Mitt Romney: "Freedom requires religion"

Great Debates
61

I think this was a speech Romney was forced into. The campaign resisted this moment until Huckabee took the lead in Iowa and forced his hand. That Romney was pushed into this speaks to the power the evangelicals now hold in the GOP. It seems to imply that one cannot get the nomination without their consent.

Romney’s statement that their is no freedom without religion is deeply troubling to me. What is the place of atheists in Romney’s America I would like to know. It is especially troubling when combined with his criticism of the separation of church and state (the antithesis of what Kennedy said in his “Catholic” speech) and his indictment of secularism - a word he made sound like a curse.

It also brings to mind a recent quote from Giuliani

We are at war right now because, we are told, our enemies hate our freedom. The President uses the word ad nauseam. But “freedom” like this rings absolutely hollow in my ears.

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[QUOTE=Shodan]
You do have morals, but they require faith. All morals do.
[/quote]

Empathy does not require faith. Agreed, there’s nothing stopping a person from thinking, “My life is more important than others’”, but it’s far from impossible to want to minimize others’ suffering after imagining it ahhpening to you.

The morality is relativistic! Morals of different faiths cancel each other out! All I have to do is have “faith” that the rules don’t apply to me.

How many present-day atheists think that way?

The idea that we have rights is self-evident. Meaning they didn’t get it from a book, tradition, or royal decree. The “Creator” part is secondary to the main point and is meant go over the head of the King of England.

63

Well, come on. Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose. :cool:

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Romney’s statement, which I was trying to defend, was that religion is necessary for freedom, not that religion is sufficient for freedom. I don’t think that I or he or any other reasonable person would ever say that all religious societies are free, but that’s not the debate in this thread.

Well, I certainly can’t disagree with that first sentence, since there are many parts of human history that I know nothing about. As for the second sentence, I’ll say this much. If something has never happened in history that doesn’t prove it’s impossible, but it certainly suggests it. Surely we’ve all heard in our history classes that we study the past to know the future. If not, then it would seem that history is merely a waste of time.

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[QUOTE=Shodan]

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.
[/QUOTE]

That doesn’t follow from your supposition. There’s no reason I can think happiness is nothing more than an electro-chemical pattern and that it is also preferable to death. I’m actually a bit confused as to how somebody would think that those are the same.

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[QUOTE=ITR champion]
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.
[/QUOTE]

Atheists aren’t cold, bitter shells of people who are too cynical to believe in anything. They just don’t believe in any supernatural deity. That’s it. There are things to fight for besides religion. Like, for example, the founding of this country? There was nothing religious behind the American Revolution, and yet people still laid down their lives.

Atheists can’t attach any personal relationship to anything? Country? Family? Friends? If someone thinks the only thing worth fighting for is an imaginary man in the clouds, then I think they need to have their priorities sorted out. But they have every right to think that way as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.

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[QUOTE=ITR champion]
Romney’s statement, which I was trying to defend, was that religion is necessary for freedom, not that religion is sufficient for freedom. I don’t think that I or he or any other reasonable person would ever say that all religious societies are free, but that’s not the debate in this thread.
[/quote]
Good point. However, my point wasn’t just to say “Hey, religious people are bad in this, too!”. It was also to say that if you look at history and the world and all the times that religious people have abused the system to put their religion first, and the potential significant reasons they might have for doing so - and then see all those times that religious people actually have campaigned for fairness, well, it puts those kind of reasons in context. That religious people might be motivated to unfairness is as effective an argument as that atheists might; that is, sure, in some cases, but it’s not a clinching argument.

Sure. But if everyone was exactly the same, we’d never be surprised. That statement is about generalities; we learn about the past of war so we can avoid the future wars. We don’t study the history of neutron bombs to avoid the future use of them, because we have no history of them, cirucumstances have changed. Likewise, atheism as a respected, large-scale position is pretty new in terms of human history. Saying there have never been any big atheist campaigns for religious fairness in history, therefore they won’t happen, is like saying there’s never been any large-scale anti-Guantanamo Bay movements in history, therefore they won’t happen; there wasn’t any reason or the circumstances for them until relatively recently in human history.

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[QUOTE=Yumblie]
Atheists aren’t cold, bitter shells of people who are too cynical to believe in anything. They just don’t believe in any supernatural deity. That’s it. There are things to fight for besides religion. Like, for example, the founding of this country? There was nothing religious behind the American Revolution, and yet people still laid down their lives.
[/QUOTE]

You’re trying to set up a false dichotomy with the “cold, bitter shells” line. I never asserted that or anything like that.

As for the revolution, most of those who fought for American independence believed that God was on their side. Would anyone deny that?

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Most people who play in the Super Bowl think God is on their side. People are morons.

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[QUOTE=ITR champion]
You’re trying to set up a false dichotomy with the “cold, bitter shells” line. I never asserted that or anything like that.

As for the revolution, most of those who fought for American independence believed that God was on their side. Would anyone deny that?
[/QUOTE]

Cite? Considering how many of the founding fathers didn’t believe that “god” did anything other than create the universe, I’m a bit skeptical of that claim.

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Correction: Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle, indeed, if it were reserved only for faiths.

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“Our government has no sense unless it is founded on a deeply religious faith, and I don’t care what it is.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

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[QUOTE=Revtim]
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/06/romney.speech/index.htmlDoes anybody agree with this view and can defend it? As a freedom-loving atheist, I of course disagree.

I can offer no argument, just as I cannot provide an argument against a statement like “a bicycle requires mashed potatoes”. It is simply something I do not see as a requirement.
[/QUOTE]

Maybe he means that religion should not be oppressed but practiced freely.

For instance, some religions might thinks you need to believe in their faith or you should be put to death… that’s not really freedom. It’s religious oppression… I don’t know, I’m trying to make sense of what he said. I’m sure his intentions were pure. :eek:

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[QUOTE=Marley23]
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.

[/quote]

It’s worse today than it has been in the past. Taft was a Unitarian, IIRC. JFK was not all that devout, so all he addressed was the accusation that he would take orders from the Pope, and he didn’t have to defend Catholicism. But I agree that today candidates act as if there was a religious test. As Dylan said “They’re out there preaching in front of the steeple.”

It seems he gave details that made Mormonism look like standard evangelical Christianity, and was quiet about those facets that make it look different. He stood up for his principles, but not so far up that he might lose votes for them. We’ll see if he fools anyone.

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[QUOTE=ITR champion]
You’re trying to set up a false dichotomy with the “cold, bitter shells” line. I never asserted that or anything like that.

As for the revolution, most of those who fought for American independence believed that God was on their side. Would anyone deny that?
[/QUOTE]

The “cold, bitter shells” line was indeed hyperbole, but so was your statement about atheists not being able to fathom believing in anything due to their lack of faith in God. That could be taken as insulting.

Considering the people who actually started the revolution were not all that religious, that says a lot about what kind of ideals were being fought for. Many of the people fighting probably did think God was on their side (it would certainly put a damper on things to think that God was actually for the other side), but what they were really fighting for was political freedom.

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[QUOTE=Captain Lance Murdoch]
It also brings to mind a recent quote from Giuliani
[/QUOTE]
:eek: He didn’t really say that, did he? (googling) Shit-oh-dear, I don’t normally toss around the F word these days but that’s the most Fascist thing I’ve heard any of the candidates say. Not all that recent, though, unless 1994 is recent for you. It is for me.

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[QUOTE=Shodan]

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.

[/quote]

I don’t think inerrancy was much of an issue back then. Neither was Genesis, since they were first getting evidence that the world was older than 6,000 odd years. In fact, in the early 19th century many religious leaders strongly supported science on the supposition that science would prove the Bible. Darwin was such a shock because instead of doing this he cast doubt on special creation of man. I suspect there would be no evolution fight in a world where both a billion year old earth and special creation were demonstrated.

No, back then the divinity of Jesus was the sore point, not Genesis.

My understanding of the book is that he edited it from the position of Jesus as a great moral philosopher, not son of God - so I don’t think there was ever the intention of adding stuff. I suspect an atheist politician today wouldn’t have that much of a problem saying Jesus was a great moral philosopher, but it wouldn’t help.

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[QUOTE=ITR champion]
Romney’s statement, which I was trying to defend, was that religion is necessary for freedom, not that religion is sufficient for freedom.
[/QUOTE]

In that case, there’s a mighty fine line between enough religion to secure freedom and enough to take it away.

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[QUOTE=John Mace]
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.
[/QUOTE]

We’ll see. Were any evangelical leaders expressing concern, openly? Will Huckabee stop reminding people that he is a Baptist? The problem was in the Republican rank and file, as you cited. The leaders are going to say not to take it into account, but I doubt they say that Mormonism is equally valid, and that seems to be the sticking point.

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[QUOTE=Shodan]
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.
[/QUOTE]
I disagree with this. (The conclusion you’ve reached, not that it’s been discussed.) If a person crafts their morality based on observations of what seems to work on a standard based in something non-faith based, like their own personal benefit (and you’d be surprised at how benevolent a morality you can create from self-interest if you aren’t locked into thinking about the short-term), then that morality is NOT based on faith.

[QUOTE=Shodan]
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.
[/QUOTE]
Piffle. I can demonstrate that killing people, to the degree that killing people conflicts with my morality, is based on conclusions reasonably drawn from evidence. (Mainly, if I promote an atmosphere where killing is more likely, I am more likely to get killed. Getting killed usually involves pain, so that’s something I definitiely want to avoid. Ergo, it is moral for me to oppose an atmosphere where killing is more likely. Period.) Even if i can’t make you accept my morality, that has nothing to do if it was based on faith. You’re might just not have the same non-faith-based personal priorities I do.

If faith is required for morality, they you ARE saying I have no morality. (Or you’re using nonstandard definitions for some or all of the words, which is not exactly an uncommon occurence around here.)

[QUOTE=Shodan]
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.
[/QUOTE]
Actually there’s nothing in what he said that supposed that the rights, once created, aren’t self-sustaining and invulnerable to all interference. Especially since it’s explicitily stated that they are “inalienable”. Clearly, if a lack of religion can cause the rights to somehow magically disappear (note that lack of religion isn’t the same as a lack of a god, it just means he’s not getting brownnosed to) then the rights are not only not inalienable, they’re made of tissue paper.