I do see that in his mind/heart and perhaps in his speechwriter’s as well, that certain phrases leave many persons out, and not only abbreviates history by omitting reference to ‘the backstories’ of our founders, but puts forth an inaccuracy regarding Deists and others of the 18th century and earlier ——–whose idea of religiousity, and freedom to not be harmed because of one’s religious beliefs or absence of such, was not likley thought of in the 21st century way of seeing that Gov Romney puts forth.

People will like/love/hate/consider what he said or not, parse it or not. Myself, I have liked to consider.

And in the brief analysis as I looked over the transcript of his speech today , I think the most striking thing is he had the cojones to try to say something publically in the midst of much political scrapple aimed at him. He said his beliefs clear: that he sees the foundation and founders as rowing an ark for the US rather than an armada of individual boats of many kinds, all with their own maps and destinations as they choose.

I think a most striking lack of consciousness in this particular speech is the leaving out of good persons who are unaffiliated with any organized or corporate religion, or non-Christian ones… people who have their own way of understanding goodness, or not goodness, without the anlagen being God.

I think being president means making overt effort to see all the many different kinds of people in the US. and elsewhere.

This is the phrase that is exclusionary: “Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people.”

And this one I don’t think would pass basic geometric logic: “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.”

There are other clangs.

And, he made himself clear about his root philosophy as a believer. I personally, find knowing his way of thinking, valuable in terms of seeing not just the outline of the candidate, but something of the stuffing.

I realize, full well, that many see his speech and his person differently. I think many in our world have suffered neglect, harm, ridicule and ostracism by people who say they are ‘religious’ when in fact, they invisiblize others or act inhumanely toward others. I find this generational wound in our culture, far more a psychological bleed-out that goes unhealed. Some day soon, I hope to write about that.

Thank you for asking me my opinion. I think I do see yours and understand it as you say it and mean it and the merits

dr.e

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

It doesn’t seem like a man who makes that kind of statement has much room for atheists like me in his republic of ’saints.’

I reckon under his regime I’ll continue to be ‘tolerated’ as long as I’m not too expressive of my freedom FROM religion. I find I’m very tired of being ‘tolerated.’ In fact, I’m very tired of tolerating such religious tolerance.

I’d rather perish alone. F Romney and the god he rode in on.

You and I have both walked in this world a long time (although you really do look a heck of a lot better than me…lol, seeing your great pix up on your blog at Salon)… but here’s ‘my final word before my final word’… To see what you and I and others have seen in our lifetime with regard to the most of what humans are and can be, and also the least of what humans are straight down into the offal and lower… to still note good, and to be reasoned in defining it, is a feat, a calling, not a delusion. Even though some would name it the latter. It is a difficult feat, and it costs far more dear, and daily, than some easier ways of either capitulating or becoming a mock mocker.

One of the premises you return to time and again, I would characterize as differentiation, which is consciousness, and I couldnt agree more. Needed. Globally. Far more.

Fellow travelers like you mean a lot. Siempre.
dr.e

OK, I’ll get off my hobby horse now.

I will note I wrote ‘evangels,’ no icals.

I think you try to see the good in everyone.

I’m not blind to the good in people, individually, but that goodness is parochial, not global. The evil men do is global. Evil propagates; goodness insulates. One practical application of this principle is organized religion in politics. Mere goodness will not suffice to save us from ourselves. It’s too late for moderation. Hope and faith are snare and delusion. The jury’s still out on love.

The world people walk in day by day has already ended, as Ray Lafferty put it, and no one can see it except the crazies. Crying out, “Repent, the End is Near!” is absurd. It’s too late to repent, the end is here. Better to say, “Eat, drink, and be merry, because we’re already dead!”

I have a migraine level case of cognitive dissonance, and I am very, very angry at everybody walking around in the daylight as if the sun were still shining–which is irrational–what else is there to do?

Yes, let’s keep going, regardless. Yee ha.

I still would hope that Gov. Romney would see fit to answer what his modern understanding is, particularly about the early 19th century exhortation regarding black persons by JS and BY. At the moment, I can’t find the exact quote re Gov Romney hopefully telling how he parses that horror (that I wrote about in the above article ,) but I’d just reiterate that again here.

Also, I hope people will not forget that some of us who others sometimes call ‘adherents,’ (I don’t think I’ve ever thought of myself as an ‘adherent,’ but I know some might) wish, hope, try to follow something other than bellowing for bloodwar. I have had this odd experience over the years, of many persons being fed up that only Evangelicals “hog the stage” regarding ideas about Christianity… but I also find when others of us raise our voices, hopfully ‘moderate ones,’ we get lambasted too, before we can barely get out of the gate.

Must be a lamb-basting kind of day. Very Old Testament, no? Ok, a little levity attempted there. I’ve no complaint. Just witness. Ok, picking self up. Let’s keep going, regardless. Yee ha.

dr.e

It is largely due to the criminal enterprise of godlicking evangels and other true believers that we have spent 8 years on cruel and disastrous sideshows instead of searching out the ways and means of retarding the flaming hunka hunka doom we ourselves created and continue to fuel.

To put it in chiliastic terms, the thousand days are over. All will have their place in the lake of fire.

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.

You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind….Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin.

Brigham Young, if he did not directly order it, certainly incited with fiery religious rhetoric the infamous Mountain Meadow Massacre in 1857, of the Fancher-Baker wagon train. Mormon militia men dressed as Paiute Indians attacked, laid siege to, and after their surrender, executed the surviving members–including women and most of the children–of the California-bound emigrants–on Sept. 11, 1857. The Mormons spared only the children they thought too young to bear witness against them. (These children were raised as Mormons with no knowledge of their true families.) 120 odd people murdered and buried in shallow graves on a cold mountain meadow. That is the dignity the Mormon militia men afforded to their fellow human beings. I have stood in that meadow, on that ground. I have felt them in that ground. Bones do sing, you know.

Needless to say, Brigham Young led the cover-up, denying that Mormons were involved, blaming the Paiutes.

Brigham Young’s Jehovah was just as bloodthirsty as the Joshua’s Jehovah. Blood watered the roots of most religions, particularly the monotheistic ones. The higher the ideals of any particular creed, the more depraved the behavior of its adherents, all justified by faith.

The Romans had gravitas, we got gloss, glitter, and glitz. Fake it til you make it. That’s the real American ‘Protestant Ethic.’ Romney is has a tight holt on them roots, shallow tho they be.

“Mormon’s deep intelligence!” !!! Clarissa, please.

Posted by Damozel | Mitt Romney is giving a speech on Thursday regarding the issue of his Mormon faith, by which I expect he means he is going to say that its weight should be nil. According to The Corner at National Review Online—and who would know …

Sadly for Romney, there’s probably a substantial part of the Republican “base” who aren’t going to be able to look past the things about Mormonism you want them to look past at the things about Mormonism you want them to see. They don’t roll that way (or at least they haven’t).

It’s not a discussion we should even be having, but the GOP—having sold out the concept of “separation of church and state” to pull in so-called “values voters”—is going to have to have it.

Any text can lead to hundreds of interpretations and applications, and, usually, people work backwards. They believe what the believe, in the way of rules for living, and then they find justification for their beliefs by cherry picking the texts and by creative interpretation.

After centuries of ‘justified ‘ wars, THOU SHALT NT KILL, is still read from pulpits with great seriousness
Killing millions is justified, but we go into paroxysms of self congratulation when defending ‘life’ ia some, highley selective, other areas.

It isn’t the text. It’s how the man reads the text.

While I think it’s all well and good the Mitt Romney identifies as a Mormon, what is unmitgatingly irksome to me is the labeling, Is a Mormon a better statesman than a Catholic, a Lutheran, a Jew? No, and we have to get off this road to nowhere with the religious swiftboating. Our founding fathers specifically foresaw this trap we are falling into, as they saw it happen in Europe time and time again.
We have become culturally retarded by our willingness to cling to outdated ideas. This is the 21st century, not the 19th, is it not?