Mitt Romney, Mormon
The former governor of Massachusetts is a Mormon. Should it matter?
If the criteria for acceptance as a viable candidate is a logical belief system, than anyone who believes in a religion is disqualified. Faith, of any sort, does not enter that equation.
Romney has been compared to JFK. I do not agree with the comparison in the way that it is meant, but I do agree. Both men in their public lives do / did not actively promote the morality of their religion. Few politicians do, and neither JFK nor Mitt Romney break that stereotype.
The beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints are silly to me. If they are to be considered a “Christian” religion, they are on the very boundary of that definition. They surely believe that my Catholic beliefs are equally silly.
The question really is, though, how silly must a religion be to disqualify its believer for political office on that basis alone? Can a Scientologist run as a major party candidate for President? How about a Sufi Muslim? Or a Yezedi?
A candidate’s beliefs matter. People like to vote for candidates that they can identify with and fringe beliefs beget fringe candidates. The Mormon Church has spent a huge amount of time and effort to move the public’s perception of them from the fringe to the mainstream. Scientology is doing the same.
It’s not just religious beliefs. Rudy is struggling with his previous positions on abortion and his inability to articulate a current belief because he will offend someone no matter what he says. Slavery was another set of beliefs. It was de jura recognized in the original Constitution in order to provide for representation in Congress. The Bible recognizes slavery. The earth was once flat. There were once only four elements, earth, air, fire and water.
How do we measure a man’s beliefs [or a woman's]? Do we as individuals measure them against ourselves and find the candidate that most resembles us? Can we forgive a silly belief and elect a candidate that in all other respects is superior? Or, is a candidate’s belief in something that seems silly to us regardless of its bearing on his candidacy a disqualification?
Would you vote for Fred Thompson if you learned he belonged to a church that practiced snake handling? If Mitt Romney believed in polygamy, could you still vote for him?
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If we do not take into consideration a candidate’s belief system, then on what basis should we elect them? The purpose of a representative government is to send a bunch of weenies, that we trust, off to Washington so that we can go about living our lives: pursuing happiness and all that. We trust, based on what we know about their belief system, that they are enough like us to pass laws that aren’t too different from what we’d do ourselves. Their belief system is based on a set of absolutes that come from the religious beliefs they hold.
One problem arises in that our present, two party system hampers that effort. When you elect a Republican, what are you getting? That depends on whether the Republican is from Maine or South Carolina or Arizona. The Republican Party (and the Dems) is a mechanism for getting people elected. They do not represent an ideology, though they claim to.
Our country was founded by Congregationalist Protestants: the Puritans. In their belief system, each congregation is free to believe whatever they want. The trinity: let’s bring it to an up or down vote! To a Catholic, this is absurd. Nevertheless, that is exactly how our representative form of government works. Slavery moral: let’s bring it to an up or down vote. We fool ourselves into assuming that just because it’s law, it’s moral and visa versa.
So, you need to look at the candidate’s belief system and if they have been living privately, the beliefs they espouse publicly. In an ideal world, a Catholic would vote like a Catholic. Kennedy, Cuomo, Kerry, etc. have proved that to be wishful thinking. Gulianni and Romney both act differently then they talk and supposedly believe. If they are willing to compromise on something as basic as their faith and what is good for their immortal souls, what else will they compromise on when things get rough?
Would I vote for a snake handling Thompson? No. For the same reason that I would not vote for a Mormon. When you look into what they actually believe and what their tradition and sacred writings say about Catholics, I would not trust them to treat Catholics in an impartial manner. I would not expect Harry Reid or Romney, to give Catholics a fair shake because their belief system is not merely a separate religion but by its nature, from its founding, is based and rooted in anti-Catholicism. The same goes for Seventh Day Adventists.
I disagree with your comment that faith does not enter the equation of a logical belief system. Having faith can be very logical, though I expect that some semantic issues may arise here. One aspect of faith is acting on the basis of a belief. If that belief is logical, for example, that God exists, that exercising faith on that belief and seeking to talk to Him, is pretty logical as well. If he exists and is all powerful, which I would maintain is a logical position, it is pretty reasonable that he hears prayers. What kind of knowledge is that belief that he hears prayers? Well, it is based upon logical deduction from the premise that reality cannot exist without an all powerful being and that all powerful being is God. Acting upon that knowledge is, I believe, a very rational choice.
I would contend that faith, without any grounding in reason, is really problematic, if not an impossibility. You cannot say I have faith that God hears prayers even though I don’t think it is reaonable. Logic is not science, logic is the fundamental rule of existence. You cannot have a square circle. God cannot even violate the rules of logic. So, I would submit to you that faith is reasonable, and that in fact, it can only be reasonable.
Now, doubt may be inherently unreasonable. A purely skeptical view is a contradiction. If you say we can’t know something is true, then you have made a statement claiming to know something is true, namely, that we can’t know anything. What is that claim based upon?
I don’t ascribe to any particular religious structure, although raised in the Presbyterian church. I think that your Catholic beliefs and Mitt Romney’s Mormon ones are equally silly, in one way. But I am not going to evaluate his method of believing in God. I am going to evaluate his belief in what this country needs to stay on course (one could argue, return to course) as a bastion of Freedom and Opportunity, and whether his method of achieving that matches with my own beliefs. Period.
“No. For the same reason that I would not vote for a Mormon. When you look into what they actually believe and what their tradition and sacred writings say about Catholics, I would not trust them to treat Catholics in an impartial manner.”
So, I take it you have only voted for Catholics? Wow, just imagine what would happen if we all thought like that. Or, maybe we do and that is why voting is so low.
I think you might be under a couple of misperceptions about what Mormons think about others. I don’t think Catholic beliefs are silly and don’t know any Mormons who do. If Mitt Romney said that he would insure equal rights for homosexuals even though he believes that homosexual behavior is iniquitous, don’t you think he’d be as willing to give everyone else a fair shake? I really doubt that Mormonism was founded on anti-Catholic sentiments. There weren’t a lot of Catholics in upstate New York in the 1830’s. It’s more likely that if there are “anti” sentiments they’re focused upon the acceptance of creeds over scripture.
“I would not trust them to treat Catholics in an impartial manner.” I would imagine that Romney worked with quite a few Catholics in his gubernatorial administration in Massachusetts. Are you aware of any indication that he didn’t give everyone a fair shake? Did he pack his administration with Mormons or were the positions representative of the population? That would probably be a good way to see whether or not you could trust him to give others a fair shake.