Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[kaijyuu]

Weren't some of the early presidents Deists? Or were none of those elected?

[Glowcat]

Weren't some of the early presidents Deists? Or were none of those elected?

Jefferson was an unabashed Deist. I vaguely recall evidence of George Washington having Deist inclinations as well.

[Karlito]

Is it just me, or does Romney argue with reporters a lot?

[Heron TSG]

Romney will fight like a madman to keep the perception that his fellow candidates are the only ones making such faux pas.

[nenjin]

Deism =/= atheism. It was an outgrowth of the rejection of the established churches. Jefferson and Washington were both very religious men, but they were of the kind produced by the enlightenment, where they had as much respect for the natural world as they did for God. They weren't, however, big fans of established religion like the Anglican and Catholic Churches.

And sorry if that came across as lecturing or agressive, I may have misinterpreted someone's point.

[kaijyuu]

Well yeah. Just brought it up due to the claim every president was a Christian, which isn't quite the case.

Deism's pretty much "God made the universe, went to get a soda, and never came back."

[palsch]

It really depends on what approach he takes later in the game.

Mormons seem to have two extreme options when it comes to their faith in politics.

The first is JFK's approach. At the time Catholicism had a similar status to Mormonism today so I do think the two cases are analogous. JFK confronted voters fears and mistrust head on while also emphasising that there should be absolute separation of church and state and a rejection of religious tests. He asked people to judge him on his record, not his faith.

The second is Romney's. Fred Clark outlined this brilliantly in the last election. Romney had given a very high profile speech that basically insisted that it was faith that mattered, and he hated atheists just as much as the evangelicals did.

Romney's gambit here comes straight from the school yard. As a Mormon, he is an outsider, getting picked on by the bullies of the religious right. Instead of standing up to the bullies, he sucks up to them, trying to prove his loyalty and win their approval by acting like them and picking on the other outcasts and outsiders. "You guys want to pretend that 'secular' and 'profane' are synonyms? I can do that. Look, I'll even beat up this atheist kid for you. See? I'm just like you guys!"

This desperate, canine obsequiousness infuses his sniveling speech with fearfulness and flopsweat. Romney is pleading, begging to be allowed to serve as the bullies' toady. As far as that goes, he has probably succeeded. Eager-to-please toadies can come in handy, so the bullies will probably be willing to accept him in that capacity.

But as useful as they may sometimes be, toadies are never liked, respected or admired by the bullies. Nobody likes or respects or admires an unprincipled coward. And the characteristics of a successful toady don't fit with anybody's notion of the characteristics of a potential president. A toady can't get elected president (the best he can hope for is a Connecticut senate seat).

He was arguing for a message that only appeals to people who would use that very argument to disqualify him from the presidency.

***

As for the early presidents/found fathers being deists, I'd go more with the theistic rationalist view of them. The definition can get a bit nit-picky, but in general a theist prays and a deist doesn't.

[nenjin]

That's seems like a pretty apropos comparison for today's candidates. I'm tired of Theists, I want Deists. People who respect religion but don't turn to it as a solution for anything (governance, "guidance", vote mongering.) I'd prefer a Deist to an Atheist president, because I think an atheist can be just as abusive in the opposite direction. Maybe that's me going with the Golden Mean fallacy, but someone who acknowledges God but refuses to bring it into secular governance seems like the safest bet for all.

[Nadaka]

To my mind, it's unnecessary. No American president has been elected without stating and supporting SOME religion.

If by "SOME religion" you mean Christianity, yes.

Kennedy was the first non-protestant president.

[Sirus]

To my mind, it's unnecessary. No American president has been elected without stating and supporting SOME religion.

If by "SOME religion" you mean Christianity, yes.

Kennedy was the first non-protestant president.

And Catholics are Christian too. I may be suffering from reading comprehension failure, but are you seriously implying that they aren't?

[Glowcat]

That's seems like a pretty apropos comparison for today's candidates. I'm tired of Theists, I want Deists. People who respect religion but don't turn to it as a solution for anything (governance, "guidance", vote mongering.) I'd prefer a Deist to an Atheist president, because I think an atheist can be just as abusive in the opposite direction. Maybe that's me going with the Golden Mean fallacy, but someone who acknowledges God but refuses to bring it into secular governance seems like the safest bet for all.

During the French Revolution, a Deist government was just as bad as any religious or non-religious government, though perhaps that was more a product of the Revolution's country-wide insanity.

[Heron TSG]

I've seen a lot more news about Huntsman recently. I hope that's a sign of the future of this campaign, because its current state is unacceptable to me. Every article I've read in the past has said that he would make a good moderate candidate, that he could get bipartisan support, and that he's qualified, but also that it's just impossible for him to get the nomination because of his poor name recognition. Now I see such things as http://2012.republican-candidates.org/'s summary.

Hardly a convincing choice as the Republican nominee for next year’s presidential election now, is he? But if one were to look deeper, the affable Huntsman may very well turn out to be the savior of the Republicans comes 2012.

...

Huntsman is a contradiction, an enigma, a complex personality; and because of his personal fortune, has never been beholden to anyone. His term as the Governor of Utah saw him maintaining a consistently, ridiculously high approval ratings in excess of 70%. In fact, he won reelection for his second term by capturing an incredible 77.7% of the vote – an almost unheard of figure in modern top-tier politics. The respected Pew Center on the States cited Utah as the best managed state in the country during his tenure.

His time in the Republican administration of the 80’s and early 90’s saw him rising from an ordinary aide to the United States Ambassador to Singapore (the youngest ever at 32) within a few short years. Huntsman is a formidable man indeed. But the most frightening thing about the father of seven is, he appears to have no skeletons in his closet; and that just might prove to be the clincher for the Republican voters and delegates in the coming months.

Even if civil unions (what he supports) aren't quite marriage, they're better than the opposition. Seriously.

I'd vote for an atheist president, so long as she/he didn't try to force his/her ideology on me or anyone else, just as I would vote for a Christian who does not force his/her religious views on me or anyone else.

[Darvi]

I would probably also support somebody who adheres to the second and seventh condiments.

Unlike other people <_<

[Glowcat]

I would probably also support somebody who adheres to the second and seventh condiments.

I'm trying to figure out whether this was an intentional delicious typo.

[Canalan]

I get how the second one is like ketchup, but how is the seventh like wasabi?

The more I hear about Huntsman, the more I like him.  Lots (comparatively to his competition) of his positions gel with mine.
We shall see how far this man goes.