Romney says Freedom requires Religion

Actually those were Romney's words so you will have to ask him, but I can guess:

1) Islamic Jihadis
2) Environmental degradation
3) Denial of the Spirit
4) Nuclear proliferation

Among others

What's your perspective of this viewpoint in the context of the argument that this is the longest and most successful peacetime period in the history of North America? Then I'll let the thread go back to it's ways.

Whether or not we are living within the longest and most successful peacetime period in the history of North America, we still face threats that we ignore at our own peril.

Even In context, the"freedom requires religion ...." statement is pandering. Just as Huckleberry went ballistic when asked about his views on Creationism in science, focusing on religious practice by the candidate is more an attempt to deflate the coming focus on it as an issue.
Romney will be able to overcome as long as reporters dont paint LDS as a cult. Huckleberry, on the other hand, is joined at the hip with the BAptists Convention. He may have a day in the sun with his base, but I predict that, when the posse gets slimmed down, Huckleberry'll be gone.

I listened to the speech and reread it here. I don't disagree with much of what he says (and I'm no fundamentalist religionist), but I can't help but notice that he uses the term "founders" and then quotes only Adams -- the only fundamentalist Christian of the group and one who truly felt that this was a Christian nation with a Christian agenda. Adams was at direct odds with many, if not most, of his contemporaries.

While I agree with the premise of religious freedom and have no qualms about the next President being a person of faith (name me one who wasn't), I am troubled by the link to the founders as the basis for what the country should be when there was tremendous discord on that very subject within the founders themselves. Atheists did not have a founding spokesman, but the balance between religion and governmental influences was of tantamount importance to Washington. He realized that balance between individual morality (generally taught within the faith traditions) and secular oversight of the state's interests was the only thing that would allow the experiment of Democracy to succeed.

Neither do i. However, that's hardly the point. The topic of this thread is a statement on religion by one of the candidates. Therefore, one either discusses the topic, or digresses from the topic, or does not participate.

I heard a report to that effect on the radio yesterday--which, obviously i can't link here. I did find this at Salon, which i realize is not considered to be a reliable source by many people:



The news report i heard was on CBC, and they don't archive their ordinary newscasts, only their regularly scheduled programs. I tried a search at CBC, but came up dry.

If you find the remark about Huckabee offensive, then ignore it. I am willing to stipulate that i don't know that Huckabee made such a remark. That would not alter my conviction that Romney is motivated by a desire to convince the religious right that he "shares their values."

Agreed. And I believe my comments, including the reference to the relative unimportance of the subject, were both relevant and illuminating.

Relevant, perhaps--dismissive, certainly.

Illuminating? That would depend upon a relative and subjective judgment of just how benighted other members reading here can alleged to be.

The Crisis of Faith
As a "non-believer" (more politically correct than atheist) I was disgusted by Romney's pandering campaign speech. If you ain't a christian, you are trash. Maybe he can buy Jesus' approval just as he is attempting to buy the election with his own money. ---BBB

Re: The Crisis of Faith


I'm not a Christian by most definitions either, certainly not one according to Mormon or Baptist traditions, but I didn't come away with a sense of being called trash. And, believe me, I'm VERY sensitive to being called trash.

Romney and Huckabee's religious intolerance
Romney and Huckabee's religious intolerance
Nonbelievers have long been more tolerant of believers in office than the other way around.
By Joe Conason - Salon
112/7/07

Dec. 7, 2007 | Distasteful as all the Bible thumping and ostentatious piety of the Republican presidential aspirants certainly are, the time may have come to address their religious pretensions directly, instead of turning away in mild disgust. For the truth is that no matter how often candidates like Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee promise to uphold the Constitution and protect religious freedom, they are clearly seeking to impose the restrictive tests of faith that the nation's founders abhorred.

The most egregious offender against basic American civics today is Huckabee, who told a group of students at Liberty University, the center of higher learning founded by the late Jerry Falwell, that his sudden rise in the Iowa polls is an act of God. He compared the improvement in his political fortunes to the New Testament miracle of the loaves and fishes. He wasn't joking, as both his demeanor and his words demonstrated.

The Rev. Huckabee has proved willing to risk his oversold reputation as the "nice" evangelical with a primary strategy that draws attention to his qualifications as a "Christian leader," in contrast to the suspect Mormonism of Romney. Huckabee was honest enough not to deny that he believes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a cult -- and in fact, many if not most of his fellow Southern Baptists regard the LDS church as a satanic cult.

In response, Romney delivered an address that simultaneously pleaded for religious tolerance and urged intolerance of what he termed the "religion of secularism." The former Massachusetts governor at once declined to discuss the specific dogmas of his own faith while seeking to convince the bigots in his political party that, like them, he accepts Jesus Christ as the Son of God and his Savior. (Actually, Mormon beliefs about Jesus, which Romney insists he will not abandon, are considerably more complicated than his speech implied and bear little resemblance to the theology of orthodox Christianity.)

Whatever bland assurances they may offer to the contrary, both Romney and Huckabee have implicitly endorsed religious tests for a presidential candidacy. Both suggest that only leaders who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are qualified to lead. Huckabee says that we should choose a president who speaks "the language of Zion," meaning a fundamentalist Christian like himself. Romney says that among the questions that may appropriately be asked of aspiring presidential candidates is what they believe about Jesus Christ, a question he endeavored to answer in a way that would assuage suspicions about his own religion.

So if these two worthy gentlemen seek to exploit or extol their own faith, why should we bar ourselves from exploring the subject more deeply? They have invited a discussion of the sublime and the absurd in their religious doctrines, and of how those doctrines would influence them in office. We have already seen the destruction inflicted on America and the world by a dogmatic chief executive who believes that God urged him to wage war. (And let's not forget that Rudolph Giuliani, among others, has echoed the notion that President Bush was divinely chosen and inspired.)

We can begin with Romney's speech Thursday, in which he declared, as Joan Walsh noted with alarm, that there can be no liberty without faith. "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom ... Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

This statement is so patently false that it scarcely deserves refutation. If Romney has studied the bloody history of his own church, then he knows that the religious fervor of its adversaries drove them to deprive the Mormons not only of their freedom but their lives, and that the Mormons reacted in kind. If he has studied the bloody history of the world's older religions, then he knows that the most devout Christians of all sects have not hesitated to suppress, torture and murder "heretics" throughout history. Only the strictest separation of church and state has permitted the establishment of societies where freedom of conscience prevails -- and those freedoms are firmly rooted in societies where organized religion has long been in decline.

Surely Romney knows that Mormonism, in particular, was historically hostile to liberty for blacks as well as women. The founders of his church believed that God had cursed the world's dark-skinned people. They rejected abolitionism and later the civil rights movement. And their acceptance of full membership for African-Americans in the LDS church dates back only 30 years.

If Romney is going to attack humanists and secularists as "wrong," then let him explain why they were so far ahead of his church on the greatest moral issues of the past half-century.

As for Huckabee, let him answer a few pertinent questions about his faith, too. Does he actually believe in creationist dogma that insists the planet is less than 10,000 years old, and that humans once walked with dinosaurs? How would that loony idea influence his science policies as president? Is he a believer in "end times" eschatology, which holds that American foreign policy should be shaped by the coming Armageddon in the Middle East? Would he apply the harsh punishments of the Old Testament to biblical sins such as homosexuality and adultery?

Phonies like Huckabee and Romney complain constantly about the supposed religious intolerance of secular liberals. But the truth is that liberals -- including agnostics and atheists -- have long been far more tolerant of religious believers in office than the other way around. They helped elect a Southern Baptist named Jimmy Carter to the presidency in 1976, and today they support a Mormon named Harry Reid who is the Senate majority leader -- which makes him the highest-ranking Mormon officeholder in American history. Nobody in the Democratic Party has displayed the slightest prejudice about Reid's religion.

Liberals and progressives have no apologies to make, or at least no more than libertarians and conservatives do. Cherishing the freedoms protected by a secular society need not imply any disrespect for religion. But when candidates like Romney and Huckabee press the boundaries of the Constitution to promote themselves as candidates of faith, it is time to push back.

Well, there was this:



Which does beg the question of, so, if I'm not religious at all, I'm not your friend and ally? If I'm not religious at all, I'm not welcomed?

Transcript here.

He obviously relates to Adams in sentiment -- a sentiment that was divisive over 200 years ago and will be so today. That portion of the speech was directed at those who want to hear such things. I don't need to fill in the blanks on what was left unsaid because he'll say something else directed to those who feel left out. And then he'll get tripped up trying to balance the two statements - it's the nature of the beast.

I don't think it will be effective -- too many worries from those that statement was trying to unruffle on his choice of religion and too many worries from those who worry that he's too religious. The speech was inevitable. I haven't seen any commentary by the far right but I'd be surprised if he was successful in his efforts.

Yeah, doesn't seem like the speech had enough oomph.

I don't normally like Brooks, but he has an excellent column on the topic today.



Romney's speech reminded me of something I've been thinking for a while: the double standard of religion in politics. For years, we've been told that it's wrong to judge a politician based upon their religion; but on the other hand, we're constantly assailed (from the Right wing, especially) with exhortations of religious belief and adherence to creed by those who wish to be elected, as a reason for electing them.

It's as if we are only allowed to draw positive conclusions about a candidate's religious beliefs, never negative ones. Not a credible attitude. If Romney (or Huckabee) are going to base their campaigns in large part upon the concept that they are good and stalwart followers of their religions, they have an obligation to take the bad along with the good. In Romney's case, the 'bad' is the fact that Mormonism is not a topic which can be discussed out loud. He can't get into the details. To begin, half of the details sound, and I mean this, more then a little crazy. And the ones which don't necessarily sound crazy, don't jive with the fundamentalist and evangelical Christian voting blocks who Romney must woo in order to receive the nomination.

So what we get is a bland, pap-filled speech, one in which every good point of religious belief is held up as an ideal for a candidate, and every bad point is... ignored. No new information was shared at all, really. Just a warm reassurance offered to Christians that he will represent their interests when he is president; and there's no other word for that besides pandering, something which we all know Romney excels at.

I found the 'freedom requires religion' line to be offensive, as a non-religious person. Now, I'm not demanding a retraction or hollering in the street about it; he's just wrong.

Cycloptichorn

I've asked you this before, without you providing an answer: what specifically do you know about his leadership in business? What details do you know about it? Please don't google it and answer, but give me an honest assessment of what actual knowledge led you to say that his leadership was 'impressive.'

I really, really believe that the quality which leads you and others to believe this is: he made lots and lots of money. And that's fine. But that's something completely different then running the USA, and in many cases, the qualities which will allow one to be an efficient and effective manager of business do not necessarily translate to the qualities which will allow one to be an effective leader of our country. The cold knife of Efficiency is not a form of governance, and it's what gets guys like Romney ahead.

I asked before for you to name the modern business-leader presidents, and you could not, because there simply is no track record of success in that area. If leadership translated as easily as you seem to assume it does, I doubt that would be true. In fact, I believe it is quite possible to be successful in business while being a corrupt bastard. Complimentary, in fact. This isn't to say that Romney was, or is, such a person (Giuliani, on the other hand...) but that the simple record of his achievement in business is not indicative of any sort of positive morality whatsoever.

Cycloptichron

"positive morality"?



Can you name a single president that has had "positive morality"?

Being a leader does not equate well with "positive morality" beyond religious leaders. It's not a leaders job to provide morality. Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent*.