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Romney and the Role of Religion
Columnist Ron Hart on Romney's recent rap about religion:
A Pew Research Center poll in September found that 25 percent of GOP voters, including 36 percent of white Protestants evangelicals, said that they would be less likely to vote for a Mormon. Rudy Giuliani with his three wives does better than Mitt Romney with his stable solid marriage of 30 years and his great kids. Folks, that is small-minded and wrong.
The Democrats are smarter on this. Their leading candidate Barrack Obama has admitted to drug use and no one cared. Meanwhile, the GOP base slices and dices its candidates; forcing them into in a ludicrous competition over issues of religion and morality that should have no bearing on their ability to govern.
|12.11.07 @ 11:03AM|#
that should have no bearing on their ability to
govern.
But it does have a bearing on what kind of theocracy they are going
to create.
|12.11.07 @ 11:06AM|#
Come on, it's wrong to not want a guy in office who believes in the silly Mormon stuff? I don't care how many wives the president has had, that's still not as bad a quality as believing Native Americans were Israelis and Joseph Smith wasn't a fraud.
lunchstealer|12.11.07 @ 11:06AM|#
a ludicrous competition over issues of religion and morality
that should have no bearing on their ability to govern.
We're the GOP! Ability is irrelevant. You will be assimilated, and
your distinctiveness added to our own. Actually, we will engage in
raging polemics against your distinctiveness until this
distinctiveness is at least 50 years old, and then we will embrace
your distinctiveness as a conservative value. You don't believe us?
Just look at Jazz and Catholicism. Borg got nothin' on us.
|12.11.07 @ 11:13AM|#
Making batshit crazy the guiding force of your life has no bearing on one's ability to govern?
|12.11.07 @ 11:15AM|#
I don't care how many wives the president has had, that's
still not as bad a quality as believing Native Americans were
Israelis and Joseph Smith wasn't a fraud.
All religions are equally silly.
Abdul|12.11.07 @ 11:17AM|#
Yeah, the Democrats are a lot smarter than the GOP because they don't care what religion their candidates pretend to believe in.
|12.11.07 @ 11:18AM|#
As long as the President REALLY respects the Constitution, I don't care if he/she worships the balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
|12.11.07 @ 11:28AM|#
I'd be interested to see what the percentage of Democrats who would be less inclined to vote for a candidate because he is Mormon would be. I suspect little difference. Romney is the one who made Mormonism an issue with his dishonest little speech about his faith.
|12.11.07 @ 11:28AM|#
Areson
For your information the Mickey Mouse ballon is the only true God.
Those that worship Bullwinkle and other ballons are heritic members
of the Church of Latter Day Ballons.
|12.11.07 @ 11:35AM|#
"GOP base slices and dices its candidates"
Maybe if the DEMS sliced and diced their candidates, they would
have the backbone to stop the war in Iraq.
|12.11.07 @ 11:43AM|#
The Democrats are always worried about what the Christian-right/republicans will think/say about their candidate. The Republicans are always worried about what the Christian-right/republicans will think/say about their candidate.
Seitz|12.11.07 @ 11:49AM|#
All religions are equally silly.
Yes and no. I think that yes, all religions are silly, but I think
Mormonism is sillier than others, since Joseph Smith was so clearly
a fraud. It's easy to say that 2000 years of distance makes the
Christianity myth easier to swallow, but for the difference is in
the protagonists (full disclosure, I was raised Catholic, and
haven't been to mass in probably five or six years).
I mean, Jesus suffered. Sure, both he and Smith had to put up with
a lot of crap, but Jesus took all that came to him, and he said a
lot of really unpopular things. You really had to believe that
great things in heaven awaited to follow Jesus. No one wants to
hear that they have to give everything to the poor and that kind of
crap. Then he gets executed in the end.
Smith, on the other hand, had pretty convenient revelations. Joseph
Smith liked to chase skirts, so God conveniently told him he could
marry and screw everything that moved. Feds breathing down your
back? Other than moving away from the people that wanted to kill
them, there wasn't a lot of sacrifice by the people in charge of
the Mormon religion.
Jesus may have been a charlatan (for argument's sake), but it's not
like he stood to gain a lot from it. But Joseph Smith was a shyster
long before he looked into that magic hat.
|12.11.07 @ 11:54AM|#
not as bad a quality as believing Native Americans were
Israelis and Joseph Smith wasn't a fraud.
Is it any more crazy than believing in transubstantiation, a boat
that can hold two of each animal or inconsistencies re: the number
of gods in existence? No offense to Christians or Jews, but all
religions have wacky beliefs. It's just that we've had a lot longer
to get used to Christianity's and Judaism's brands of crazy.
|12.11.07 @ 11:55AM|#
Good point, Reinmoose.
Ruthless, DailyKos is a good resource if you're looking for
Democrats challenging the warmongering minority in their midst.
There's a lot of talk about getting "More and Better Democrats"
elected, to stop the war.
|12.11.07 @ 11:56AM|#
Seitz,
Jesus is one thing. Paul and the gospel-editting early church
leaders are another.
|12.11.07 @ 11:56AM|#
Rudy "I had three wives" Giuliani is benefiting from a massive, below the radar Muslim GOP vote, something I predicted over a year ago. Mark my words: vote for Rudy, and he will take away your bacon, and he will take away your booze.
|12.11.07 @ 11:57AM|#
Can someone tell me where in the Book of Mormon it says that
waterboarding is not torture and that we must build two
Guantanamos?
I'm still trying to find the part in the New Testament where Jesus
says to launch pre-emptive nuclear attacks.
Tacos mmm...|12.11.07 @ 12:00PM|#
I mean, Jesus suffered. Sure, both he and Smith had to put up with a lot of crap, but Jesus took all that came to him, and he said a lot of really unpopular things. You really had to believe that great things in heaven awaited to follow Jesus. No one wants to hear that they have to give everything to the poor and that kind of crap. Then he gets executed in the end.
You have to admit, though, that we don't really know much about
Jesus, except through a handful of stories written at least a
generation after his death, portions of which are known late
fabrications. His actual existance is even arguable. So Christians
are able to fill in these giant gaps with imagined virtues.
Contemporaries of the early Christians found the whole religion
quite ridiculous, the same way that most people feel about the
mormons - it's too new to be true.
Seitz|12.11.07 @ 12:01PM|#
Feds breathing down your back?
I forgot the part that goes with that sentence. I was trying to
point out that when the government was coming after the Mormons
because of polygamy, God conveniently told them that polygamy was
no longer OK, at least publicly (but he apparently gave them a
little wink on the down-low).
Seitz|12.11.07 @ 12:05PM|#
You have to admit, though, that we don't really know much
about Jesus, except through a handful of stories written at least a
generation after his death, portions of which are known late
fabrications.
No argument here. My point was if you take both religions at face
value and evaluate the lives or their protagonists, what you find
is that Jesus' life (again, assuming he existed and there's some
truth to the stories) really sucked. Joseph Smith's life, on the
other hand, only sucked to the extent that he wanted to do a lot of
really illegal things, and pissed off a bunch of people.
|12.11.07 @ 12:09PM|#
Seitz,
you do realize mormons believe in jesus too, right? Joseph smith
was their founder. Jesus is still the protaganist.
Mormons suffered a lot during the early years of the church. Smith
was tarred and feathered twice, and was eventually murdured by a
mob. many of his friends and family were murdered.
|12.11.07 @ 12:10PM|#
Seitz,
while I mostly agree, it's not exactly like modern-day Christians
are all that self-sacrificing.
They may say they believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ, but
they really only mean the ones that they can convince themselves
are practical to follow. Surely there are Christians out there who
do most of the stuff they're supposed to do, but far too many
ignore their personal short-comings in favor of condemning
others.
adrian|12.11.07 @ 12:14PM|#
he wants to take my mountain dew! I can take a lot of things but not that.
|12.11.07 @ 12:15PM|#
"(but he apparently gave them a little wink on the
down-low)"
Bullshit. There is no polygamy int he mormom church whatsoever.
None.
The polygamists that still exist are not member of the mormon
church.
Seitz|12.11.07 @ 12:20PM|#
Mormons suffered a lot during the early years of the church.
Smith was tarred and feathered twice, and was eventually murdured
by a mob. many of his friends and family were murdered.
But you have to ask yourself why. Updated for today's times, If I
started a religion that said I get to screw everything in a skirt,
snort coke off of hookers asses, etc, I'd expect a lot of heat from
the government too. I also think it would be wrong to say I
"suffered" for my religion when my religion was pretty clearly
bullshit. There were very fews tenets of the Mormon movement that
didn't benefit the power structure. And I certainly sympathize with
the many people (mostly women) who not only were second class
citizens in their own religion, but also bore the brunt of the
external pressure. That they were duped doesn't make them any less
sympathetic.
Catholicism, for example, certainly perverted itself in much the
same way, what with the corruption of the Papacy over the next
couple millenia. But to the extent that there's any truth to the
Jesus myth, what was in it for him?
you do realize mormons believe in jesus too, right? Joseph
smith was their founder. Jesus is still the protaganist.
Yeah, I realize that, but the story of the Mormon religion is
really the story of people like Smith and Young.
while I mostly agree, it's not exactly like modern-day
Christians are all that self-sacrificing.
I agree with that and everything else you said. Which is why I'm
not particularly religious.
lunchstealer|12.11.07 @ 12:22PM|#
If you don't belong to the Mormon (TM) Church, you're not a
Mormon ? :(
Not now, but don't worry, they'll go back and convert you
posthumously.
Seitz|12.11.07 @ 12:23PM|#
Bullshit. There is no polygamy int he mormom church
whatsoever. None.
Certainly not today, and I didn't mean for that statement to be
misinterpreted as such, and I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. And I
don't consider the folks in Colorado City to be real Mormons. But
it's well documented that even after word went out that Polygamy
was no longer acceptable, it was still practiced by mainstream
leaders for a time thereafter. Habits die hard.
LarryA|12.11.07 @ 12:26PM|#
The Democrats are smarter on this.
Mayors against illegal guns announces presidential candidate
questionnaire.
Ready! Fire! Aim!
Duckman|12.11.07 @ 12:32PM|#
There are better reasons to dislike Romney than his religion, such as the fact that he's trying to buy the election with his personal fortune.
|12.11.07 @ 12:32PM|#
The funny thing is, both these guys are going against their respective religions: Giuliani by having three wives, and Romney by only having one.
|12.11.07 @ 12:33PM|#
Joseph Smith's life, on the other hand, only sucked to the
extent that he wanted to do a lot of really illegal things, and
pissed off a bunch of people.
... and that about wraps it up for religions founded by
libertarians. Too bad. I've always wanted my own cult.
|12.11.07 @ 12:34PM|#
I'm still trying to find the part in the New Testament where
Jesus says to launch pre-emptive nuclear attacks.
Joe S.,
Don't you realize that in order to reach the nuclear launch button,
a neo-con must turn the other cheek? Or at least lift one of them
off the seat cushion.
|12.11.07 @ 12:46PM|#
I'm still trying to find the part in the New Testament where
Jesus says to launch pre-emptive nuclear attacks.
Maybe withering the fig tree outside Jerusalem was an allegory for
that.
Then again, if Iran is causing us to sin, we're supposed to cut it
off, right?
|12.11.07 @ 12:58PM|#
It's all over, folks.
Dumber than whale shit. IMRO, half of those surveyed aren't
literate enough to read and comprehend the book.
That's right, I inferred that biblical literalists are a bunch of
ignorant yahoos. Color me intolerant. Or just tired of stupid,
ignorant, inbred hillbillies.
|12.11.07 @ 1:14PM|#
J sub D
I must take offense. I was borned in Alabama and live here now and
I AM NOT INBRED. My chillins aint neither.
|12.11.07 @ 1:18PM|#
Seitz -- have you studied the actual history of the the LDS
Church, or did you extract bullet points from anti-Mormon
pamphlets?
Other than moving away from the people that wanted to kill
them, there wasn't a lot of sacrifice by the people in charge of
the Mormon religion.
Yeah, other than being forced to abandon their houses and property
and being hounded out of Kirtland, Ohio, and then hounded out of
Far West Missouri, and then hounded out of the next place they
settled in Missouri, and then being driven out of Missouri
altogether because the governor issued an "extermination order" to
kill them all, and being repeatedly thrown into jail, and having
their prophet and various other leaders literally tarred and
feathered and sometimes murdered, and then being driven out of
Nauvoo, Illinois in the dead of winter and being forced to trek
about a thousand miles to a barren desert in the Salt Lake Valley
on foot and hauling one's possessions in a handcart and burying the
family members who died along the way, and then having the federal
government try to drive them out of there too, and then try to
confiscate all the Church's property and shut it down, in between
abandoning one's wife and children for two or more years to go
across the Atlantic to Britain on one's own dime to serve one or
more two year missions ...
Other than those piddling little inconveniences, man did those
Church leaders ever have an easy life!
|12.11.07 @ 1:41PM|#
Seitz again:
I was trying to point out that when the government was coming
after the Mormons because of polygamy, God conveniently told them
that polygamy was no longer OK, at least publicly (but he
apparently gave them a little wink on the down-low).
Articles of Faith #12:
"We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and
magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law."
From Official Declaration #1 of the LDS Church:
"Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural
marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the
court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to
those laws ... The Lord has told me to ask the Latter-day Saints a
question ... The question is this: Which is the wisest course for
the Latter-day Saints to pursue -- to continue to attempt to
practice plural marriage, with the laws of the nation against it
and the opposition of sixty millions of people, and at the cost of
the confiscation and loss of all the Temples, and the stopping of
all the ordinances therein ... and the imprisonment of the First
Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and
the confiscation of personal property of the people ...
If we had not stopped it [on our own] ... this trouble would have
come upon the whole Church, and we would have been compelled to
stop the practice [by the federal government]. Now, the question
is, whether it should be stopped in this manner, or in the way the
Lord has manifested it to us ... This is the question I lay before
the Latter-day Saints. You have to judge for yourselves. I want you
to answer it for yourselves. I shall not answer it ...
The vote to sustain the foregoing motion was unanimous."
|12.11.07 @ 1:41PM|#
My chillins aint neither.
Shouldn't that read "I was borned in Alabama and live here now and
I AM NOT INBRED. Couzin Betty lou and my chillin ain't
neither"?
|12.11.07 @ 1:48PM|#
J sub D,
I kindly ask you to not drag my momma's second husband's step
daughter into the fracous. She aint my couzin you freek.
And just how the hell didja know her name?
Seitz|12.11.07 @ 1:50PM|#
If you're going to deliberately misunderstand the point, there's
not much use in explaining it to you.
No is arguing that many Mormons weren't persecuted, or that a lot
of people didn't make individual sacrifices to follow the Mormon
religion. Smith, however, was a shyster. He always had been. And
while the people who followed him paid for his "sins", Smith didn't
suffer until he finally overstepped his bounds in Navou.
I'm going to sound like a big-time Christian here, but trust me,
I'm not. My point is that following Jesus and living a life of
poverty and charity (again, to the extent there's truth to the
myth) was purely an act of faith. You had to believe that something
better was out there, and you weren't going to get it until you
were dead. Life was going to suck, but the next part was going to
be pretty good. That wasn't exactly true for Smith, and Young, and
other Mormon leaders. There was a lot in it for them in life. And
ultimately, it's easier to believe someone who's walking the walk
than it is to believe someone who's talking the talk.
"We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and
magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the
law."
Your point being? So "new and everlasting covenants" were only
everlasting until a law was passed?
"The same God that has thus far dictated me and directed me and
strengthened me in this work, gave me this revelation and
commandment on celestial and plural marriage, and the same God
commanded me to obey it. He said to me that unless I accepted it,
and introduced it, and practiced it, I, together with my people
would be damned and cut off from this time henceforth. We have got
to observe it. It is an eternal principle and was given by way of
commandment and not by way of instruction."
He must of left out the "unless people start to run us out of the
country, then we can disobey it" caveat.
Seitz|12.11.07 @ 1:51PM|#
That wasn't exactly true for Smith, and Young, and other
Mormon leaders.
I should, however add that it was true for the vast majority of
people who followed them.
|12.11.07 @ 1:54PM|#
If you don't belong to the Mormon (TM) Church, you're not a
Mormon ? :(
woofyman, there's the main Church, which has about 13 million
members, and a bunch of vastly smaller splinter sects, such as the
fundy Mormons (FLDS), or reformed Church (RLDS)with memberships in
the thousands or tens of tnousands, none of which recognizes the
others as legitimate. The main Church forbids polygamy, and
excommunicates anyone found to be practicing it who doesn't repent
and cease and desist. There are quite a few non-main-Church or
independent polys scattered around, mostly in Utah or surrounding
states -- they're free to form their own Church or act
independently, if by "free" you mean "breaking the law and subject
to imprisonment".
So, to answer you question: The main Mormon Church feels they're
the only true Mormons, the fundy polygamists feel they're the only
true Mormons, the RLDS feel they're the only true Mormons,
etc.
It's a free market thing. ;)
|12.11.07 @ 1:55PM|#
"""Smith, on the other hand, had pretty convenient revelations.
Joseph Smith liked to chase skirts, so God conveniently told him he
could marry and screw everything that moved."""
Shows you know little about skirt chasers. They prefer not to marry
ever skirt they chase.
Seitz|12.11.07 @ 2:04PM|#
Shows you know little about skirt chasers. They prefer not
to marry ever skirt they chase.
How do you explain Rudy? :)
Seitz = Dave S?
No. In the past two days I've been accused of being Edward (not)
and now Dave S. (also not). I don't believe I've ever sworn off the
board.
|12.11.07 @ 2:13PM|#
Seitz again: "We believe in being subject to kings,
presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and
sustaining the law."
Your point being? So "new and everlasting covenants" were only
everlasting until a law was passed?
Umm, if you had read what I printed after Article of Faith #12, my
point was that not only does the Church believe in obeying the law,
they had no practical choice in the matter ... either they
abandoned polygamy "voluntarily", or the feds would have used
extreme force to destroy the Church, force the law-abiding members
to abandon the practice, and continually hound the few stragglers
who defied the law.
Doctrinally, the Church didn't permanently give up the practice,
but rather told its members that they had to choose to either
voluntarily give up the practice until such time as the federal
government rescinded the law (if ever), or choose to leave the
Church.
Basically, because the federal government acted extremely
unlibertarian, two principles of the Church came into conflict with
each other, and they had to pick one. Should the federal government
ever act more libertarian and quit regulating who and how many
people can get married, then the Church would have the option of
resuming the practice ... though since it's slowly been taken over
by people who consider polygamy anathema, and who are single-minded
about growing membership, it seems unlikely they'd reinstate
polygamy even if the ban was lifted.
|12.11.07 @ 2:22PM|#
"""How do you explain Rudy? :)""""
Skirt chasing and serial marrying are two different things.
:-)
Now Clinton was a skirt chaser, which the right-wing hated. Seems
like the right-wing has few problems as long as you marry, divorce,
marry, divorce, and marry. They don't seem to care that Rudy
commited adultery in the process, which makes me wonder what was
their problem with Clinton. The adultry, or the fact that is was in
the Whitehouse? Certainly the GOP talk of why it was important to
impeach Clinton it at odds with whom they support now. Which is at
the core of why the GOP held control for only a short time. No set
of values is worth keeping when your in office, only when the other
party is in office.
UM|12.11.07 @ 2:27PM|#
Prolefeed, I think that's why the church has been so adamant in
opposition to gay marriage, even more than on some other issues
that would seem to be equally important to morals and all.
Basically, as long as the one man + one woman bit is the law of the
land, the old argument that polygamy was withdrawn "as a practice,
not a principle" (which, incidentally, Seitz, is how a Mormon who
knows their history would respond to your argument, whether you
find it convincing or not) has no real practical implications. The
day that the tidy definition of marriage is exploded, however, the
question can be raised as to why polygamy isn't reinstated (it was
the definitional practice in the church in the nineteenth
century, a role then taken over by the Word of Wisdom: no coffee,
tea, tobacco, or alcohol). Since reinstating polygamy would freak
people out and end any illusion of the mainstreaming of Mormons in
contemporary society, I don't think many are keen to even face the
issue.
Think of it as the Mormon version of the Domino Effect. You fight
the gay marriage bit to protect your homeland.
|12.11.07 @ 2:32PM|#
"Certainly the GOP talk of why it was important to impeach
Clinton it at odds with whom they support now."
The articles of impeachment were'nt over Clinton's running around
but over his lieing under oath about it. Although I don't think
that necessarily deserved impeachment, but I think allowing Loral
and Hughes, whom had given large contributions to Clinton's
re-election campaign, to sell missile secrets to China should have
been more thoroughly investigated and that that would have been an
impeachable offense if found guilty.
|12.11.07 @ 3:03PM|#
Seitz,
I think your underlying point that Christianity is easier nonsense
to swallow than Mormonism is, but your argument is weak. Smith's
cult made him a leader among men, but also a persecuted man on the
run, no different than the early Christian leaders. You may view
having multiple wives as awesome, but it was hardly a necessary
prerequisite to getting yourself some pussy in that century.
Brothels existed. Extra-marital affairs took place. "Loose" women
were open to premarital sex. If all Smith wanted was tail, he could
have just moved to NYC and saved himself a lot of trouble.
Moreover, many of the tennants of Mormonism suck- no smoking, no
drinking, and and overall culture that pushes the boundries of
dorkishness.
No, the real and only reason Christianity is easier to swallow than
Mormonism is the fact that Smith is of such recent vintage that we
can pour through his life and document his dubious claims and
outright frauds. On the other hand, scholars know so little about
the life of Jesus that there isn't agreement as to whether he even
existed at all.
UM|12.11.07 @ 3:32PM|#
Actually, aside from atheist polemicists, there is very little disagreement among serious historians of religion, including those that think Christianity itself is a load of #@$!, that there was someone in Judæa that Jesus corresponds to. We actually have better evidence for the existence of Jesus (as historical figure) than we do for many figures no one questions. It's only when you engage in the atheist vs. Christian debate, where arguing that the God of one side never existed is powerful ammo, that this even becomes an issue. If you get out of that fight this isn't an issue, even though there is absolutely no agreement among scholars and historians of religion beyond the fact that a Jesus person did exist.
|12.11.07 @ 3:46PM|#
"We actually have better evidence for the existence of Jesus (as
historical figure) than we do for many figures no one
questions."
Not true.
|12.11.07 @ 3:57PM|#
"""The articles of impeachment were'nt over Clinton's running
around but over his lieing under oath about it."""
If the Scooter Libby trial has taught us anything, it's that
Republicans/right-wingers don't really care about that.
|12.11.07 @ 4:00PM|#
UM -- there are certainly a few scholarly folks in the Church
who think through the Domino effect consequences as you described,
but it's mostly a self-reinforcing loop: not being openly
practicing gay is a requirement for joining the Church, so the only
gay people in the Church are gays born to Church members, or
converts who discover their sexuality after conversion, who either
choose to remain celebate or who go really deep into the
closet.
I think the much more prevalent view is that the price of getting
polygamy is the federal recognition of gay marriage, and that's a
price that the top leadership refuses to pay.
Frankly, I think if the laws against polygamy were abandoned, it's
quite possible that huge pressure would build for the Church to
reinstate the practice to avoid looking like blatant hypocrites,
but the practical effect would be minimal, at least initially,
since the overwhelming membership of the Church would choose not to
practice that principle.
|12.11.07 @ 4:00PM|#
"""We actually have better evidence for the existence of Jesus
(as historical figure) than we do for many figures no one
questions. """"
What are you calling evidence?
|12.11.07 @ 4:02PM|#
Wow, UM
And where exactly does one find this "evidence" for the existence
of Jesus?
It certainly isn't in any contemporary historical accounts. Or in
the archeological record.
|12.11.07 @ 4:03PM|#
"If the Scooter Libby trial has taught us anything, it's that
Republicans/right-wingers don't really care about that."
You're right about that Tricky. I've always felt that the Clintons
were guilty on several matters, but it was hard to prove. Just like
Al Capone. The government put Al Capone away over something they
could prove, income tax evasion. The only thing Republicans could
prove about Clinton was his lieing under oath, so that's what they
went after him over. The problem was that that wasn't bad enough a
thing for the public to want him ousted from office over.
|12.11.07 @ 4:04PM|#
UM -- the only purported firsthand evidence for the existence of
Christ is the New Testament, a single very brief reference (of
dubious authenticity, possibly added after the fact by medieval
monks) by a historian of that time and ... wait for it ... the Book
of Mormon, which is not accepted as reliable historical evidence by
very many, if any, non-Mormons.
Everything else is feeding off these sources, IIRC. Please correct
me if there's some other source I haven't heard about.
|12.11.07 @ 4:07PM|#
UM -- Oh, and the Gospel of Thomas, and some lesser apocrypha that were pruned out of the canon by the Council of Nicea. My bad for forgetting these.
Joel|12.11.07 @ 4:16PM|#
Meanwhile, the GOP base slices and dices its
candidates;
Well, I don't give a damn about Mormonism one way or another. But
I'd sure like to see somebody explain why slicing and dicing
politicians is a bad thing. In fact, I'd like to see it done in a
more bipartisan way!
|12.11.07 @ 4:16PM|#
"UM -- the only purported firsthand evidence for the existence
of Christ is the New Testament, a single very brief reference (of
dubious authenticity, possibly added after the fact by medieval
monks) by a historian of that time"
That would be Josephus. It is obviously a forgery, probably by
Eusebius who said he was willing to lie in order to promote
Christianity. If you take that section out, the prose runs smoothly
from the previous paragraph to the next. It's also strange that
Josephus, a Jew would write such glorious material about
Jesus.
Also, Tacitus mentions rioting in Jerusalem at the instigation of
Crestus. Crestus doesn't = Christ. Some people have fancied that it
does because of the similarity in the names. Certainly, no
proof.
|12.11.07 @ 4:17PM|#
Yeah, other than being forced to abandon their houses and
property and being hounded out of Kirtland, Ohio, and then hounded
out of Far West Missouri, and then hounded out of the next place
they settled in Missouri, and then being driven out of Missouri
altogether because the governor issued an "extermination order" to
kill them all, and being repeatedly thrown into jail, and having
their prophet and various other leaders literally tarred and
feathered and sometimes murdered, and then being driven out of
Nauvoo, Illinois in the dead of winter and being forced to trek
about a thousand miles to a barren desert in the Salt Lake Valley
on foot and hauling one's possessions in a handcart and burying the
family members who died along the way, and then having the federal
government try to drive them out of there too, and then try to
confiscate all the Church's property and shut it down, in between
abandoning one's wife and children for two or more years to go
across the Atlantic to Britain on one's own dime to serve one or
more two year missions ...
prolefeed - based on this distribe, I assume you understand why
we're so concerned about somebody who wants to govern based on
their religious beliefs? All the persecution the mormons faced was
due to other people governing based on their religious beliefs.
|12.11.07 @ 4:53PM|#
Lou said,
"Come on, it's wrong to not want a guy in office who believes in
the silly Mormon stuff? I don't care how many wives the president
has had, that's still not as bad a quality as believing Native
Americans were Israelis and Joseph Smith wasn't a fraud."
Why? Why is believing in something which seems unbelievable a bad
quality?
If you're a moral realist, then you might understand Romney a
little better, and perhaps give him the benefit of the doubt, I
mean hell he was raised in that religion, all his family, friends,
etc are in it. BTW, I don't care for Romeny. I'm not a republican,
and even if I was, I wouldn't vote for Romney.
But if we're just going on evidence, it's certainly not apparent
that religion in general is bad for those who participate, whether
or not some think the world would be better without it. And Mormons
in particular are some of the highest educated and highest income
earners around, on the average. That doesn't make any of them
qualified to be president, but it certainly shows that this 'lack
of genral judgment' meme doesn't seem to fit.
If you're a moral non-realist, on the other hand, well then nothing
is really bad. And if you can go ahead and admit that, then we can
wave bye-bye to all the rhetorical force of your argument.
If you're not sure what you are, and just are committed to the idea
that believing weird things is a bad quality, then perhaps your
view is itself pretty weird. After all, there's nothing substantial
behind it, other than a taste like a preference for cake over ice
cream, nevertheless it is asserted as if it packs an objective
punch.
So belief in Isrealite Native Americans on the one hand, and belief
in the "goodness" of epistemological rigor on the other, are in the
same boat, which means without rational (or better yet, emperical)
justification.
So it seems to me that if someone maintains that weird beliefs are
a "bad" thing, then they either a) don't really mean it deep down,
or b)lack a rigorous justification for what they're maintaining, in
which case, what they're maintaining seems pretty...weird.
|12.11.07 @ 5:00PM|#
Mike,
Were the Cambodian suicide bombers, who plegged alliegance to a
communist regime, doing what they did because of their religious
beliefs, or because of an ideology?
It seems that any ideology, religious, secular, or otherwise, can
be good or bad.
Politicians are informed by their values, and some of those
polticians values are shaped by religion. So what? It just depends
on whether the religion is excessively fundie or not, and it also
probably depends more on the individual candidate and his/her
trustworhtiness. I would argue that Romney underwhlems in this
area, but this has more to do with his record and words, rather
than the details of his religion.
The LDS Church is hardly liberal, but we've had conservative
Christians govern us before, and we've had pretty literalistic
Chrstians govern us before, like Jimmy Carter, and though we can
argue about how good he was, his literal Christian beliefs didn't
seem to cause the sky to fall in on us.
UM|12.11.07 @ 5:52PM|#
Rattlesnake Jake,
This is going to be a bit long, but I've got to cover some pretty
basic historical method stuff here for you. Sorry about that, but
your comments indicate that you really aren't aware of how
historians work with events prior to good record keeping.
First off, I'm not talking about Mormon beliefs or what believers
say about Jesus, but rather about if you pose the historical
question: was there a fellow named Jeshua (Gr. Jesus) who was
regarded by some as a messiah and who was executed by the
Romans?
That is a very distinct question from was Jesus the son of God or
whether Jesus did much other than that get exectuted. Now if you go
into any department of Religious Studies (which tend to be
populated by non-believers who are very distrustful of actual
believers, by the way) and asked the scholars that question, you
would get positives with a bunch of provisos about that not meaning
that Jesus did anything in particular.
You are correct, we have no contemporary mentions of Jesus. But
then again, if that is your only basis for determining if people
existed, you'd have to rule out of a lot of people that we are
reasonably confident did in fact exist. In fact, given Roman
history practices, it would be somewhat surprising if we did have
contemporary records of Jesus rather than later encapsulations of
the stories circulating among early Christians.
But, to play it your way a little bit, we do have records of other
wild-n-crazy hicks from the sticks who led messianic movements at
the same time as Jesus, and we even have a few brief mentions of
them being killed by the Roman authorities. From those we know that
the Romans didn't take these guys seriously-they treated them as a
minor nuisance-until they started fighting against the Roman
authorities or leading the Sanhedrin to make noise. If you read a
decent translation of the accounts of Jesus' trial (i.e., not the
KJV, which is wonderfully indecipherable), it's pretty apparent
that Pilate wants nothing more than to get these stupid provincials
out of his hair when they show up during the Passover, the period
when violence was most likely to erupt. Letting them kill Jesus was
intended to pacify them and make his life easier. So we have that
part of the New Testament pretty consistent with what we know
actual Roman officials tended to do with actual messiah figures of
the time.
So you would propose that, even though there were a number of
Jesus-like guys running around causing problems for the Romans in
exactly the way Jesus seemed to do from the Roman perspective, that
we should assume that everything was made up from whole cloth? That
takes more faith that just accepting that there was a Jesus guy who
got executed.
To go a bit further, there are ways of working with texts to
determine probabilistic authenticity. These ways rule out a
lot of the New Testament (which is why fundies don't like them
and argue that they're Satan's tools). When you start seeing the
same stories showing up in texts from obviously different oral
traditions, who start assigning a high probability to those events
being rooted in some historical event. You can count out the
resurrection if you want (even the New Testament argues that this
is something you wouldn't normally believe), but other bits are
reasonable under this criteria. The Bethlehem birth isn't among
them at al, but the idea that Jesus was from the sticks in Nazareth
is pretty certain, as is that he taught that he was the messiah and
that he got himself executed as a public nuisance.
When you start talking to historians of religion-as opposed to
armchair polemicists who tend to be arrogant enough to think
they've discovered something nobody realized before in pointing out
the lack of a smoking gun-very few scholars question that there was
some guy in Roman Palestine who was the germ for Jesus. Whether
that fellow did much of what is recorded in the New Testament is
another question, but you'll get that much agreement.
Of course, you're sold on your position, so this is probably so
much wasted effort…
Of course, I have to ask why it would threaten you if there really
was a Jesus, even if it turns out that he was a yokel rabble-rouser
killed to appease a more powerful rabble.
UM|12.11.07 @ 5:58PM|#
Also, Tacitus mentions rioting in Jerusalem at the instigation of Crestus. Crestus doesn't = Christ. Some people have fancied that it does because of the similarity in the names. Certainly, no proof.
You're right that that absurd bit would get tossed out in an
instance. The notion that Tacitus would use a Greek religious title
to refer to someone who would have been known by a personal name is
silly. Had he said that a Iesus or Iesua who claimed to be a god
instigated rioting, that would be another story...
UM|12.11.07 @ 6:40PM|#
By the way, for an example of people with even less evidence,
there are a number of Egyptian pharaohs known only from much later
lists and for whom there is no contemporary or archeological
evidence. We don't discard them for that reason because the
evidence for their existence is, on the whole, reasonable, but it
is actually less than the evidence that there was a Jesus
person.
So no, there is no "proof" (i.e., proof positive) for a Jesus
person, but there is substantial evidence-the two are quite
different. Remember that history isn't science and historical truth
is probabilistic in nature.
|12.11.07 @ 6:45PM|#
prolefeed - based on this distribe, I assume you understand
why we're so concerned about somebody who wants to govern based on
their religious beliefs? All the persecution the mormons faced was
due to other people governing based on their religious
beliefs.
Mike -- I did kinda beat my point a bit too much. You want to call
it a diatribe, I'll take my chastening and not argue the semantics.
My bad.
I not only understand why people here are concerned about people
governing based on their religious beliefs, I SHARE that concern.
I'm voting for Ron Paul in the primary, not Mitt Romney. I don't
want anything resembling a theocracy -- I want a strict adherence
to the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom for people
of all faiths or no faith. A similar vigorous respect for the rest
of the Bill of Rights, in particular the Tenth, further endears a
candidate to me.
I guess it's easy to equate "vigorously correcting gaping factual
errors about Mormon history" with "supporting a Mormon theocracy",
but those are two separate POVs.
|12.11.07 @ 7:36PM|#
Hart is right again on this one. "Who loves Jesus the most" or
better said, he who shows that he loves Jesus the most might win
the GOP primary. Sad but true.
I do like Hart's line about the patrician Romney that the most he
ever did was maybe to experiment with domestic wines in the 1970's.
He makes a great point with humor.
Fenevad|12.11.07 @ 8:37PM|#
It certainly isn't in any contemporary historical accounts. Or in the archeological record.
In the archaeological record?! What, do you expect them to produce
the bones of Jesus? Find us archaeological proof of the existence
of most people...
Also, see UM on contemporary historical accounts. That's hardly
proof of nonexistence.
Sheesh, I leave here for four or five months and the arguments
never change
Someone Who Doesn\'t Want to L|12.11.07 @ 9:41PM|#
UM said:
Remember that history isn't science and historical truth is probabilistic in nature.
I'd guess that this is only under a pretty loose definition of the
term probabilistic.
I suspect that there's very little, and very hard to quantify, data
to even make a valid statistical inference in the cases of
which you speak. That's not to say that the existence of a man
called Jesus whose life roughly corresponds with part
of the Biblical account mightn't the best guess -
though still far from a certainty - given what records we have.
However, if the data can't be quantified in some manner (which I
doubt even the full historical records can), and doesn't have a
large enough sample size (likewise I assume the historical record
on Jesus would have to be said to have a very small sample size if
its "sample size" could even be measured in a meaningful way),
citing probability or statistical methods to determine the
likelihood of a certain historical event's truth is
problematic at best. I doubt we can state the end result with any
sort of worthwhile confidence. This is especially true as we are
unable to clearly describe the space of possibly true historical
events.
This is not to say that statistics aren't often misinterpreted even
when they are applicable or that there might be
non-statistical methods of determining the likelihood of a
historical account's truth. Keep in mind that statistics certainly
isn't my field. However, I am pretty comfortable saying that
statistical methods will be of very little use in determining the
accuracy of historical accounts, especially very old ones. If
there's a valid and useful way of quantifying these accounts of
which I am not aware, history's on more certain ground
(statistically speaking) than I had thought.
Having said all this, you are certainly correct that history is not
a science. Also, if you are using the term probabilistic in more of
a common usage sense than in reference to the study of probability
and statistics, I suppose I should withdraw my post as being
pointlessly technical. (Which seems likely, now that I think of
it.) Sorry! Have a nice day!
Mad Max|12.12.07 @ 1:49AM|#
"And where exactly does one find this "evidence" for the
existence of Jesus?
"It certainly isn't in any contemporary historical accounts. Or in
the archeological record."
Yeah - I mean, for instance, no-one has ever been able to find the
body.
"Were the Cambodian suicide bombers, who pleg[d]ed alliegance to a
communist regime, doing what they did because of their religious
beliefs, or because of an ideology?"
This is an unfair point, because (a) there is no inherent link
between Communism and atheism, and (b) Communism is obviously a
religion, because it's evil and irrational, and everyone knows that
evilness and irrationality is the *definition* of religion.
Someone Who Doesn\'t Want to L|12.12.07 @ 4:48AM|#
Max,
There has been a link between Communism and atheism (particularly
in Communist national governments such as that of the Soviet Union
and in the philosophy of Marx). However, the link is certainly not
strong enough to take the form of an "All X are Y" statement, much
less the biconditional version. Communism can be
Christian, and can presumably have ties to other religions as
well. In fact, the Christian Communism of the link is precisely the
kind of thing I was suggesting on the weekend thread - I wasn't
implying some sort of Christian gulag regime or anything of the
sort. Note that this Christian Communism seems to lack much of the
violent nature of the Stalinist version while still being
explicitly collectivist.
I don't know where you're getting the "Communism is obviously a
religion" point; I haven't seen such a statement posted here by
anyone. If it's on another thread (or lots of them), I'll have to
take your word for it (or your link if that's forthcoming), but I
haven't seen it. The point Jay J seems to have been making in his
line that you quote seems to be exactly the same one that you are
trying to make, i.e. that the Cambodian suicide bombers were doing
what they did not because of a religion,
but because of an ideology.
UM|12.12.07 @ 6:59AM|#
If you want a good summary of how the evidence for a historical
Jesus is built and weighed, the Wikipedia
article on the historicity of Jesus is actually pretty good.
Notice that none of the evidence discussed is archaeological, but
then again, unless you found the True Cross™ or something like
that, I have no idea what you'd expect. There are lots of people
who left no archaeological record.
The article explains why scholars posit earlier records than we now
have (you can't explain the earliest writings we do have if there
weren't earlier ones) and how they build the case. It does
acknowledge a controversy over whether there was a real Jesus
person, but as it (correctly) puts it, the position that there was
not one is a "very small minority" position. As the article puts
it, "Non-historicity is regarded as effectively refuted by almost
all Biblical scholars and historians."
Part of the reason that it's a minority position is that its
proponents have to engage in quite a bit of mental gymnastics to
explain away the evidence we do have and it's a much more
straight-forward proposition, both intellectually and historically,
to accept that there was a Jesus person whose life was embellished
in early Christian writings, a statement rather neutral in its
theological impact (unless you're a fundie).
And no, I'm not relying on Wikipedia in making this case: it just
happens in this case to be a pretty good summary of a lot of
historical work. There are any number of reputable, non-polemic
books that outline the arguments about sources for the New
Testament. For good, mainstream scholarly accounts by a
(presumedly) non-believer (he doesn't discuss his faith except to
say he's a former fundy, but it's clear he's not proselytizing),
see the various works by Bart Ehrman. When you read them, consider
how much more complicated the picture becomes if you posit that
there is absolutely no historical grain at the center of what he's
discussing. So much of what we do have becomes unexplainable in
that case, but poses no problem if there was a Jesus guy.
So, Rattlesnake Jack and Isaac Bertram, before you argue that there
is no evidence, you should be aware of what counts as evidence and
not insist that only certain kinds of evidence that are lacking for
many historical figures be applied. Be aware as well that the
burden of proof is on you in face of consensus among scholars that
the evidence for the existence of a Jesus person is
compelling.
But then again, you probably know that most scholars don't agree
with you and get pretty pissed that not everyone acknowledges the
truth of the books you've read that say there was no Jesus person
at all.
Wait, somewhere in the back of my mind that reminds me of the
attitude some other class of people have towards another book.
Can't think who it might be, but I'll let you know if I think of
them...
|12.12.07 @ 10:05AM|#
What, do you expect them to produce the bones of Jesus? Find us archaeological proof of the existence of most people...
My point was more that much of the Bible is contradicted by the
historical and archeological record.
Many Christians recognize this and accept the bible as a work that
guides and inspires them rather than as an accurate historical
account and infallible instruction manual.
In the same way many Jews have long since gotten past the fact that
the story of Moses and the escape from Egypt is most certainly
fiction even as they continue to tell it as one of their
foundational narratives.
|12.12.07 @ 10:13AM|#
Actually, UM, I've never read a book that says there was no
Jesus. I've also never read a book that I consider evidence of his
existence.
Now if your just saying that he was one of the numerous
rabblerousers and troublemakers that found themselves running afoul
of the Roman and Jewish authorities, that's a different matter. I
have no problem accepting that the Jesus narrative is based on the
lives of some or all of those guys.
Look, I don't really care what you believe. I'm not out to convince
anyone. Just don't claim that evidence exists where none
does.
And obviously I can't prove that there was no Jesus, even if I
wanted to.
UM|12.12.07 @ 10:48AM|#
Look, I don't really care what you believe. I'm not out to convince anyone. Just don't claim that evidence exists where none does.
I'm baffled. What constitutes evidence for you, especially as you
go on and grant ("I have no problem accepting") the question I was
very careful to delineate from the start? I have tried repeatedly
to emphasize, to the point of being pedantic, that this is a
separate question from anything taught by Christianity or any
proposition about religion.
What you "consider evidence" is something only you know and that is
therefore unverifiable so I cannot speak to that. By your standard,
no evidence exists, but what most of the people who study the
historical Jesus question-including those who think that
Christianity is wrongheaded and stupid-consider evidence is
something we can verify, and there you are, quite simply, wrong to
assert that there is no evidence (go look at the Wikipedia article
if you haven't already). I don't know any other way to put it.
UM|12.12.07 @ 11:11AM|#
Isaac, by the way, perhaps it wasn't clear, but I am not advocating treating the Bible as history. I advocate treating it as two things: (a) one among many (problematic in interesting ways) historical sources, and (b) myth (in the technical sense, which says nothing about whether it is true or not and nothing about what sense true should be evaluated in). Believe it or not, I am strongly opposed to fundamentalists and dogmatists, which is why the "there was no such person as Jesus" dogma bothers me, especially when there evidence that there was a Jesus person, independent of what anyone believes about that person.
|12.12.07 @ 11:51AM|#
UM
I found your last post eminently reasonable. And I do apologize. I
did not intend for my tone to seem quite so confrontational but I
can see that one might think it was.
Believe it or not, I am not a dogmatist who says, "there was no
such person as Jesus". I simply see no evidence for such nor do I
find that believing (in either the mythical or literal Jesus) would
fill any need in my life.
Religious belief must stand ultimately on faith. It is my opinion
that someone who relies on some kind of proof to sustain his
religious belief will end up either disappointed or engaging in
constant self-deception.
|12.12.07 @ 12:33PM|#
Lee Strobel, The Case For Christ
Really a fascinating read. A bit of a look into the plausibility of
the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. Worth the time in my
opinion.
|12.12.07 @ 1:05PM|#
Mad Max,
I'm not saying that there is any link between Communism and
atheism. I'm only saying that the presence of atheism does not
necessarily lead to peaceful outcomes.
Communism is atheistic, but that doesn't count as a strike against
atheism, any more than Jonestown counts as a strike against
Lutherans.
Ideology, religious or secular, can be very dangerous. And
philosophies, religious or secular, can be very helpful.
As for your comments about communism being a religion, and why it
counts as such, I have to laugh.
Sorry if I missed the sarcasm, it's hard to detect in print.
UM|12.12.07 @ 1:13PM|#
Religious belief must stand ultimately on faith. It is my opinion that someone who relies on some kind of proof to sustain his religious belief will end up either disappointed or engaging in constant self-deception.
Now there's a statement I can same "amen" to. ;-)
|12.12.07 @ 4:08PM|#
"""Religious belief must stand ultimately on faith."""
It can only stand on faith, that is by design.
|12.12.07 @ 5:52PM|#
This is true, TrickyVic, but an awful lot of people I know are
constantly telling me how the existence of God, Jesus etc is a
proven fact. They then proceed to spout a bunch of nonsense that
only the most self-deluded person could believe to be any kind of
proof.
On the other hand I know people with true faith who feel under
absolutely no obligation to either prove their belief or
rationalize its inconsistencies with actual scientific or
historical fact. For them religious belief inhabits a separate
realm.
I confess that when I hear someone speak of "evidence" I think of
the former type. It probably shouldn't but that generally gets a
certain type of reaction from me.
UM|12.12.07 @ 9:12PM|#
Isaac,
I see now why you reacted with a certain degree of hostility to
what I wrote. I agree with you that most of what people want to
cite as "proof" is not that at all. And frankly if that's what they
base their faith on, then they are in trouble since, sooner or
later, part of the "proof" they are based on will change in some
way, and where does that leave their conclusions based on that
proof. If there is a fundamental difference in outlook between
religion and science it is that science admits (at least in theory)
its provisional nature and welcomes disruption if that disruption
advances knowledge. Dogmatism (and here one can include the
careerism of many scientists, who, after all, are human), instead
fears disruption and tries to destroy it.
I have a concept of religious faith that says that it had better
allow for change and embrace what science finds out. So, for
instance, if geology tells me that the world is ~4B years old and
has reasonable evidence for that, then I need to take that as part
of the facts of the world, not try to pretend it ain't so.
Ultimately I think that fundamentalism and dogma is based on fear:
fear of uncertainty and dread that one might not have the answers.
By seeking for fixity in anything, the goal is to escape the
essential changeable and contingent nature of human existence.
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