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Locked on 08/03/2007 6:34:01 AM PDT by Religion Moderator, reason:
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Posted on 07/26/2007 5:03:33 PM PDT by tantiboh
Democratic political consultant Mark Mellman has a very good piece up today at The Hill on the baffling and illegitimate opposition among voters to Mitt Romney due to his religion. I liked his closing paragraphs:
In July of 1958, 24 percent of respondents told Gallup they would not vote for a Catholic for president, almost identical to Gallup’s reading on Mormons today. Two years later, John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic to assume the oath of office. Within eight months, the number refusing to vote for a Catholic was cut almost in half.
[snip]
Mellman also discusses an interesting poll he helped construct, in which the pollsters asked half of their respondents whether they would support a candidate with certain characteristics, and asked the other half about another candidate with the exact same characteristics, with one difference. The first candidate was Baptist, the second candidate was Mormon. The Baptist had a huge advantage over the Mormon candidate, by about 20 points.
[snip]
However, more recent polls have attempted to fix the anonymity problem. A recent Time Magazine poll (read the original report here), for example, got to the heart of the question by asking respondents if they are less likely to vote for Mitt Romney specifically because he is a Mormon. The result is not as bad as some reporting on the poll has suggested. For example, while 30% of Republicans say they are less likely to vote for Romney because of his religion, fully 15% of other Republicans say that characteristic makes them more likely to vote for him. And while many have reported the finding that 23% of Republicans are “worried” by Romney’s Mormonism, the more important (but less-reported) number is that 73% say they hold no such reservations...
(Excerpt) Read more at romneyexperience.com ...
upma”
Do you believe the Bible? Seems to me Methusalah lived nearly 1000 years, according to the Bible. Is that nonsense?
BTW, got a reference for your claim that he claimed people live on the moon? I’d be interested in reading it.
Well stated, TChris.
I tried a similar analogy a while back using Calculus equations. I think your version is a bit less muddled. :-)
~”I have “bumped up against” troubling doctrines and other stuff in my life in the LDS Church. I have learned that never is the problem permanent. As I grow and learn and study the Holy Scriptures, every one of those walls has melted away.”~
Precisely correct. That’s the great thing about having the whole truth available; you eventually learn that there really aren’t any “mysteries” of God - just things you don’t comprehend yet. “I don’t know” becomes comfortable, mostly because you know that you eventually will.
OS,
I’m down with Methusalah living (if I remember,
869 years?). The Bible says he did.
I don’t remember a passage, and here you can
help me, where the Bible says the moon, sun
and stars are inhabited. In the case of the
sun and stars, they are fire-people, apparently.
Google is your friend.
best,
ampu
Just click on To #___
~”Please understand that the worst of it is to come. The movie “September Dawn” will inspire a lot of questions from your fellow Americans, and not just the political junkies from FR that you have been dealing with so far. In fact, you should consider it your good fortune to have the anti-Mormon bigotry displayed here to be able to have honed your skills and abilities before this film came out. There are some attitudes that your neighbors and co-workers will not display to your face, but you now have an awareness of. Governor Romney’s candidacy has already done some good for LDS FReepers.”~
Indeed, I’ve begun thinking along those lines as well. It’ll be an interesting time. My faith has weathered far worse of course; I feel mostly undaunted.
The antagonistic discussions, as fruitless as most of them have been from the perspective of convincing our detractors that we really aren’t spawn of Satan, have always been fantastic learning experiences for me and others, so you certainly have a point when you say that Romney’s candidacy has already done LDS FReepers some good.
~”The most important thing to keep in mind with this election is not whether Mitt Romney can be nominated and become President, but will the way his LDS supporters act reflect well on their faith, and their Americanism. Judging by the way that Mormon FReepers here have acted, I feel that the people of your faith tradition will continue on the path towards greater acceptance by all Americans.”~
That’s a good point; and thanks for the compliment.
I appreciate the thoughtful discussion. It can be rare, even on FR.
Interesting. Thanks.
Fair enough. Thanks for the response.
~”I really doubt if the Mormons on this board would find him “exciting” if he were a Baptist.”~
If he were saying the things Romney is saying now, and were as qualified and dynamic? I would. Problem is, Huckabee isn’t doing so well lately.
~”Yes, isn’t it ironic that many of the same LDSers are telling us we cannot and should not consider a person’s religion in our selection process, but they themselves support him because they want so badly to have a Mormon as POTUS. How does that work?”~
You have a point in some cases, and where this is true, the term for it is “religious bigotry.” Personally, I decry it wherever I see it, though I don’t see it much.
However, you aren’t as correct as you think. A minority of the LDS FReepers around here actually support Romney in the primary. A whole lot of us are FredHeads.
What we object to is the premise that Romney should be opposed -because- he is Mormon. No matter who we support, that point of view is offensive to a Mormon, and, I think, rightfully so.
~”Yes, good point!”~
Not particularly. It’s based on a false premise and an over generalization.
What you have to stop doing is finding a single post that has something you think might be offensive to you (under very special conditions you yourself define) and then go off like a cocked pistol.
Best you follow the thread back to its roots to find out what a later post on the same subject might mean.
This will lower your bloodpressure and you'll have much more enjoyment out of the net.
~”...and if I were to do such a thing I would regret it for the rest of my life and smack myself in the face every time I thought about it, and for the rest of my days I would stick my ass out at strangers for them to give me a good swift kick for what I had done.”~
And... if Romney were to turn out to be an excellent president?
BTW, I like your flair for drama! :-)
Ah, AnalogReigns! Welcome! Long time no argue!
You let those pukes in and you won't even have patched britches to hide the chunks they'll bite out of it.
~”An opinion that is widespread, like it or not.”~
Not really. Even if the opinion is shared by 15% of Evangelical Christians, a number given by other posters here who seem to be informed on the topic, and which I still think is an overestimation, what’s that? Something like 3% of the electorate?
I’ll take a 97% approval rating any day of the week.
Like it or not, Osage Orange, those who bash Mormonism represent a fringe element of our society. They just happen to be remarkably vocal.
One of the problems of any religious group that involves itself in governance (not just government, but actually "ruling") is that eventually, and maybe even right at the start, they go through this business of having great administrators and leaders who otherwise have poor personal habits.
Best to judge today's LDS against the folks who currently run ecclesiastical affairs for them and vote solidly Republican for the rest fo your life.
Joseph Smith and the Borgias are NOT running for President although that Hitlery woman does remind me a tad of Lucretia. Now there was a nasty broad if there ever was one.
Your insistence on taking a third-hand account of something supposedly heard by someone when they were 11 but reported decades later as being reliable makes me really wonder if you are a seeker of truth, or just someone out to justify his position whatever the facts may be.
There is no reliable evidence to support the claim that Joseph ever held such a view, but for the sake of argument lets say he did. So what?
Our concept of a prophet is not some mystical man who is right about everything and who’s every word is the command of God. We look at the prophet as being more like God’s press secretary. There are times he speaks on God’s behalf, and there are time he doesn’t. Just as there are times Tony Snow speaks for the POTUS, and times he doesn’t. The prophet is free to form his own opinions on whatever matters have not been revealed by God and those personal opinions are as prone to error as any other man’s.
Was it really wacky in that day and age to think the moon was inhabited? No. Several scientists back then, including William Herschel, the discoverer of the planet Uranus, considered it a scientific fact.
“[w]ho can say that it is not extremely probable, nay beyond doubt, that there must be inhabitants on the Moon of some kind or another?” - William Herschel as quoted in: Patrick Moore, New Guide to the Moon (W.W. Norton & Company, New York: 1976)
The same book says: “he [Herschel] regarded the existence of life on the Moon as ‘an absolute certainty’”
Then you have The Great Moon Hoax of 1835. There were claims that lunar cities were seen, even animal life observed on the moon. The newspapers never admitted it was a hoax so it was very common for people of that era, even well educated people, to think the moon was inhabited. http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/moonhoax.html
At worst, Joseph is no more wacky than several scientists of his day. It is merely a reflection of the age they lived in and has nothing to do with determining if they were called of God or not. You can look in the Bible and some rather poorly behaved prophets. Fact is God is capable of working through men in spite of their weaknesses and flaws, and incorrect scientific ideas.
tant,
On this thread, you pose a good question about looking
inside the issue of voting for a mormon. Rassmussen did
a poll on this and the results are broken down in more
detail than you will believe - age, male,female, race,
party, and on and on. It will interest you quite a bit
I believe. Let me know what you think...
Best,
ampu
~”I know this has been a very long thread...”~
Heh... You ain’t seen nothin’, my friend. When the Mormons and anti-Mormons go at it, 1,500 posts minimum. A rousing time for all!
Here’s an example, if you’re curious:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1855211/posts
He now peddles Islam in Northern Virginia.
Hasn't gotten involved in anymore shoot'emups.
Hope your journey to personal enlightenment didn't take the sort of detours his did.
BTW, I generally don't criticize anyone for following pathways that bring about an improvement in one's ability to socialize and avoid harm.
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