Naturally, no thread yet on Romney's speech Thursday

Just to further Thomson's point above ...

One of the traits that is most important to me in a political leader is intellectual curiosity. I don't expect anyone running for POTUS to be an expert on all subjects, but I think it is important that they want to educate themselves in the different facets of running the federal government -- and not just because it'll help them win the job they seek. We've done a decent job electing intellectually curious presidents in the last half-century -- the current one and Carter (who really started to broaden his horizons after he was out of office) are the only presidents I can think of who didn't share that trait. Kennedy and Nixon had the most, IMO, followed by Bush Sr. and Clinton.

Religion, by its nature, is intellectually incurious about at least one subject: religion itself. Because all religions are based on faith, intellectual curiosity cannot be satisfied at some basic level because one must make a leap to believe in something that cannot be proven or disproven. Doesn't matter what denomination you claim. At some level, you have to stop questioning and just ... believe. Or don't.

And the stronger your faith, the less curious you are -- about that, at least. I'm not placing judgment on the trait itself; devoutness doesn't automatically correlate to incuriosity about the rest of the world. But I do think that someone who reaches that point of "stop questioning" in their faith might find it easier to "stop questioning" on other subjects, as well.

So when it comes to judging a political candidate, I don't think having strong religious beliefs -- as a matter of public policy -- is a good quality. It makes me skeptical, especially in light of the last decade of more politically active religious organizations. I want my politicians to question what they believe in, question their "faith" in their platform, and be open-minded (curious) to disagreement. Being devoutly religious, especially in public, is usually (keyword: usually) not conducive to those traits, in my opinion.

Will I discount a candidate based on his religious views? Not automatically. But I reserve the right to do just that, if faith plays too large a part in their policies for my tastes.

 

I'm not sure why Romney's religious beliefs are an issue and why he made them an issue. Believe in Jesus, don't believe in Jesus, worship Satan, I don't care. Tell me what you're going to do to improve America. Tell me your plan to lower the deficit, to get troops out of Iraq, to improve schools.

 

Psst, dipshit:

Little closer.




Can you hear me?





Congrats on your part in the thread's length. My complaint was that it took about a half-hour for comment. If Clinton had taken a shit on a stage you boys would have had a press advance posted to let people know it was about to occur. Big difference.


Now back the hell off. Your breath stinks.

 

I'm not going to call you any closer to explain this, Yawn. You are being absolutely ridiculous about this. I mean ridiculous even for you.

 

Well, why the fuck didn't you start it 10 seconds after the speech ended?

 

Wouldn't have fed into his persecution complex nearly as well.

 

Good point. Nothing cheeses me off more than the "What, No Thread on ____" threads. Has even beaten out the "TV Guide" threads on my peeve list.

 

Only because this thread refuses to die...

This is actually rooted in Mormonspeak. The thought process is that freedom is the absence of restriction, so if you don't restrict yourself by sinning, then you are free to make good choices and live a righteous life. It all goes back to God's omnipotent control: if you sin, God will punish you, and you may not enjoy certain freedoms because of that punishment.

Brigham Young wrote that the only way to exercise earthly freedom and agency is to strictly obey the revelations passed down from God. [Discourses of Brigham Young]

Of course, this concept rests on 1) an absolute, black-and-white notion of what is a sin and 2) the unquestioning belief in the role of God.

It's also, in my opinion, a convenient way to enforce the psychologically-defined cult practice of limiting questioning while commanding strict adherence to group principles (or risk shame, judgment, ostracizing, etc.). If you preach that strict obedience to revelation is the only path to true freedom and/or eternal salvation, then nobody will really mind if the revelation is of dubious origin.

 

It's really a case of which limitation you choose, then? One choice is more fun, for sure, albeit more supposedly short-sighted, salvation-wise.

 

Some of this stuff's just inexplicible, especially when you consider that the broad synophancy factor re HRC on this board is below zero.

HRC remains the "threat" she is primarily because of the incredible incompetent/shortsighted/selfserving aspects of those at the controls of the current
administration.

Actions have consequences.

 

Yes, Dooley, but again, it requires an absolute notion of sin.

For a Hindu, eating beef might be a sin. But for Christians, it's not. So will the Hindu teenager who sneaks out to McDonald's be risking his eternal salvation? Will his freedoms be restricted because of his choice to sin? Most people would chuckle at the thought, because that's not a sin to them.

 

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Depends on the playing field you choose, if any at all.