christopher wrote:Below is a snippet from a piece that was written in 2006 regarding Romney's potential run. I hold myself to be a fairly conservative Christian, yet agree with this (and your, KA,) ideas.
"Nor is it chauvinistic to say that certain religious views should be deal breakers in and of themselves. There are millions of religious Americans who would never vote for an atheist for president, because they believe that faith is necessary to lead the country. Others, myself included, would not, under most imaginable circumstances, vote for a fanatic or fundamentalist—a Hassidic Jew who regards Rabbi Menachem Schneerson as the Messiah, a Christian literalist who thinks that the Earth is less than 7,000 years old, or a Scientologist who thinks it is haunted by the souls of space aliens sent by the evil lord Xenu. Such views are disqualifying because they're dogmatic, irrational, and absurd. By holding them, someone indicates a basic failure to think for himself or see the world as it is.
By the same token, I wouldn't vote for someone who truly believed in the founding whoppers of Mormonism. The LDS church holds that Joseph Smith, directed by the angel Moroni, unearthed a book of golden plates buried in a hillside in Western New York in 1827. The plates were inscribed in "reformed" Egyptian hieroglyphics—a nonexistent version of the ancient language that had yet to be decoded. If you don't know the story, it's worth spending some time with Fawn Brodie's wonderful biography No Man Knows My History. Smith was able to dictate his "translation" of the Book of Mormon first by looking through diamond-encrusted decoder glasses and then by burying his face in a hat with a brown rock at the bottom of it. He was an obvious con man. Romney has every right to believe in con men, but I want to know if he does, and if so, I don't want him running the country. "
Chris <><
Well I understand this. But the only difference between the "whoppers" of Mormonism and the "whoppers" of Christianity and the Bible is the latter have been around for a long long time and there is less documentation for critics to pick apart.
It amazes me that a Christian would think angelic visits and the visions of early Mormonism are hard to believe when they believe all the Bible. If a Christian would withhold their vote because believing in Mormonism is wacky then they should not vote for a Christian either.