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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
: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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
