Just to be clear, I’m an atheist. So I don’t think Freedom requires religion, God, or anything other then desire to be free.
But what Romney said is not outside the mainstream of American Politics. Unfortunate as that may be, it’s what this country is like.
Freedom doesn’t need religion, any more than freedom needs neo-Nazi rallies, but it isn’t freedom unless religion and neo-Nazi rallies could exist.
Of course, there are degrees of freedom most people will accept and putting the brakes on the nutty extreme may be something the majority can comfortably live with.
Ah, thanks for the correction.
I understand. You were only making a claim about rhetorical effectiveness and political necessity.
But I think RT is still right to criticize his statements on the basis of their falsehood. And by doing so, he is not over-analyzing. Agreed?
Just judging from the words of the evangelicals, I don’t see a concern about cults, or polygamy, or any thought that Romney doesn’t believe in god. One woman worried that Romney’s god is so different from hers (the true one, of course) that God wouldn’t listen to his prayers. Perhaps concerns about cults is at the root of the problem, but all the evidence I’ve seen is for their problem being around the real differences between Mormonism and mainstream evangelical Christianity.
I agree with him that it is inappropriate to ask a candidate to detail his religious beliefs, but I suspect that the real reason he didn’t go into it was that it would make the problem worse.
I know, I’m maybe sort of one, too.
No, I’m well aware. In fact, that’s the real point of his speech: to show people that even though he belongs to a sect that most voters don’t know anything about other than the polygamy thing*, he believes the same empty platitudes and fearmongering, persecution-complex silliness that they do.
*And which he refused to say anything about, so as not to point out any differences, and hid behind the “religious test” clause even though it had nothing to do with the subject.
I think he was correctly using the spirit of the prohibition on religious tests. If it became common to structure a campaign around candidates answers to detailed religious questions, and if there was a majority that cared, a legislative religious test wouldn’t be necessary. We have this already with regard to atheists, at least on the national level. (Not in my Congressional district, though.)
[Spock]that is a HIGHLY illogical statement[/Spock] as an Athiest myself, I find romney’s statement offensive, to equate morality/freedom to believing in “an invisible freind in the sky” is absolutely patently absurd, I know some religious-types, “Holier-Than-Thou” types that have absolutely no morals whatsoever, aside from their lip-service to their “IFITS”
If I was considering voting for this guy, this statement is enough to make him lose my vote, religion and politics need to be kept SEPERATE, I wonder if these god-botherers have ever heard of the concept of the seperation of church and State?
But how else are you going to justify banning SSM? 
Seriously, though, “politics” ≠ “the state”. We don’t have separation of religion and politics in the US, and I doubt we ever will. How many of the candidates have not campaigned in a church? None of the serious ones, that’s for sure. Or listen to how many times these guys mention God in their stump speeches. Might as well get used to it.
Quite a non-sequiter there.
Freedom and morality tend to be at odds, since morality is for the most part a list of things that people shouldn’t do.
And faith has had a very distortive effect on morality, ignoring or downplaying the need to protect the environment while obsessing over sexual abstinence.
If it’s self-evident, then it isn’t faith-based, is it?
You just contradicted your own point. Morality need not be faith-based, since often is is self-evident.
If those are Romney’s views, the speech itself was unnecessary. He submitted himself to a test and gave the answers he wanted to give.
Anyway, given the religious history of U.S. Presidents, I’d argue that such a test is already practically in place.
While refusing to say anything else about what he believes, he did say this: “There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked. What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind.”
Odd that he included that detail if he doesn’t want to go into details on this topic.
He may be opposed to religious tests, but like I said, he mentioned it only to avoid going into detail about his own religion, which does differ from mainstream Prostestantism as far as I understand it. Nevermind a religious test, he could have dispelled some confusion or misconceptions about beliefs he says are very important to him and are an important part of who he is. He is, after all, an official in the LDS church. But he chose not to do that. If all the candidates shut up about religion, I wouldn’t mind one little bit. But Romney didn’t shut up, he gave a speech that featured a few ridiculous ideas and some notable omissions.
I thought the speech was very effective. It accomplished what he sought out to do-- he got resounding approval from a number of highly influential evangelical leaders. I guess he figures he’ll deal with any backlash he gets in the general election when the time comes. But if he doesn’t get the nomination, he won’t have to worry about the general. His campaign was leaking air, and leaking fast. He’s worried about Huckabee handing the nomination to Giuliani.
Sure it is. All morality is based on statements that have to be accepted as axiomatic - God exists, human happiness is the summum bonum, freedom is a good thing, etc.
We’ve kicked this one around several times on the SDMB.
Yes, I do, but this is not the same thing as you having no morals.
You do have morals, but they require faith. All morals do. For those who do not accept the same faith as you, your morals are meaningless.
Put it this way. Suppose I am an atheist, and I regard all instances of human happiness as nothing more than electro-chemical patterns. I deny, in other words, that it is better that people be happy than that they be dead.
Now, there is no way for you to prove to me that you are right and I am wrong. It’s like arguing that football is better than baseball - no objective standard exists by which you can judge either.
Same with morality. If I disagree that killing people is wrong, there is no way for you to demonstrate that it is.
You must have missed the “endowed by their Creator” part, which is what Jefferson mentioned. Without such a Creator, the truths and the rights are neither self-evident nor inalienable.
Hard to say. I’m guessing there were a hell of a lot more Americans who believed in the literal truth of Genesis in 1800 than today, and he seemed to do OK.
As far as his edited Gospel goes, I actually read it for the first time last week. It is not terribly original, which is to say at all - just a cut and paste of the four Gospels. He doesn’t add anything; it is just “these are the parts I agree with”. Not even as original as Franklin’s rules for living that he talks about in his Autobiography.
Mitt’s speech was interesting, but not much of a ground breaker. And not politically smart, IMO, unless from now on he handles any and all questions about his religion by referring them to his speech. The primary season is now going and I suppose primary voters are further to the extremes than the main electorate, but I would always like to see the candidates running as if they were in a general campaign. Mitt should be talking about his business and organizational experience, his leadership as governor, and so forth. That’s the kind of thing I am interested in in a candidate.
I am one of those Religious Right types y’all are so scared of, and I don’t give a rat’s ass if he is a Mormon. I’m looking for a candidate, not a pastor.
Regards,
Shodan
Was there no religion prior to the American revolution then? There was certainly a lack of freedom. Most religious people at the time believed that God granted kings the right to rule.
The DoI’s reference to the Creator can be said to be a “pure” idea about God, unfettered by al the baggage that religion has heaped upon it in the previous millenia. Religion can be said to be among those forces who come between the Creator and the deliverance of our freedom.
And yet 1 in 4 GOP primary voters say they won’t vote for a Mormon. I think he was smart to take the bull by the horns, and not let his Mormonism be defined by his political opponents. They didn’t even have to do the dirty work, since the press was so eager to generate controversy on its own. Al they had to do was cast doubt, like Huckabee did, when asked about it.
I agree with Romney’s statement* and will defend it. To have freedom it is not sufficient to merely have many persons saying that they want freedom. Freedom requires a large majority who believes in the concept and are willing to put that belief into action with more than just message board posts; they must be willing to offer a great deal, in some cases including their lives. For instance, when the English first invaded Scotland with the intention of forcing the Scots to join the Church of England, ordinary Scotsmen turned out in huge numbers to fight back. They risked life and limb in order to have the freedom to worship God in the way they chose. They knew that a personal relationship with God was so important that it could be worse than death to not have it.
This is hardly a unique incident. Many have fought for the independence of their homeland for similar reasons, from modern-day Iraqis resisting the American occupation to the ancient Jews battling Greek oppression. (Incidentally, Christopher Hitchens opposes both)
There has not, to my knowledge, ever been a case of atheists standing up in mass for religious freedom this way. The reason isn’t hard to see. Atheists can’t attach such value to a personal relationship with God, since they don’t believe in God, nor is there anything else that they attach such value to. Read a few threads in this forum and you’ll see atheists heaping plentiful scorn on anyone who believes in something and fights for what they believe in.
*Please note that nothing in this post should be construed as meaning that Romney is anything other than a crass opportunist who will say anything if he thinks it will help his campaign.
I’m not one those Religious Right types, and i’m not really all that scared by you or him (unless he gets elected, maybe). I don’t care that he’s a Mormon either. My only complaint is that the man thinks a society made up of people who think like me could not possibly be a free one.
I wonder if perhaps you would be willing to accept a candiate who thought a Christian society would be, by nature, unfree? I too look for candidates, but generally I imagine I would not look too fondly on a candidate who believes I need religious people around or i’d be stuck in a dictatorship.
He’s saying that religion is necessary for freedom, not that it is sufficient for freedom.
You and I may know that, but tell that to the folks he’s trying to win over.
I’m not trying to argue that I agree with Romney. Only that what he’s saying is effective, given his circumstances, and not really outside of mainstream American political thinking. If you can call it “thinking”.
All the candidates make me cringe when they bring up religion. If I worried about that, I wouldn’t be able to vote for anyone.
We may not agree with the choice, but we can agree with and attach value to the freedom to choose. Read a few threads in this forum and I imagine you’ll see atheists defending that idea quite strongly; and I would imagine further that among those posts you cite, there are a pathetic minority who disagree with religion and want it forcibly removed. Regardless of your attempt to spin that as “anyone who believes in something and fights for what they believe in”, because that’s pretty much* everyone*.
I would also point out that your argument may be turned against you; if atheists attach too little value to religion that they will want it gone, likewise, couldn’t theists attach so much value to their particular beliefs that they could legislate to outlaw others, to give benefits to adherents of theirs over others, to recognise their beliefs more in law?
This is a more personal note, but I generally seem to find that when you say “to my knowledge”, what follows next will not encompass much actual knowledge, so i’ll wait and see if people will come up with examples or not. Besides that, however, I would point out that merely because something has not been done does not mean it will not be.
But accepting a non-religious axiom is not the same as accepting a a belief in God.
When reality tells me my axioms are wrong, I can change them. But you can’t ditch God, and still stay within a religious framework. That is what “faith” is about. So, I’m not accepting my axioms on faith-- I’m accepting them on what I observe to be true. Once I observe them not to be true, I reject my axioms for others.
“Faith” means you accept something without analysis. You don’t try to understand God, because you can’t understand God.