Personally, I agree with the constitution, which mandates no religious test to qualify one for public office. There's plenty to judge a candidate on, based upon their history, record, and promises.
One of the reasons that I've stayed out of the thread is because I don't see this as a mainstream issue. There are plenty of juicy points to debate (in the manner that ABM and D-Rock have been doing) on whether LDS is a cult or not, but to the vast majority of people this isn't an issue. As Denny said, a lot of people will either not care a lick about which Spaghetti Monster someone prays to, or look for someone who's generally decently moral without some huge Weiner-esque moment in their background. (yes, SPD, that was on purpose) For those that aren't of the faith, I imagine that the farther the discussion degrades into matters of doctrine and specialization, the more turned off they'll be and think that both are whackjobs. Has anyone actually discussed on here (I haven't seen it, if it has) the large-scale heresy (if you believe in mainstream evangelical doctrines) that the President has espoused? No, because there are bigger deals to worry about than how someone practices their particular faith. And let's be honest...for 30% or more of the country, they aren't voting for someone with an (R) next to their name anyway. So maybe Perry's campaign team (or just this off-the-reservation Congressman) thought that they could steal a large amt of primary votes away from Romney by bringing up his particular brand of faith. I disagree...if you're an evanglical who is of the opinion that LDS is a cult then this isn't a shock to you. If you don't believe that's the case, then some guy from Texas bringing it up won't mask a bunch of the other issues that you'd normally get behind Romney for. Either way, I have a hard time seeing whose mind/vote will be changed by this approach, regardless of how I feel about the veracity (or not) of the quote.
You are right. I apologize for hijacking the thread. This isn't the place for a theological discussion/debate. I'll delete my last post because it's more incendiary than it needed to be. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I tend to believe that there's a portion of America (although maybe not a significant one) that has no clue what the LDS believes and Jeffress' comments may have an biased influence on those people. Of course that could just be a little LDS persecution complex coming through. Generally speaking though, I think you're right. It's not going to sway too many people away from Romney. If anything, from what little I've read, it seems to have turned more people off from Perry. Kind of the same thing that happened to Huckabee.
I'm not saying this isn't a place for theological debate (Lord knows that my views are scattered all over this board), but that in this particular context (Romney v. Perry in the Matter of Religious Doctrine) it's kind of a non-starter in terms of impact on the debate/election.
Yes, that's what I meant. I know the board is open to religious debate, but this thread has little to do with actual religious doctrines as I had unintentionally tried to turn it into. Thanks for the level headed thinking.
I don't think that Brian's post meant "shut up" (even in a nice way). You are doing, as far as I can tell, a great job of being level-headed and laying out things as you understand them. The more we can get of that--whether it's about basketball or LDS or LSD--the better this place will be. Ed O.
Huntsman to dipshit Pastor: "Fuck Off!" And to Perry: "Fuck you for hanging out with and supporting this knuckle dragger." Or, at least, that's what I got out of it. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/10/huntsman-pastor-is-a-moron/?hpt=hp_bn3
We can all thank the media for that. Not. Heh, on that note, I can't help but be reminded of Marissa Tomei's character in Ides Of March.
I appreciate that. I didn't think I was going over the top either until my last post that I deleted. I have no problem answering questions and explaining things about the LDS church still, I was just acknowledging and agreeing with Brian that theological discussion wasn't the subject of this thread. I know I don't care for when a thread I'm actually interested in gets hijacked (not that this thread was necessarily interesting to everyone), so I don't want to be the hypocrite that does it. As a side note, did anyone catch the AC360 interview with Jeffress? I just saw it last night even though it aired a few days ago.
I was doing a bit more research into Mormonism and, I gotta tell ya, this was a real head-scratcher, if in fact, it's truly a Mormon belief..... http://www.mormondna.org/mormon-beliefs/mormons-planet-die.html Still wondering about the life on other planets thing, too, but I digress... [video=youtube;6F_ytRbZiu4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F_ytRbZiu4[/video]
Mods, is there some way I can hide the text in a post so people who don't want to read it don't have to? Kind of like a spoiler protection like I've seen on other forums? I ask because my response to this post is REALLY long and I don't want to annoy people who don't have any interest in reading it. Thanks.
Their childish belief in a mythical superbeing and their pledged subservience to said mythical superbeing over all others (including Americans) doesn't give you pause?
As I understand it, this is one of the main reasons Mormon's have so many children....because they believe that, essentially, they can become gods of their own planets.....and can take their extended family with them. IIRC, that also plays into why the genealogy research efforts are so focused upon...... If I'm mistaken on these points, though, please clarify.
