Picture of the Day
Mormons.....
Yesterday I found myself in a discussion on the tennis courts with a seemingly rational guy who suddenly went off that Mormonism is (capital E) Evil because they claim to add a book to the bible.
This whole religion thing is hoodoo to me, but the explosion of this guy's passion (bigotry) was eyeopening.
Doing a quiet little survey the rest of the day, I found a number of other people who felt the same way. Very wealthy, successful, seemingly normal people.
And, perhaps as troubling to me, several of them also claimed the earth was 10,000 years old.
What hope would you have to erase bigotry when even science can be discarded?
They listen to their Baptist mullahs at a local megachurch.
I'm sure this is all what Jesus had in mind.
(This photo provided by Romney for President, Inc., shows the extended Romney family at their vacation home on the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee in Wolfeboro, N.H. in July 2007. (AP Photo/Jon Moe))
UPDATE: (AP) "In a Pew Research Center poll in September, a quarter of all Republicans - including 36 percent of white evangelical Protestants - said they would be less likely to vote for a Mormon."
posted by mikevotes at
8:28 AM
12 Comments:
I've said it before: the surest sign of evil (or at least anti-liberty) is when one professes to speak for god. Once that happens, all sorts of injustice can be rationalized as necessary and before long there is the official (or semi-official) separation of the citizens into goats and sheep... the "good" citizens and the "unpatriotic" citizens.
The founders knew perfectly well this slippery slope upon which the GOP is so giddy to slide down... the religification of patriotism, the dogmatic litmus test of full citizenry.
By
-epm, at 7:52 AM
Agreed.
(Please don't take my hoodoo comment personally. I know you're religious of some type. I'm not.
I do see value in it, (so long as its neither violent or exclusionary,) I just don't believe in a god.)
By
mikevotes, at 1:22 PM
Christianity is split into even more factions than Islam. It sounds like you ran into some of the fundamentalist variety. They mean well; they're just misguided.
Not all Christians dismiss science. The official Catholic view, for instance, is that we don't know how God created the universe and humanity. We also don't know the timeline on which everything happened. We simply hold that all humans are descended from two original parents called Adam and Eve. Beyond that, the Church is in favor of all scientific inquiry that attempts to reveal these mysteries in more detail. We trust that in the end there will be no conflict between science and faith.
By
Patrick, at 3:52 PM
Many people find it a lot easier to have their thinking done for them, whether it's by a person behind a pulpit, or by a person from a political party.
It's just a fact, and they far outnumber the ones who prefer to think for themselves.
(Not religious here either.
Not anti-religious, just not religious.)
By
Anonymous, at 3:56 PM
Patrick, I didn't mean to cast all Christians in this. Definitely.
I'm here in Houston, Texas, the only major metropolitan area that votes Republican, and when you catch some of the megachurch people here, they're pretty extreme.
And, yeah, I went to an engineering college where there were lots of Christian scientists (you know what I mean.)
I was just struck by these guys because I've never had someone I know look at me dead serious and say these things.
....
Local, True. There is definitely an element that enjoys the structure of a leader. It's not coincidental that the people who do megachurches also liked "tough" Bush in 2004. It's my contention that it was not so much about his positions as it was about some weirdo, semi-fascist worship of strength. Our leader is stronger therefore we are stronger.
(Again, discussing a subset of people here.)
By
mikevotes, at 4:16 PM
Watching Romney pander to a group of people who would happily burn him at the stake as a Mormon heretic has been bizarre. It's not just the megachurch evangelicals either. I've sat in on Lutheran, Baptist, and Pentacostal sermons whose entire purpose was to vilify the Mormon faith. Of course, Catholics didn't make out too well in some of those sermons either. So much for loving thy neighbor!
By
Anonymous, at 5:16 PM
Really.
That's one of the questions I have, too. This megachurch broadcasts its sermons on local TV, so I really doubt the pastor is delivering that Mormons are satan message. So, a question I had was, where are they receiving this message?
By
mikevotes, at 6:01 PM
No offense taken, Mike. I think you're on to something about the personality cult some of the televangelist and megachurch pastors create.
We see similar attitudes in the political sphere - plenty of people want a strong leader to tell them what to do. This is why Giuliani is ahead in the polls, I'm convinced.
By
Patrick, at 6:16 PM
I think there can be little question that that's Giuliani's draw.
I mean, the whole 9-11 part of his campaign is not about competence or ability.
By
mikevotes, at 9:04 PM
the amount of to-do over religion in our candidates is disgusting.
This jockeying is no different than the different sects vying for control in Iraq.
is the populace so ignorant they can't see when the news-media is being used to manipulate their thinking?
The atheists fear the religious will turn the country into one big oppressive church.
the religious fear the atheists will remove their right to go to church.
the people are afraid of everything, from killer bees to gang violence to the bird flu.
In the meantime, we are slowly being purposely bankrupted.
Like a frog which doesn't know the water is slowly getting too hot, we are destined to get boiled.
And we're busily hating each other for it, because we know something is wrong, but we're looking in the wrong spot for the bad guy.
and, my favorite misanthrope conclusion: man, people suck.
By
Will Von Wizzlepig, at 5:23 PM
I hate to say it, but the whole point of this blog is that we're already boiling.
We're now just struggling over what the post hegemonic America will look like.
(And fundamentalism of all types, political, religious, etc, is a recurring outgrowth of a society under stress.)
By
mikevotes, at 5:59 PM
Your blog is great, thanks a lot for all the work you put into it.
By
Will Von Wizzlepig, at 6:33 PM
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