Before I start talking about gun-nuts and gun-loons, I want to make my own position clear on the 2nd Amendment. I think the NRA and the even more extreme gun ,heavily armed loons , mostly fringe rightists in the country. (like whacky Religious militias) are all nuts.rogue gun dealers (ie- right-wing militia terrorists like the nut cases who blew up the Oklahoma Federal Building). NUTS! I wouldn't like to see another civil war or an insurrection.I think most people-- not counting religionist loons-- pretty much.
It's perplexing that some of the these NRA fanatics are intelligent and possess high reading skills and all calling themselves patriots. Fundamentalist preachers and gun dealers rank among their leaders.Like all cults, this gaggle spreads bizarre talk. Meanwhile, right-to-bear-arms nuts aren't the only True Believers ready to kill and die for a NRA demented logic. Normal Americans can't comprehend , but it's increasingly clear that we can't escape the nightmares guns cause.The NRA sees itself as the supporter and defender of the holy cause to which is clings to a out dated Contstitution.The NRA thinks their cause is more important than the lives of preschool tots and people. To them, mass murder is justified to deliver their vengeful message. To the rest of us, it's madness that someone would make elaborate secret plans to massacre children as a public demonstration.

JFK had to address his Catholicism head on, but it appears Romney will get away without having to doing the same with his Mormonism. No major speech, no discussion of his rank within the church, no disclosure of his family's role in the church's history. The public, nor the press, is truly demanding it.

I don't know exactly why this is, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that Mitt is seen as lacking strong anchors. His flip-flopping actually HELPS him here. If, as president, the principles of his faith were to come into direct conflict with the best interests of the nation, Mitt would likely just do whatever is expedient. The idea of Romney taking a principle stand against strong opposition doesn't seem likely.

An embryonic idea. Just thinking about loud...

I agree that candidates should disclose their beliefs, especially as they relate to how they will likely legislate. Unfortunately, non-theistic candidates will have to continue to lie about it or be unelectable in our hyper-religiose society. Why is it not OK for a candidate have no delusions? Why must all of our candidates have their beliefs rooted in an ancient moral zeitgeist? Why must all of our candidates believe in some religion that twists morals so badly that genocide can appear to be a good thing? Read Deuteronomy through Joshua if you think I'm making this shit up. Religion does not provide morals.

Morals are something that a healthy human brain already has processing centers for. Religion twists morals. Religion is by definition, sectarian. This means, quite literally, that it divides humans into sects, each considering itself the ingroup and all others the outgroup. And, it is always OK to kill, enslave, or otherwise mistreat and discriminate against the outgroup.

We are fast becoming a theocracy. We need to defend against it and preserve our secular society. Yet, we refuse to elect people without religion to office, even at the local level, even in the most liberal areas of the country. This is shocking.

I don't know what got "Buddy" off on his "Gun Loon" tirade again, but "Buddy" ought to understand a few facts about gun owners.

They AREN'T all conservatives or Republicans.
They AREN'T all lunatics. They DON'T all belong to, or feel represented by the NRA.

www.geocities.com/guntotingliberals/

http://theliberalgunclub.com/

www.perspectives.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=126611&forum_id=6

http://bluesteeldemocrats.blogspot.com/2006/09/gun-owners-caucus-approved-by.html

Now, what has all this got to do with Romney, his decidedly NON Fundamentalist Religion, and his 1st Amendment protected right to the Free Exercise thereof?

For supposed enlightened, left leaning, and diversity loving people you’re all a little rough with those you deem unworthy to your beliefs. Your tolerance, which you claim to have, seems non-existent with your venom and hate spewing from your keyboards. You try to justify your hateful words with little blurbs here or there trying to make it all the more obvious you’re just looking out to score points against those people you hate. You claim peace but you throw the first stones. I would hope that you would all understand that this doesn’t help our country, or our world get out of the issues were all facing together. Yeah you may hate gun nuts cause you don’t understand them and think they are stupid, you may hate religious people cause you feel like they infringe on your god given rights (oops sorry self given rights) to do what you want to do, and you may even hate me because I am writing this right now. So you tell me what solutions you have found while you rant and rave about everyone and everything. Sounds to me you all just want to fight and force others to do what you want exactly what you don’t like about the other side of the aisle. I am sure that some witty individual is going to reply to my opinion by calling me a righty and a nut job that doesn’t know squat but then again that’s what most people do when they feel threatened. Oh by the way I don’t feel Romney should have to describe his religious beliefs. To what end does that matter. We all know he is rightwing. We all know he is against gay marriage, and we all know that he is conservative so it doesn’t take long to realize his religious beliefs are going to be really similar to those topics. Let’s move on already.

Perhaps this is an intentional irony, but generalizations about atheists in the religious community are probably as common as generalizations about religion in the secular community. Say that I'm evangelical and depending on the crowd, I may soon be seen as a Bible thumping, evolution bashing, abortion hating homophobe. Not the primary point of the blog, but usually generalizations are a two-way street.

I did notice that you didn't deny drinking baby's blood. Also, Superman called and he says to stop tugging on his cape.

I am an avid reader of your magazine but do not apppreciate your commentators' ignorant and uninformed comments on the LDS faith. While pointing out "vicitms", why not mention that the LDS chruch has been the most villified persecuted entity in the US, and a victim of genocide, with a legal extermination order lodged against it just like the Native Americans. None of the persecutors were ever punished or brought to justice either.

All you do when you publish this garbage is support the public's notion that progressiveism equates with knee-jerk liberal calumny of any institution they dislike in the loudest, most offensive, and immature way possible.

Perhaps if you were seriously asking - rather than berating another person's belief system for fun - he might tell you.

Maybe he'll send you a Book of Mormon. But then you'd have to educate yourself. :)

Re: "Casting the First Stone Very Precisely: Keep Your Religion Private or Publicly Defend It"

All I can say is, "BRAVO". Keep up the good work! (big smile)

Atheists have no morals. Every Christian pastor in my community believes that lying is OK - although admittedly their silence on the schools and police doing it on a chronic basis is also not openly acknowledged. So not only do Christian leaders believe that lying is OK - they are unwilling to stand behind this stance. No 'nads and no morals. Most atheists I know don't think lying is OK so that puts them way above Dobson and company.

Hey Debra, You got my vote...Maybe the atheists should form a political party?? They're a helluva lot smarter than what we've been experiencing lately in politics-ie. the christian right-wing fascists.

Dickerson is right. If candidates--of either party--care to put their faith in their resumes, their positions, or their public statements, it should be fair game to go after the tenets of their faith and how their beliefs relate to their public positions. They want it bothe ways, and shouldn't be alloweds to have it. I would love to hear George Bush stumbling over an explanation of the "problem if evil in the world" (a favorite word of his) if his god is supposed to be "all good."

When the next president swears on the Bible to defend the Constitution, I want to know which takes precedence.

does anyone know if Hillary is still having that weekly prayer breakfast?
or feel concerned about what she means when she says she'd "inject faith into policy"?

just seemed worth mentioning in this discussion

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer.html

Look what atheists brought us: Communism. The Soviets murdered 70million, the Red China, over 120 million, not to mention the genocide that took place in Cambodia, where a greater percentage of the population was killed than the Jewish Holocaust(but yet, too many Rabbis were silent when the Cambodian Holocaust took place). The American people are rightly suspicious of atheists.

I guess you could say I'm an atheist. Someone or something took all my children away from me. But I still have a "soul" or something in me that knows right from wrong and I can tell you that the so-called Christians in this country are nothing but brain-washed idiots. They claim to live by the bible but they only pick out the parts they like
and try to force them on every one else. Bush and his like believe in the "End of Days." 140,000 survivors ! That's the number of poor guys he has risking their lives in Iraq.
Don't they deserve to be the "survivors?" Have some Kool-aid !

ok, mitt's church is racist, and he should explain how he dealt with that. i have no problem with that.

are we gonna make huckabee explain how he deals with being a southern baptist? how he feels about the lynchings good baptists have carried out over the years? how about how many members of the kkk are baptist?

What we need is a federal leadership that is going to support the constitution and not allow religion to drive the direction of the country. Remember the separation of church and state? I personally do not care what belief you subscribe to. The issue is with fundamentalism in any religion. The pandering to the herd-minded religious throngs is driving this country into the ground and has got to stop. Until enough people are willing to put aside their religious differences and vote for a leadership that is going to take care of our own first, we will continue down the spiral.

Good information on religion and what it really means. I never tell anyone I am a nonbeliever because you are so harshly judged by the kind hearted Christians that I don't really know what loving everyone means anymore. They sure don't like you if you happen to be different. I often wonder how many others like myself, just say nothing when the subject comes up and if you sit silently most are so busy spouting their love of something they can't even see, hear, touch or smell that they never even notice you are not saying anything. If ask what religion you happen to be, and if you name one, you are lying and that feels too Christian to me and if I say none then I am invited to their church and usually more than once. I say I believe in the power of nature and feel it all around me and do not care to attend any church services. That usually stops the conversation but not always. Enjoyed the article on Mitt Romney and think it applies to oh so many of our faithful.

Look what the Christians brought us. All the dead and starving people around the world and the fighting over just what we choose to believe. Lots of wars are fought because of beliefs and more have died from that than any other wars.

Ann, Humans wanted to be the captain of their own ship, so God said OK(God does not force people to love him, just like any father), and then the rest is history on what a mess the humans made of God's planet. Ann, do you recycle and buy green. What is your personal lifestyle when it comes to protecting the planet. You probably drive a gas guzzler SUV or mini van. With freedom comes responsibility.

I agree Eleanor

Leroy, I do recycle. We live in an RV and travel around the country so yes we have a large diesel truck that pulls our home around and we pull it about 5,000 miles a year. Most RV Parks have recycle bins for cans, glass, paper, etc. They make it easy to separate your trash and be responsible for your mess. Because we are on a fixed income and it does not go up with the increases in everything else our money seems to be shrinking so we have cut down on our unnecessary expenses. We love county, state and national parks and forests. Being able to hike around seeing all that is there. The trees, the plants, the wild life and even the expanding of human life as it covers the hills and valleys with homes, businesses, etc. I just cannot see that one thing or person would be so cruel as to allow all the suffering we have seen and more importantly read about. So nature is beautiful, accepts whatever you do to her and just keeps making things better for us. That is where my spriit feels most comfortable and I can see it, hear it, smell it and even taste it. It is very peaceful and fulfillng for me to walk along a path and just take it all in one breath at a time.

MITT IS A POLITICAL CHAMELEON, PRESS HIM HARD ENOUGH ON HIS RELIGION AND HE MIGHT BECOME CATHOLIC OR BAPTIST OR WHAT EVER SUITS THE NEED, IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHICH POSITION SEEMS MOST LIKELY TO ALLOW HIM TO WIN HIS ELECTION. BUT ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL, IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER WHICH RELIGION HE CHOOSES, AS A POLITICIAN ONE CANNOT BELIEVE OR TRUST ANYTHING ANY OF THEM SAY. WE HAVE TO LOOK AT THEIR PUBLIC RECORDS TO DETERMINE WHETHER THEY ARE FIT FOR OFFICE OR NOT. AND THEIR RECORDS ARE NOT NECESSARILY WHAT THEY THEMSELVES SAY THEY ARE. TAKE RUDY, THE SELF PROCLAIMED HERO AND MASTERMIND OF 9/11 NEW YORK. AMAZING WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, BUT RUDY HAS PULLED OFF ONE OF THE BIGGEST CONS OF THE CENTURY. AFTER THE FIREMEN AND POLICE WERE ALREADY DOING THEIR THING AT THE TRADE CENTER RUDY, SOMETIME LATTER, SHOWS UP AND PRANCES AROUND A BIT THEN LEAVES AND BEGINS HIS POLITICIZING OF THE REAL EVENTS AND HEROES OF 9/11.
POLITICIAN'S ARE NOT TO BE TRUSTED WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S WIVES OR LIVES, BABIES OR SOLDIERS, MONEY OR LEADERSHIP OR JUST ABOUT ANYTHING WE VALUE. WE CAN TRUST POLITICIANS TO DO ONE THING BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE; L I E! SO SURE IT WOULD BE ENTERTAINING TO HAVE MITT ESPOUSE HIS RELIGIOUS TENETS AND INSIGHTS INTO MORMON HISTORY BUT BEAR IN MIND ITS ONLY AS HE NEEDS IT TO BE, STRICTLY POLITICAL.
AS FAR AS RELIGION GOES IN AMERICAN POLITICS OUR FOUNDING FATHERS, MOST OF WHOM WERE REAL GENIUSES, HAD INTENDED THAT RELIGION STAY OUT OF PUBLIC OFFICE AND WITH GOOD REASON. ONCE YOU LET THE PREACHER IN THE DOOR HE BEGINS PREACHING AND JUDGING, WARNING AND CALLING ON THE RIGHT HAND OF THIS ONE OR THAT ONE TO SMITE ALL HIS ENEMIES AND THEN BEFORE YOU KNOW IT YOU GOT TROUBLE LEGISLATING AND EVEN TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING LEAST YOU UPSET THE DELICATE NATURE OF THE PREACHER'S SPIRIT AND HIS RELIGION. YES WE HAVE TO KEEP RELIGION OUT OF POLITICS; JUST TOO MANY PROBLEMS PUSSY FOOTING AROUND THE BOUNDARIES OF RELIGIOUS SENSITIVITIES. SO SURE GET MITT OR ANY OF THEM TO EXPLAIN THEIR RELIGION BUT JUST REMEMBER IN ALL LIKELY HOOD ITS ALL A LIE!

Ann, it looks like that you rank below the "trailer Park" class, having a smelly dirty polluting diesel pull your trailer. It is obvious that you have made some bad decisions in the past and you do not want to take responsibility, so you blame God, like so many other losers. I live in Marin County with my Rastafarian boyfriend who gives farming advice to some farmers in Humboldt County who raise the best,the world renown, grass. I am truly blessed by God.

Joyce, I do not blame God for anything. I don't think he/she exist in the way you mean. I am probably below the trailer class as you say since I do not like putting people in classes. I don't think anyone is better than another regardless of their beliefs. You do need to be responsible about your environment and glad you are doing that. I would not give up my lifestyle unless it became illegal to use a diesel truck to pull our 5th wheel from sea to shining sea. If it were not legal then I would not do it. Think many of us do what we can to be aware of the pollution we are all causing but we do have to make choices and decisions about where to draw the line. Just glad we can still do that. I am not sure what a Rastafarian is but I have heard the term. Don't know where Marin County is either.

The most "godless" people usually turn out to be the ones who wear the religion on their shirt sleeves!

Stephen Morley: Romney should clarify his religious beliefs because it's become de riguer (oh sorry: "usual") to cite one's religious piety in political campaigns. If a person's beliefs would have no influence on their performance as a holder of the office they aspire to, then why do they bring up their beliefs (their "strong faith" is the usual way they put it) as a credential for office?

Of COURSE one's beliefs influence one's actions. We don't have many NeoNazis running for office, even locally, because you and I won't vote for them because we don't want to see what would happen if they were to win. Ask chickens if they would vote for a Voodun. Well that's how I feel about "born again" Christians in high office. They have made themselves slaves to a belief pattern, and spend hours a day begging to know what the object of their belief "wants" them to do. They think of it as the "right" thing to do, but if God has ever made up His mind about the "right" thing, then why are there so many different kinds of Baptists, eh? They can't all be right, can they? So which small splinter of all the different beliefs is the REAL right one?

And I don't give MYSELF rights, as you imply, even if I don't think there ever was a real "God" to give them to me. What gives me rights is my existence as a human person, and the Constitution of my country -- the same Constitution Bush (who "talks to God," doncha know) called "just a damn piece of paper." He seems to regards the Constitution as a "false God," to be struck down.

If Bush believes his chats with "God" trump the American Constitution, he can eat my shorts; and as a citizen of this very secular nation (since inception), I have every right and duty to make myself aware of such threats to my civil rights.

You accuse the author of wanting to direct others' actions. But if, like me, she thinks that religiosity in office threatens to hijack public policy for a religious agenda, then every person in a democracy has a legitimate interest in making sure that what a public official privately believes does not end by infringing citizen rights.

If that takes an "attack" (if that's what you call asking a question) on a person whose beliefs will slide into office with him, then so be it.

My name is Dan Mortenson, and I approve this "attack."

Dan, your rant is out of place. Mitt never makes his religion an issue, only those who don't like him. Look at Ms. Clinton and her prayer meeting cabal. Since she is for gay rights and a woman's right to choose, we don't make an issue of her secret cabal. Her husband, Bill, is involved with the Baptists with Nobel Peace Prize winner Carter. But here again, we don't talk about his deep religious involvement, but he is right on the progressive agenda. We only bring up distractions, like Religion, when we don't want to talk aout the real issues, such as how the corporations run this country and the rich don't pay their share of taxes. Bill Gates's wealth is as much as 60% of all Americans.

This one is for Olsen of 11/30/07: Jimmy Carter withdrew his membership with the Southern Baptist Convention at least a decade ago, maybe more. I recall as I applauded him and did the same! That's not to say he isn't a Christian -- just that he cannot affiliate himself with that narrow thinking bunch. And I'm now sure of what you mean Bill Clinton's "involvement" with Baptists and Nobel/Carter actually entails -- Do they conspire? Do they plot and plan strategies for bending young minds? What? Just kinda' curious . . .

Debra and Gun Toting Liberal, I agree with you both.

GTL, I, too, am a Second-Amendment-supporting Democrat (assuming that's your party), and I might also add to your list of links:

http://www.pinkpistols.org/