all just Protestants to me,and I classify Christians by what denomination they are(Baptist,Methodist,Lutheran,etc.),not whether they "evangelize". Harriet Miers is supposedly "evangelical" and she's as secular as you can get.If she counts as "evangelical",anyone is. Jimmy Carter ran as Mr. Born Again and he not only tolerates any form of "Christian",he's buddies with gays,abortionists,and Muslim Jihadists.
If the above people are "Evangelical",I doubt we have to worry about "Evangelicals" reacting to Romney any differently than other protestants, Catholics, and Americans in general.
No, I don't believe that anyone can prove the existence of God. You claim to have evidence via Thermodynamics and logic. Needless to say I am not going to hold my breath waiting for your evidence : )
You are right humility and ego are not the same thing. I did not say they were. What I said was the belief in God was the same, are you always this confused?
I am still waiting for you to tell me your religion. I can only assume by your continued refusal to answer that simple question that you either have no core beliefs or you are ashamed to share them and defend them. Which is it?
And I assert you are irrational, the same as any other atheist, whether it is Hitler or Stalin or Mao.
How are you equating being irrational with Hitler, Stalin or Mao?
Restornu LeGrande are saying you want to censor others view point?
FastCoyote is simply lying, I have never called for the censorship of the anti's. I enjoy examining their beliefs and making them look silly. I did ask at the beginning of this thread if it was germane to always attack the Mormon religion on a political thread, but I did not ask for anyone to be censored. My reply was because MGHinTN (one of the cabal members) was hollering for Jim Robinson to intervene.
My intent and desire is to always let people freely express themselves. How can I dissect their beliefs if they don't? Interestingly enough FastCoyote is particularly reticent in disclosing his actual beliefs even though he claims that is his purpose. I have asked FastCoyote repeatedly what he believes and he has refused to answer.
:^)
Hideously Unconscious radar blip!!
Lost - as in just wandering around; or LOST! meaning not saved by Christ?
HMMmm...
I wonder what it's called when SOMEone's beliefs are EXPOSED?
You failed to count the money back into SOMEone’s hand, and they THINK they’re being shortchanged!
SOMEone is going to call the Manager over!
There's that HTT thing again.
I can say lost as in wandering around without a clue. Salvation is a thing that is worked out on one’s knees in prayer and in repentence. I have no information on his salvation prospects.
Don’t speak latin,don’t believe in Roman religions.
HTT? I assume it means something bad :( I will freely admit that I am a very bad person and a fool too :) I am actually a bona fide member of the Motley Fools.
FC:But you believe in the Not-God God, which is a religion as well. And no, humility and ego are not the same. So you are guilty of fallacies as great as anything you have accused me of.
LG:No, I don’t believe that anyone can prove the existence of God. You claim to have evidence via Thermodynamics and logic. Needless to say I am not going to hold my breath waiting for your evidence : )
No need to hold your breath and increase the brain damage. The second law says the universe increases entropy, therefore a universe which has pockets of growing negentropy (that is positively evolving subsystems) has more cumulative entropy than one without. So we can conclude that evolution is not precluded by physics (just as atheists claim) but neither can we claim that we are the ultimate being IN the universe, for that would be irrational (and exactly what atheists claim, that there are no greater Gods than our level). Hence a truly rational skeptic of the existence of God would be at least agnostic and you are not.
So now the question moves to the universal level, whether instead of just the possibility of multiple demi-Gods there can actually be a God of an order equal to or greater than the universe. To really answer that question we’d have to go to the further reaches of String theory and multiverses and multiple histories, which soon goes beyond the brightest of minds. However, we can ask some cogent questions at the universal level, the most important being is the universe sentient (that is, could the universe itself be God?). The universe has a nervous system (light rays/radiation) which transmit information from one end to the other (the infamous example being I Luv Lucy episodes being viewed fifty light years from here). The universe has a memory (everything we see in the Hubble scope is a historical record). The universe has a sense of self preservation and moral certainty (it appears the physical laws are so tuned that only a hairs breadth difference in the constants would blow us apart).
Consequently, while I may not have provided a formal proof of God, I can show that there is possible a universal thought and value structure. But neither can you prove anywhere near the opposite, that the universe is a random string of bits with no grand designer. In fact if you read the top authors on theories of multiverses, they more eloquently are able to describe their uncertainty that disproving the existence of God is even possible given the melding of concepts of information and creation and brane theory.
So LeGrande, I suspect you are not so smart as you believe when you call those who believe in God irrational. Moreover, if I were an atheist I would consider it quite logical to steal, fornicate, rape pillage and burn with the only caveat that I not be caught. So you are welcome to your tiny little world, while I wish to pursue greater objectives.
“I am still waiting for you to tell me your religion. I can only assume by your continued refusal to answer that simple question that you either have no core beliefs or you are ashamed to share them and defend them. Which is it?”
Why is it you always try to impose such a limited number of alternatives on the way I think,apparently so you can dispose of paper tissue ideas out of thin air. IF I had no core beliefs OR I was afraid to defend them, I suspect few people would get their panties in such a bunch when I come around, so I suspect what you are afraid of is that I do have strongly held beliefs and core convictions while you are left with the nebulous assertions of atheism which are as wisps of air. So in answer to your question “Which is it?” I reply with a third option you left out, that I simply don’t respect your thinking which appears to be some weird amalgam of Jack Mormon atheism and a pining for a return to the hive.
That said, I was brought up Missouri Synod Lutheran. I think Martin Luther is a model of rational thought who would have whipped Joseph Smith’s tiny little butt like a wayward schoolboy, but neither I nor Martin would view Luther himself as a saint or demi-god. I think God moves in mysterious ways and has given us the tools of science to move to a higher understanding of how morality and the universe fit together, so that’s why you must continually be surprised that I am not some ill educated troglodyte (that’s why your arguments presuppose idiocy on the part of the antis and therefore come across as so vacant).
LG:You are right humility and ego are not the same thing. I did not say they were. What I said was the belief in God was the same, are you always this confused?
And what I said was that the belief in a non-God-God was a structural equivalent so you could not set yourself apart from us and claim some logical superiority by default. Whether you believe in God or don’t, Romney is on a path of ego that I find exceptionally disturbing.
FC:And I assert you are irrational, the same as any other atheist, whether it is Hitler or Stalin or Mao.
LG:How are you equating being irrational with Hitler, Stalin or Mao?
The same way you were equating being a follower of Dobson et.al. with being irrational, I merely mirrored your statement to show how vacuous it was. You continually issue these fatwahs that are supposed to be the be all and end all of debate and they are so full of holes that I can hardly give you much intellectual respect. In other words, until you argue from the standpoint that other people in the universe might have a consistent worldview different than your own, you are bound to get snippy retorts like the one above.
“FastCoyote is simply lying, I have never called for the censorship of the anti’s.”
It’s pretty easy to see who the Big Fat Liar is, we can just go back to post 402 in which LeGrande posits the existence of a cabal of antis who are disruptors. He leaves up to the imagination how they should be dealt with, (perhaps flogging rather than censure) but the following was directed to Jim Robinson, so I believe you can read between the thin lines..
********************************
“Since MHGinTN brought you into this discussion, I would like to point out that there has been a concerted effort by colorcountry; FastCoyote; MHGinTN; Pan_Yans Wife; svcw; Elsie; Colofornian; and GreyFoxx39; (I got the list from post #3) to attack the Mormon Religion every time Mitt Romney is mentioned. The attacks have grown increasingly shrill and virulent with each passing thread.”
Actually, what we have been attacking is the consequences of a Mormon presidency, which would by default bring numerous negative repercussions because of the executive branch’s place as the moral bully pulpit of the nation. Not the least of which is the the question of the sanity of a president who believes in seer stones, magic underwear, celestial polygamy, hieroglyphic interpretations, etc. Much less the consequences of a president who believes he is on a path to becoming God.
The Mormons were ousted from Missouri and Illinois because of what were in good part the secessionist inclinations of Joseph Smith who was trying to set up a kingdom on earth. I think some (not all) of these problems are likely to recur in various forms during a Romney presidency. If those aren’t serious political questions, I don’t know what would be.
I would oppose the Scientologist Tom Cruise just as vehemently were he to try for the Republican nomination because of its cult status.
“What concerns me is the general degradation in the political discourse, not just on the Mitt threads but on all of the political candidate threads. If I didn’t know any better, my first reaction would be that we have been infiltrated with agents, whose sole purpose is disruption. If that is the case the agents have succeeded.”
Yes, we are all secret agents sent by unseen conspirators to disrupt the candidacy of Mitt Romney. Of course, LeGrande seems oddly silent about the similarly conspiratorial list of Mormon apologists who show up on en every Romney thread extolling Mitt’s God like abilities, and also show up on Fred threads trying to deep-six his campaign. Obviously we are anti-Mormon bigots while somehow Mormon-apologists following the mirror image strategy are not bigots but Saints. Please, let us all put on our tinfoil hats now.
“Is there a purpose for Free Republic beyond endless attacks and counter attacks?”
Yes, if you want to follow the Mormon model and excommunicate everyone who doesn’t follow the hive mentality (that seems to create quite a mind numbing consensus among the Mormon faithful). But I suggest vigorous debate is exactly what FreeRepublic is about and I am curious why nearly all of the Mormon apologists here must call so repeatedly for censure, what are they afraid of? I am also curious if this is some kind of Mormon conspiracy born of almost two centuries of cloistered secrecy and concepts like blood atonement to try and eradicate resistance to the hive?
[That was an unconscionable act! Why do you draw from the most hideous part of your being!]
“Hideously Unconscious radar blip!!”
Bwahaha! and they call me mean.
Pax vobiscum is Latin for 'peace be with you'. Thank you for offering this opportunity to tell what is the Hope that IS within me, by the blood of Jesus Christ. As I am under the impression that you are a Mormon I will acknowledge from the start that we differ on interpretation of what the Scriptures (the Bible) teach regarding Salvation. I do not believe that you receive salvation after all that you can do. I do study the scriptures so the following is offered with agape and based upon years of study. Hope it is edifying for you and other readers ... I'm pinging Jim Robinson to this post since he cannot possibly read every single post at FR and there are some he does find interesting that he might miss if not pinged to them. Don‘t get paranoid like some and think pinging Jim is the same as asking for his intervention.<p>
In John's Gospel account of Jesus and the coming of the Christ --to be 'God With us' and then God in us following the Resurrection and Church Day of Pentecost,-- in that Gospel we are given the scene of one Nicodemus, member of the Jewish Sanhedrin in that day, coming to Jesus at night to ask Him for something to show He was Messiah. They get into an exchange during which Jesus tells Nicodemus that a man must be born again, born of the Spirit, in order to enter into Heaven. Throughout the letters of Paul --and especially in the letter to the Romans-- Paul addresses this notion of being born again, born of the Spirit, for Salvation in Christ. And he, Paul, explains it using the verb tenses and cases in the Greek which indicate an immediate deliverance followed by an ongoing transformational process called ‘salvation’. The Blood of Christ cleansed the Mercy Seat in Heaven and thereby those who died before the Cross were made righteous because of their belief (‘faithe‘) in God’s Promises. The Blood of Christ cleanses your heart allowing God’s Spirit to come into your inner self, your spirit, and dwell there to transform your soul as you ‘faithe’ in the promises of God to transform you, thereby ‘establishing’ the Law of God (fulfilling the Law) in your heart, as Paul put it.
When one reads these passages in the Greek, there are certain specific aspects of the Greek words which give insight into the specifics of the written passages. Here's a simplified example from Romans chapter ten:<p>
Romans 10:8-10 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, [even] in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation
. (KJV)Romans 10:8-10 10:8 But what doth it say? `Nigh thee is the saying -- in thy mouth, and in thy heart:` that is, the saying of the faith, that we preach; that if thou mayest confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and mayest believe in thy heart that God did raise him out of the dead, thou shalt be saved, for with the heart doth believe to righteousness, and with the mouth is confession made to salvation; (Young’s Literal Translation)
The underlined words --faith, believe, and believeth-- all derive from the Greek word ‘pisteuo’. In the Greek the verbs give rise to the nouns, so ‘pisteuo’ --to faithe-- gives rise to ‘pistis’, the noun --faith. Important to the understanding of the use of ‘pistis’ is that it is at its heart an action word which, in the way written in the passage, is an ongoing action, an immediate application with continuous force, an unending application --not continuous if referred back to, but a thing instituted by God not man, then remaining in effect WHILE the ‘faither’ lives the remainder of life ‘faithing’. Faith is action based upon belief sustained by the confidence that what God promises He will do. That is why we read repeatedly that Abraham ‘believed’ God and it was counted for him righteousness. … The words in blue --confess and confession (’homologeo‘)-- are derived from ‘homos’ which is Greek for ‘at the same place or time’; adding ‘logeo‘ we have ‘at the same time or place spoken‘. … The word in red --salvation (soteria=deliverance)-- is derived from the Greek word ‘soter’, meaning ‘a deliverer’.
You wrote that ’Salvation is a thing that is worked out on one’s knees in prayer and in repentence.’ Salvation --deliverance-- is something you receive immediately when you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead. Then you lead the rest of your life, daily, as you function in every aspect of living, ‘faithing’ in the promises of God that He will transform your soul by the renewing of your mind. You receive deliverance in your spirit and remain delivered in your soul (you behavior mechanism) --are transformed-- through a daily walk (which should include time on your knees and/or in quiet solitude with His Spirit sifting and cleansing your soul) in which you ‘faithe’ in His Spirit within which you received the minute you were delivered. You received a deliverer (soter) in your dead human spirit when you confessed Jesus Christ. You are ‘sotered’ daily, to coin a word mixing Greek and English, in your behavior mechanism, you soul.
Pax vobiscum
That is a very feeble attempt at a straw man. Atheist certainly don't claim that we are the ultimate being in the Universe. We do make the claim that there cannot be an Omniscient, omnipotent being that the Christians claim is God. I can prove that by the way : )
The universe has a nervous system (light rays/radiation) which transmit information from one end to the other (the infamous example being I Luv Lucy episodes being viewed fifty light years from here).
If you knew anything at all you would know that Light from one end of the universe will never reach the other end of the Universe. You seem to have a fundamental problem with the basic theory of Relativity.
Consequently, while I may not have provided a formal proof of God, I can show that there is possible a universal thought and value structure. But neither can you prove anywhere near the opposite, that the universe is a random string of bits with no grand designer. In fact if you read the top authors on theories of multiverses, they more eloquently are able to describe their uncertainty that disproving the existence of God is even possible given the melding of concepts of information and creation and brane theory.
I happen to be familiar with string theory, multiverses and brane theory. Your theory that the universe has a nervous system, sense of self preservation and moral certainty is laughable and anthropomorphic. Is that the best you can do to prove Gods existence?
But neither can you prove anywhere near the opposite, that the universe is a random string of bits with no grand designer.
Actually I can, using the superposition theory. It is trivial actually if you have even the tiniest bit of knowledge about QM.
That said, I was brought up Missouri Synod Lutheran.
Do you believe all the Lutheran doctrine and teaching?
And what I said was that the belief in a non-God-God was a structural equivalent so you could not set yourself apart from us and claim some logical superiority by default. Whether you believe in God or don’t, Romney is on a path of ego that I find exceptionally disturbing.
Again you are confused. You weren't talking about Atheism you were talking about Mormons belief in God and their belief that they could become a God vs your own belief in God.
Now to put your argument on a proper basis. Both you and Mormons believe in a God. I do not. With your failure above to demonstrate the existence of God, it is only reasonable to conclude that your belief in God is irrational. Hence you are irrational.
Now if you are asserting that your definition of God is simply a more intelligent being than any human, then you may have a point. What is your definition of God?
That is your best attempt at showing that I have repeatedly called for censoring the Cabal? LOL
I happen to think that the best solution is to identify the disrupter's and encourage them to talk :) Shining the light of truth is always the best disinfectant.
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