Mitt Romney the Mormon

For the longest time, I’ve said that I could not vote for Mitt Romney because he is a Mormon. That might sound harsh, maybe religionist. But I’ve read a fair bit about the LDS church, and I’m sorry, but it’s absurd. I can’t remember who it was, but one prominent atheist was saying how the only reason popular religions persist is because their origins happened so long ago that the facts they purpose can’t be verified or denied. Whereas nowadays, no one could realistically start a religions because it would be immediately discredited.

That’s definitely a shortcoming of Mormonism – its founding happened in the era of newspapers and there’s no lack of material by which we can understand the sociological influences from which it came. For example, in Joseph Smith’s time, the King James Version was the dominant translation. That’s why the golden tablets he translated sound like the KJV. Thus, Mormons still pray with “thees” and “thous”. And come on, that’s ridiculous. Why should the language of the golden tablets match a particular English translation of Scripture?

There’s other stuff too. Around his time people were really interested in archeology and Native American culture. So you can kind of see where his idea of long hidden golden tablets came from. And the idea that certain Native Americans are a lost tribe of Israel. But it’s absurd, and scientifically disprovable.

So yeah, modern religions, in particular Mormonism, have the problem that their claims can be easily shown to be false. And I’m sorry, but I just can’t trust the intellect or instincts of someone who believes in Mormonism. I can’t get over that.

Newsweek’s profile of Romney was pretty interesting, though, and I get the sense that he’s guarded about his Mormonism because he’s embarrassed by it on some level. It’s a wussy thing to do, but to me, it at least shows he has a modicum of intelligence.

I disagree with that atheist’s claim that ancient religions persist only because their founding claims are too far back to be disproved, by the way. I kind of think the opposite – as time goes by, older religions have a harder time surviving, because their claims can’t keep up with contemporary knowledge and understanding. No one worships Greek gods today. Or Egyptian sun gods. For religions to survive over millenniums, they have to have some hold of the truth. So Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism – I think they all have some hold on truth, else they would not survive. I think that time, rather than protecting religion from scrutiny, weeds out those that are false.

So I may disagree with a Muslim or a Buddhist, but based on what I know of the religions, I can respect them. Mormons, not so much.