Saying "I'm a Christian" or "I'm agnostic" or "I'm a Sikh" says nothing about a person's intrinsic character

Well that is very interesting. And very, very, very ignorant.

A Sikh has demonstrably different values then an agnostic or christian.

You argue religion does not matter yet the biggest argument of our time is the one of good verses evil, it is peace struggling against war, humanity against torture.

And you say religion does not matter. I think it matters a lot, it matters because each religion teaches a specific moral framework that civic decisions are then judged against and based upon. Some religions argue torture is justified, others argue against it. That is a big, big difference.

Has anyone asked Romney what he thinks of the teachings regarding the sacramental use of cannabis by the THC Ministry yet? Does he really believe in freedom of religion?

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I whole heartedly agree with and argue that religion has NO place in the political arena. But there is something closely related, and that often springs from ones religious foundation, that I think does belong in politics. That is the principles & ethics that virtually every religion teaches. The problem as I see it, is finding the line between the practice of those principles & ethics and the practice of ones religious dogmas. I think that John Kennedy and Jimmy Carter were two Presidents who managed to find that line, AND observe it.

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Faith belongs in the heart and head- not the halls of government.

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It is ironic that recently those who receive great amounts of respect in our society, to the point that they are able to raise millions of dollars and multitudes of Americans support their candidacies to be president of the United States, are the relatively insane ones among us; while the homeless guy with the aluminum foil hat, because of the very real covert activities of our current government, is now the most relatively sane among us. The aluminum-hat guy knows what is really going on, while the presidential candidates are bogged down discussing the minutia of their conformism-based psychoses. Who would actually make the better president? My money is on the homeless guy.

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I just want to say thank you for so plainly putting what everyone I know thinks. Religion has no part whatsoever in politics. Our Constitution says this and over 200 years of our democracy proves it. All this talk about a candidate's religion means we are not discussing the policies and plans. What do these guys actually believe in besides their petty little vengeful Gods? Who knows, not one of the Republican candidates ever says anything that can be construed as any kind of policy agenda. Bomb someone and my God is bigger and badder than your God. They are nothing but a bunch of hypocritical mental migets.

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We should care because our country cannot survive another religious nutball elected as president!

Any one of the Repugnicant candidate panderers to the religious zanies should not be elected - period! Every one of them is just a continuation of the Bush debacle.

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I wish there were not a faith test, but there is. I wish we could have an atheist president. I really do, and I'm not an atheist.

I want a president who puts an emphasis on this life, who won't let religion dictate policy, who makes decisions based on what is right, not on fear of what will happen to his immortal soul.

But since that won't happen, I want to know about the religious beliefs of the candidates. I want to know what will affect their decisions. I want to know about their families, upbringings, and education.

The more I know, I hope the better the decision I will make.

Alternet, keep the information coming.

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It's not the "Great Pumpernickel Loaf from the Eighth Dimension of the Planet Zorgon"...
it's the "Great Pumpernickel Loaf from the Planet Zorgon in the Eighth Dimension".

For crying out loud, get your facts straight, woman!

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There is no religious test for public office, but there is a political one. Office holders must uphold the laws and constitution of the United States and must represent their constituencies.

It does not matter what office holders believe, but if they belong to any kind of group, religious or otherwise, that dictates what position they must hold on political issues, they are not qualified to run because they can't honestly take the oath of office.

What politicians believe is not the issue. Whether politicians belong to organizations that coerce their actions is a legitimate concern. The LDS Church and the Catholic Church are very authoritarian. A Mormon or Catholic politician needs to demonstrate, not what they believe, but that they are not under compulsion.

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Mitt's plight is the same of all "believers" who simply cannot distinguish between belief and knowledge.

It's so pathetic and silly and ironic that Baptists think that they can justifiably ridicule Mormons as "Satanic" for, among other interesting things, believing that a Baptist, not being a Mormon is going to Hell, (which may entail simply remaining a Baptist!), along with the rest of all non-Mormons.

So, I wish to suggest to ALL of the believers out there, including the Atheists who insist that they know the unknowable, you don't KNOW shit about the unknowable just like the rest of us who know that we don't know.

Also, please know that if there is a Hell, you can all go there.

It's getting tiresome.

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My understanding is that Mormons believe in three heavens, the terrestrial, the telestial [sic], and the celestial. Almost everyone is going to one or the other, and that would include Baptists and even atheists.

If you have ever heard someone say, "I was in third heaven when I heard that," that was a Mormon.

The Mormon hell is reserved for murderers and gays. So as long as you aren't gay and haven't killed anyone, by Mormon reckoning, you're going to one heaven or the other, but not necessarily the most desirable one.

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I am an ordained minister. I do not have a problem with an atheist president, because quite a lot of atheists have the integrity, honesty, sense of fairness, and other qualifications, that the president ideally should have. I don't think an 'in your face" atheist is particularly desirable,because then they are carrying out a personal agenda when they should be working.

What matters is can the person do the job with integrity to the benefit of the nation.

The Republican Party uses fundamentalist religion to dupe the masses into voting against their best interests. Perhaps it is high time for an atheist president. The real problem in American politics is not religion or the lack of it, the problem is that our nation is a plutocracy, ruled by a moneyed ruling class for its own benefit. How else can we have a Mexican in every lap (to provide plutocrats with cheap labor) and a war on terror at the same time? Whatever one's position on these two issues, it does seem to me that they are incompatible.

If there were a war on terror, we would have a border with Mexico. We do not have a border with Mexico, therefore there is no war on terror. There is a propaganda ministry to keep us scared, to distract us.

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Mormonism is really stupid ...

But then again, so is literal Christianity.

I'm enjoying this dialogue between Huckabee and Romney, they will both loose.

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Can you imagine the Huckabee White House? The Oval Office redecorated with velvet paintings of Jesus and Barcolounger chairs? Visiting dignitaries being fed Taco Bell meals and toasted with Coca Cola? A chain link kennel full of yapping Rottweilers in the Rose Garden? WWF wrestling matches held on the front lawn? The presidential limousine replaced with a 4 wheel drive crew-cab F350 pickup?

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is all about pleasing the majority. so if the majority believes that religion is more important that policy, then that is what's going to happen despite what the other, saner 49% says.

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AlterNet

I truly cannot begin to express how profoundly exhausted I am with election stories about religion, in no small part because they are getting sillier and sillier--and this is surely the silliest yet:

,,,,,,,,,,Are you fucking kidding me?


……….. has nothing to do with despicable shit...
------------------------------------------------

AlterNet says it will not tolerate:

* personal attacks on our writers or readers
* excessive profanity
* racist, sexist or other discriminatory or hateful language

It would seem to me that your standards are being savaged. What say you?

And I cannot begin to express how exhausted I am with all the trash that gets posted by some writers. It's incredible. Doesn't she know that the use of profanity is the attempt of a weak and addled mind to express itself forcefully? Very sad that her limited vocabulary prevents her from making a point without potty mouth words.

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of Mr. Romney, who was hoping to leverage his religiosity into political power, being out-religionned by a true Bible-thumping Baptist minister! I can think of almost nothing more entertaining than the prospect of a theological battle between different factions of the Religious Right wherein every sort of absurdity and delusion will be hurled around with the most furious abandon.

As for the "issues" -- please. Unless you are a high-ranking member of the ruling class (and you wouldn't be reading this if you were) nothing you say, think or do will make the slightest difference to the conduct and condition of the State. You will wind up wrinkling your fair brow as you try to decide between two warmongering imperialist flacks, or to "throw your vote away" on a symbolic phony.

It's about time that an election's rhetoric was as obviously stupid, ridiculous and useless as the election itself. Light(en) up and enjoy the show. The next war / depression / sitcom will be here soon enough!

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"Their respective religious beliefs didn't figure at all in those calculations. "

Amen, can we please get on with the real issues...

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Basically, Americans are barbarians. It makes sense that Americans often naively assert with total innocence that an atheist cannot have a morality quite simply because there _is_ no avenue to discuss ethics and morality in America _except_ within the church. If you can find a time or a place to attempt to engage a typical American in a discussion of the Enlightenment philosophies of a Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Jefferson or even the living examples of human rights activists like Mandala, Tutu, and Aung San Suu Kyi you are likely to be met with a "deer in the headlights" stare. Aren't you?

The saddest thing I've seen in some such people I've known is that they've retreated to the Old Testament and think Saudi-style Saturday night stonings in the town stadium will bring back that old time morality. Patriotic barbarians thinking greater barbarism is the answer without once having a clue about the ideals of the people who set this country in motion.

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I'm a liberal Agnostic myself but I'm really sick and tired of other liberals putting the topic of "religion" into this sweeping category as if all religions were right-wing. People need to read "The Left Hand of God" and familiarize themselves with "The Network of Spiritual Progressives" www.spiritualprogressives.org Religion SHOULD matter, of course not in the sense of it being the final test for someone's eligibility to be a President but in the sense of allowing ALL citizens (including those that run for the presidency) to express who they are as a person (because a large aspect of who they are is influenced by their Religion).

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The particular religion (or none) which is practised by any particular politician is irrevelant, but his ethics do count.

Bearing in mind that we have had a very (self professed) religious man in office for 7 years now, how can we even consider the fact of a person's religion when choosing a politician?

Obviously the religion a person practises is irrelevant to his actual behaviour.

So what we need to discover about a candidate for public office is not what religion he practises, but whether he has a history of general competence, and whether his behaviour has been ethical.

I know, it's so much easier to pick a religion and insist that the candidate be a practitioner of same. But it is painfully apparent that adherence to some particular religion is no guarantee that such a candidate will do a creditable job.

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Perhaps I missed it, but what the author fails to realize is that the USA is heading for a [welcomed] Theocracy. He and his friends may be smart enough to discern between politics and religion, but 80% of the voting religious population have been brainwashed by organized religion to believe that there is no such thing as separation of church and state and that the USA is a Christian country, much like Israel is a Jewish country, or Iran is a Muslim country.

Has it ever crossed your mind that the real reason education quality has plunged in this country is for the same reason Iran wants to keep their people dumb. Religion is truly the opiate of the masses. And to cover your bases for the non-religious types, add Mass Media (e.g. TV) to the mix and you have a dumb and distracted populous. Higher education leads to self-awareness and enlightenment, which in turn begets questions of faith, which eventually leads to the fall of the elitists from power.

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This whole election is a referendum on religion. Even Hillary wears it on her sleeve. If you want a real laugh about all of this, read "The Department of Homeland Decency Rules and Regulation Manual for Decency" published by Random House/Crown Books. It comes out in January. Read its original version when it was self-published and it is right-on-hysterical. We are living in a very dangerous time.

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I must say I found the cartoon a little disturbing and a bit opportunistic for a progressive website to use it. It is clearly an attack not so much on the Mormon's peculiar beliefs as it is on their heresy.
Look at any religion's doctrine and you will see a palimpsest overlaying all the politics and prejudices of the age where it was created. In person, a Mormon is not much more likely to be a bigot or wacko than anyone else.
Then again, Romney seeks to have it both ways. He is OK with a religious test for office, as long as it is not one that excludes him. Unfortunately, every religious test is exclusionary. If he had simply quoted the Constitution, and insisted on the separation of church and state, he would (all other things equal) be capable of the presidency.

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Religion is caused by any one or more of about half a dozen mental illnesses.
The truth about religion and ethics can be found in these books:

"The Science of Good and Evil" by Michael Shermer, 2004 "Morality and Ethics
are now in the jurisdiction of Science and greatly improved thereby." See also
several hundred books in the new science called "Sociobiology" or "Sciobio":
Morals and ethics are instinctive and they evolved. Morals and ethics will soon
have equations. Ethical answers will soon be computable.

"The Neuropsychological bases of god beliefs" Dr. Michael A. Persinger MD,
psychiatrist 1987 "Religious people are just like my temporal lobe patients"

"The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bi-Cameral Mind" Julian
Jaynes Professor, Harvard University 1976 "Religious people are just like
schizophrenic patients"

"The Psychiatric Interview in Clinical Practice" Roger A. MacKinnon, M.D.,
Robert Michels, M.D. W. B. Saunders Co. 1971 "Religiosity is a common
symptom [of] schizophrenic patients"

"The God delusion" by Richard Dawkins. "Religion is caused by a kind of
computer virus that infects the living computer, the human brain."

"God: The Failed Hypothesis" byVictor Stenger Scientific proof that god does
not exist.

"The God Part of the Brain" by Matthew Alper 1996. "The USA is anomolusly
religious because many early founder groups were religiously insane and fleeing
prosecution in Europe. Religion is a genetic disorder."

"The Accidental Mind" by David J. Linden, 2007 Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press. Religion is caused by the extreme klugeyness of the "designed"
by evolution brain. In particular, the narrative creation system cannot be turned
off. It generates false narratives that are believed by the generating person. This is
seen in experiments done in the laboratory. This book has the best explanation of
resistance to evolution: "There has also been an assumption that if one accepts the
idea that life developed without divine intervention, it necessarily follows that all
aspects of religious thought must be rejected. Those who take this line of
argument to extremes argue that when religious thought is rejected moral and
social codes will degenerate and "the law of the jungle" will be all that is left. It is
imagined by religious fundamentalists that those who do not share their particular
religious faith are incapable of leading moral lives." These suppositions are not
true many times over. Linden later mentions that the creationists [intelligent
design advocates] are exactly 180 degrees wrong rather than just a little wrong.
Being exactly wrong, they are unable to unlearn their error. See Sociobiology or
Sciobio.

"Origins of the Modern Mind" by Merlin Donald 1991 "So what did you expect
from a brain that is based on the Chimpanzee brain? Furthermore, the 4 Million
years it took to go from chimp brain to "human" brain is much too short for
Nature to get the bugs worked out."

"Manufacturing Belief" by Lewis Wolpert
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/05/15/lewis_wolpert/

"Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon", by Daniel Dennett
Let's do scientific research on religion and find out what causes it.

Other authors: Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens

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Please read this book: "The sociopath next door : the ruthless
versus the rest of us" by Martha Stout.
New York : Broadway Books, 2005.
xiii, 241 p. ; 25 cm
4% of all people are born sociopaths/sciopaths/psychopaths.
There is no cure. A written test, the MMPI [Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality Inventory] can identify sociopaths.
Huckabee may be a sociopath who discovered that religion is a
very profitable business.
Psychopath = sciopath = sociopath to a good approximation.

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With regard to the recent uproar over Mike Huckabee claiming that Romney believes "Satan and Jesus are brothers"...

I thought it was common Christian knowledge that Lucifer was God's left hand, Jesus his right. The first sin - of jealousy - was committed by Lucifer against Jesus, who God appeared to favor. This caused the "war in heaven" that expelled Lucifer and a third of the angels to this planet Earth. Remember, the Bible speaks of the "sons of God" way before Christ was referred to as "the" son of God. He is often referred to as the "son of man", because he, not Lucifer, was born of a woman. Lucifer is still in his heavenly form, according to scripture. Christ is not.

This is what I was taught as a fundamentalist Baptist growing up, and what is verified in church doctrine, sermons, etc. for hundreds of years. This should not be a surprise or "news" to anyone who follows traditions of the Christian church. (By the way, I'm no longer Baptist!

Don't people know where the phrase "left hand of God" came from? Church tradition...same as the tradition that the Virgin Mary ascended to heaven, or that there is a trinity in the godhead (pagan superstitions), etc. It is not mentioned in the Bible anywhere, but is believed by millions as church tradition.

Just wanted to add my thoughts to this debate, since most folks are surprised by this belief. I think it is more widespread than generally thought...

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First, I seldom listen to potty mouths like Melisssa since I find them offensive, and perhaps showing their limited vocabulary or there would be no need to use bad language.

Secondly, the whole religious thing is overblown, since no one knows. It might be logical to be a Deist since one need only consider the alleged 50 billion galaxies each of which has 75 billion stars (it might be the reverse) to go: "Wow, where did all this stuff come from - did it make itself?" Which logically leads one Deism.

Thirdly, whatever the ultimate truth, what people believes matters. For instance I would never vote for a Muslim for president because of that sect's violent history and threat (if the Koran can be believed) to anyone who "thinks" differently then they think.

Fourthly, as to the Mormons I have some knowledge of them and acquaintance of them, and they are good people. But, their lives are much more informed by their Church than are other Christians, specifically on the latest revelation by God to their ruling 12 Apostles who run their church. To me it is rather telling that they once beleived that blacks were the reprsentatives of Satan on earth, but in the late 1980's when they saw the wind changing, the Apostles had another revelation that this was wrong. Not too credible and remember that Romney is a bishop in this rather tightly controlled church, so while I don't equate him with a Muslim candidate any such comparison is not completely apposite.

Fourthly. as to Melissa, another reason one should pay little attention to her is that she is an atheist and being an atheist is illogical and therefore unintelligent.

Why? Because the universe is logic enough to accept the existence of a prime mover (although the writer's pride has not yet him make that step so he is an agnostic)and so there is a prima facie case for such a mover. The burden of proof then shifts to the naysayer atheist who must then prove that this mover does not exist, and we all know that it is logically impossible to prove any negative unless you can have actual physical knowledge of all of the facts which prove the negative, impossible even for most everyday statements, and obviously impossible when we are talking about what most people would call God, the atheist fails the burden of proof.

So, for the reason above I don't see how any intelligent person can be an atheist and this disdain carries over into anything else they wish to opine on.

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I can't believe all of the bullshit I am reading on this blog.

SCARY THOUGHT FOR THE DAY #26:
Huckabee and Guiliani have nothing for the economy compared with Romney's business and economic acumen. Will you still be complaining about Romney's faith when they lay you off and foreclose your home? Get real, and don't get me started about Huckabee as a foreign policy disaster. Huckabee and Ahmadinejad sitting across at a table???? That's classic, what a nightmare.

Take all of the t-shirts mocking Bush you see at the mall and insert Huckabee's face. That's what college kids may be wearing until 2012. Bush haters are going to LOVE Huckabee, what a goober...there's a good image for the Republican stigma. Are you kidding me??

Why don't we all vote for an inferior candidate merely because he's not LDS. Evangelicals are going to ruin this nation...Piss off!!

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