Thursday 22 March 2012

This is What Mitt Romney Actually Believes


I was once stopped in the street and asked if I would like a free personality test. “I don’t want to test my personality”, I responded “It might just test me back.” The proposed testers in question were scientologists, of course, and this is the bait with which they hook their little fish.

Frankly I did not know that much about scientology at the time, other than having a vague impression that it was a weird and cultish movement based on some dubious blend of religion and science fiction. I found out an awful lot more from watching South Park some time later, an episode called Trapped in the Closet, which featured Tom Cruise, an aficionado of the cult. The actual beliefs of scientologists were touched on, accompanied by an onscreen caption saying “This is what Scientologists actually believe”. And, my goodness, it’s weird. It’s beyond me how any normal and reasonably intelligent person could be taken in by this claptrap…even Tom Cruise.

Actually, it was while reading about what Mormons Actually Believe that I recalled the South Park satire; because, in some ways, as a belief system, it’s just as bizarre. To accept it would take a huge suspension of disbelief, or bottomless pits of gullibility.

My interest was spurred by the spluttering advance in the Republican primaries of Mitt Romney, who may end as the first Mormon in the White House. There I assume he will continue to wear the White Combinations that true believers don day and night, presumably changed now and again for the sake of hygiene!

I should say that there is much to admire in Mormons as people, generally respectable, clean-cut, decent-living and morally upright; in so many ways quintessentially American. But Mormonism as a religion seems to me like a parody of Christianity, more akin to a heretical cult than anything else. In some ways it’s also a parody of Islam, with Joseph Smith, the nineteenth century prophet and founder, as a latter day Mohammed, and the Book of Mormon a latter day Quran. Harold Bloom, a literary scholar, described the former as a “creative misreading of the early history of the Jews.”

The Book of Mormon is certainly creative in its tale of one Lehi, a patriarch who parted not the Red Sea like Moses but the Atlantic Ocean! Well, that is to say, so the story goes, he sailed across in 600BC.

Honestly it’s far too tiresome to go in to all the subsequent elaborations, including the appearance of Jesus in the New World. Let me just say that the old Israelite had two sons, Nephi and Laman, who, like Cain and Able, had a bit of a falling out, giving rise to two warring peoples, the Nephites and Lamanites. Mormon apparently was a general who led the Nephites. But since these light-skinned people were apparently all wiped out by the dark-skinned Lamanites I’m not quite sure where the modern Mormons come from. Oh, yes, I do, from a lot of self-deception and, dare I say it, a healthy interest in polygamy among the pioneers. Yes, I know; they no longer do that!

As I say, there is almost no relationship whatsoever between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity, beyond a bland message of salvation through repentance and faith. In some respects the theological mishmash it presents recalls the Arian Heresy, that concerning the separation of Christ and God, specifically condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 325AD. Really, in essence, Mormonism is a bargain basement faith, a sort of spiritual Wall Mart, with heaven resembling the Walton homestead! Oh, incidentally, the Garden of Eden was in Missouri.

As for dear old Mitt, I’m really of the 'anyone but Obama' school, though out of the uninspiring Republican pool I would far rather go with Rick Santorum. I’m not sure how much Romney’s beliefs (does he really believe all that tosh?) will go against him with the wider American public, though the Republican fundamentalists take a dim view. I would simply suggest, on matters of religion, that he would do well to keep his mouth shut, and, like Tom Cruise, stay firmly in the closet.

48 comments:

  1. Really, Ana, is Mormonism really so much harder to swallow than 'standard' Christianity, or Islam, or Hinduism? Is silly underwear any sillier than cope and mitre? If one is gullible enough to accept a Bronze Age war god can double as an incinerated shrub, split himself into three, rise from the dead, walk on water, and miraculously convert cookies and wine into real godflesh and godblood in the mouths of believers . . . is it really much of a stretch to suggest he might have enjoyed a holiday in Mexico after his somewhat mixed reception in Judea?

    You suggest there is no similarity between 'mainstream' Christianity and Mormonism, but that simply isn't so . . . however much the other sects protest. Mormons believe everything they do but just add another pile of bullshit on top. You can see why the other faiths are jealous: they wish they hadn't been so busy fighting one another they had had the idea first. Think how much easier to convert the Asians and Africans if they had invented special appearances in Zimbabwe and Nanking and Bangalore? Damn those Yanks for thinking outside the Books!

    BTW - didya see this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/7415082/French-bread-spiked-with-LSD-in-CIA-experiment.html

    Also, do you know about the connection between L. Ron Hubbard and Aleister Crowley? Now that's an interesting combo!

    http://www.mt.net/~watcher/crowleyhubbard.html

    All Hail Eris!

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    1. Calvin, I must give you this, the only quote by Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, to make it into the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. He is talking about religion to an unnamed woman;

      "People differ in their discourse and profession about these matters, but men of sense are really but of one religion>"

      "Pray, my Lord, what religion is that which men of sense agree in?"

      "Madam", says the earl immediately, "men of sense never tell it." :-)

      The remarks were recorded by Bishop Burnet in his History of My Own Time.

      I did not know about the spiked bread. Thanks for the link. Ana as for that duo, again I did not. They deserved one another!

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  2. Not all bad, I will be able to get my wife a teenage sister-wife to help with the household chores! Go Romney! Amen!

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  3. Anyway, if you are familiar with American superheroes, you will know that they all wear magic underpants under their street clothes. Just think of Romney as Clark Kent ;-)

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  4. Your assessment of the Mormons is, for the most part, eerily calibrated with my view of them, Ana, but let me add a couple of additional fun facts which, as a middle aged American, I happen to know:

    At some point in the 1950s, the Mormons made great advances amongst blue-blooded Bostonians, who for the most part had been hereditary Congregationalists (aka Puritan descendents) or Episcopalians (aka post Revolutionary War Anglicans). I've known a few Harvard educated, blue blooded Boston Mormons and I've never been able to figure out how it happened or who was responsible--perhaps it was only one charismatic Mormon with the right connections.

    The so-called Christian Scientists had a similar, brief but glamourous, success in the upper echelons of the American society about fifty years before the Mormon raid on the Boston Brahmins which produced Mitch Romney.

    Personally, I think the success of both the Mormons and the Christian Scientists is more a story about the long-term decay and hollowing-out of traditional Christianity than about the specifics of the latest opportunistic infection.

    Also, nothing about your sensibility or background suggests that you would have ever had reason--until now--to intersect with Zane Grey and his works. Zane Grey, author of RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE and a host of other books, was a libidinous ex-dentist who was a hugely popular American novelist in the first half of the 20th century. He despised the Mormons, and deeply anti-Mormon plots are at the heart of many of his novels (they are Westerns and the Mormons basically controlled Utah, the setting of many of his novels).

    None of this has much to do with Romney or his underwear, but perhaps in addition to all the weird and wonderful places you've already travelled, the time may be coming to pack your bags for Salt Lake City, and read RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE on the plane . . .

    Of course, as your finely-honed instincts would already be warning you--it ain't Paris . . .

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    1. Fascinating stuff, Chris. Conan Doyle had a poor opinion of them as well, going by A Study in Scarlet.

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  5. Great blog site! Noticed it on Twitter.
    Yeah we have major problems here in the U.S. being stuck with a 'white Obama' ie Mitt. It does chap my a$$ that every 4 years our votes get hijacked by having to vote for the "lesser of two evils". Hopefully we'll be changing that
    soon ... who knows?

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    1. Hey, C&H, great to see you here. :-) I rather suspect not, since that has been the drift in American politics for a number of years now.

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  6. I understand that Santorum believes in the literal truth of Genesis, which isn't a lot less far-fetched than the Book of Mormon. I don't care what someone's political platform is, if they believe that kind of tosh they ain't ever gonna get my vote.

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    1. Dennis, I'm sure you will recall Alistair Campbell's statement to the effect that the Blair administration 'did not do God.' For a leading figure in American public life to say that would be tantamount to political suicide. They all do God, in one fashion or another. :-)

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  7. I've got a copy of the Book of Mormon and it's certainly a good source of laughter, from beginning to end.

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    1. Deino, if I ever work up the energy I'll have a look. I have a copy of LaVey's Satanic Bible, which I keep meaning to read and review. But the parts I've dipped into are not encouraging, the derivative musings of a second class mind.

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    2. Of the book, I think Samuel Clemens said it best: "The book is a curiosity to me. It is such a pretentious affair and yet so slow, so sleepy, such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print..."

      As for me, I'll pass. I learned everything I need/want to know about it and them (aside from Trey Parker and Matt Stone) from John Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven. (And as an American I'll also happily take four more years of Obama rather than this maladroit milquetoast.

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    3. Jameson, Clemens'observation puts it beyond all curiosity for me. :-)

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  8. Ron Paul has quite a following but He is being ignored by the Zionist controlled mass media as there is little to no mention of him.

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    1. Ideally, Paul would be my choice. But in practical terms I don't think he has much of a chance. We do get some reports on his campaign here.

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    2. Anthony, Paul, in an ideal world, would be my own choice, but in the world of practical politics I don't think he has much of a chance. We do get some reports on his campaign here.

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  9. Your last sentence is hilarious! Oh my! The Republican candidates just do not do it for me but then again I am the opposite of you "Obama over anyone else". I do not think Obama is perfect or the "cure". I think Americans should stop looking to other people to solve their problems. We all played a part in this economic crises. Like I mentioned before, I could not stand the Bush/Cheney administration so I am quite skeptical of the Republican party. Being a black woman in America and having seen what my grandmother and mother went through, I truly feel like they don't care about me or my family. I am agnostic so I guess I don't quite fit into the category of religious voters they are mostly aiming for. We'll see what happens though. Great post and great topic!

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    1. Thanks, Shahroh, you are a lovely person. :-) It's really quite sad that the Republican Party has seemingly alienated so many black people, considering it was the party of Lincoln. I could not stand Bush either in the way that I could not stand Tony Blair, the two men who created hell on earth in Iraq.

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    2. Thanks, Shahroah. You are a lovely person. :-) It's a pity that the Republican Party has alienated decent people like you, considering that it was the party of Lincoln. I could not stand Bush either or Tony Blair, the two men who brought hell on earth to Iraq.

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    3. This place is really acting up tonight!

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  10. Cool picture. 8-)

    Learned a few more things about the Mormons. I didn't know they gave up on polygamy. What's wrong with that anyway?!

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    1. Hey, Alexis, how many sets of in-laws do you want? :-)) They gave up on it in 1890, one of the conditions for Utah's entry into the Union.

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  11. That was really cool- on matters of religion keep your mouth shut.lol. I think this advice is good for all politicians. I am glad you did not give any personality test.

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    1. Yogendra, my friend, it's beyond all such simplicity!

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    2. I only mean what should be, not what is. Political realism sounds sensible, but without sensible ideals no politician can reach any where. Rick Perry started his campaign by calculating religious equation, and you can see the premature demise of his campaign. Talk about what matters not what you think matters. It's simple is not it.

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    3. Actually, Yogendra, it was my personality I was referring to , not to be so easily caught in such a net. :-)

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  12. There are Mormon sects still today where polygamy is practiced, they are not officially recognized by the "latter day Saints" as the Mormons call themselves. Yes, it looks as it will be Romny vs Obama, Not Rick Sanitarium.

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    1. Yes, thanks, Anthony; I read about the Mormon offshoots once in the Sunday Times.

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  13. Ana, I am disappointed that someone who usually is so well informed about truths regarding American politics seems to have succumbed to Bush Derangement Syndrome and the long term MSM propaganda campaign against the Republican Party.

    Its the Republican President(s) Bush who appointed two Black Secretaries of State, Colin Powell and Dr. Condoleezza Rice, and the Black Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. In contrast the Democrats have only appointed of Caucasians for the same.

    It was the Demo presidents Kennedy & Johnson that got America into that mess in Vietnam, drafting literally millions of poor black men (who despite only being 10% of the population represented 40% of the soldiers). In contrast, it was the Repub Pres Nixon that got them out. It's Johnson's "Great Society" programs that lead to the total disintegration of the urban family unit, w/70%+ of children now being born out of wedlock, and 25% of the men having been imprisoned.

    As for the BDS/Iraqi issue, it wasn't ONLY the MI6 & the CIA claiming the presence of WMDs and nuclear materials. Also Hussein had violated 9 different UN Security Council resolutions, had 2500 TONS of "yellowcake" uranium ore (sold to Canada after the fall of his govt), and some very sophisticated machine tools hidden away (the head of the Iraqi weapons team wrote a book about it titled "The Bomb in My Backyard"). Finally, just before the invasion took place, a 60-truck heavy truck convoy crossed the Syrian border. By itself, it would just appear to be loot heading to a safe place, except they were escorted by Spetsnaz troopers. I later ran across a translation of the post-retirement memoirs of one of the Russian officers involved in the project. He indicated that they removed quite a few Russian-supplied WMDs (sorry, I've lost the link to that)

    We won't dwell on the 273K+ corpses recovered of people tortured to death by the Baathist regime.

    Certainly mistakes were made, but the world is a MUCH better place in the absence of Hussein and his regime, and the Republican hostility towards African-Americans is greatly overstated by the MSM.

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    1. Thanks, CB. I have tremendous respect for your views across so many issues, and I absolutely agree the world is better off without monsters like Saddam Hussein. But I think the invasion was a disaster, particularly with regard to forward planning. I don't just blame Bush for this; Tony Blair was as much at fault. I've written about this before but neither man understood the political, cultural and religious complexities of Iraq. Blair took advice from respected scholars in the field and then just ignored it. Above all their seems to have been lamentable absence of realpolitik. Saddam was a monster, yes, but after the First Gulf War we had him in a cage. Removing him altogether was to remove a check on the regional ambitions of Iran, now far, far greater threat. Looking at the situation from a national point of view, though the full story may take a while to come out, the British Army in Basra suffered one of the most humiliating defeats in its long history. I do not think the Americans in Baghdad fared that much better. Look for some of my previous Iraq posts.

      Agree or not I welcome your contribution. I might take up this subject again in the light of your remarks.

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  14. Ana, thank you for your kind regards.

    I can't speak to the activities of the BA in Basra (I just don't know anything about the subject), but I do know that a lot of the difficulties on the US side of things were due to factors not entirely under Bush's control (that being said, since he WAS the US C-i-C, it's still his responsibility).

    The first was that despite being NATO allies, the Turkish Parliment voted (shortly before the invasion) to deny the Americans permission to invade from Turkey. As this would have been the 4th ID (one of America's "heavy" divisions), with little notice the US lost ~33% of its initial forces. As a result, instead of Hussein being bottled up in Baghdad, he was free to escape to Tikrit with several millions of $ of US currency.

    The second is that without Bush's approval, (but I forget as to whether it was against orders) Paul Bremer (the post-invasion civilian administrator) foolishly (and suddenly) elected to relieve all Iraqi soldiers [that had been members of the Baathist Party] of their duties. This resulted in hundreds of thousands of unemployed, well armed, resentful men roaming the countryside. As all officers had been REQUIRED to be members of the party this was especially shortsighted.

    I can't help but wonder how much more smoothly things might have gone w/out these two events!

    [historicl tidbit: in a similar fashion, General Lee has long been blamed for losing the Battle of Gettysburg since he didn't occupy the local high ground before the battle started. I have recently learned that he HAD commanded one of his subordinate generals to take the ridge the night before, they just declined to follow his orders until it was too late.]

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    1. CB, thanks. I was thinking about this today, in the light of your remarks, conjuring up, by wonderful coincidence, the image of Mr Desert Boots himself, Pontious Paul the Procurator. The whole ting really follows from a misconceived strategy, the people and the actions. I'm a conservative. The neo-cons for me are just that - cons. It is simply not out business to waste resources setting the world to rights, expecting gratitude when there is none. As a human being I would have hated to have lived in Saddam's Iraq. As a woman I would hate to have to live in 'liberated' Iraq, which is no liberation at all.

      Thanks fir that tidbit on Lee. It makes the error of Cemetery Ridge a little more understandable.

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  15. They have found tall red haired Caucasoid remains in North and south america that predate the current "native" Americans and the white bearded God of the Aztecs who promised to return was a Viking who made it to Mexico in a longboat with a dragon bow head, the ancients traveled much farther than modern history states.

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    1. Anthony, do you have a reference? I'd be fascinated to look into this.

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    2. I'll get the information for you.

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    3. I sent you some on YT, I will find more links.

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  16. Robert E. Lee lost the war at Gettysburg because his judgment was impaired as he has high on Laudanum, the war went on but the initiative was forever lost. Longstreet could have very well won the war but you know, could have, would have, should have.

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    1. Now that's something I did not know! I agree that Pickett's Charge was the greatest mistake of Lee's career but he had made a reputation by playing the long shots. It worked at Chancellorsville but failed at Gettysburg. So far as the outcome of the war is concerned, Shelby Foote, a specialist in the conflicts, says that the North fought with one hand tied behind its back. In other words, only a fraction of its potential strength was brought to bear. The only way the South could have won was by hoping for the victory of political defeatism, and that prospect passed with the failure of George McLellan's presidential bid in 1864.

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  17. Scientologists don’t have a personality, theirs got stolen by the Thetan invented by L Ron. They are now recognised as a religion in the US, and that in itself raises interesting questions about the genesis of religions. Christianity was a cult and it is arguable Pilate was doing his job. The way cults are structured is that Joe Bloggs gets treated like dirt while Tom Cruise sees the best side of them. He is there to advertise. They are hierarchical and ultimately appeal to the individual’s desire to abnegate responsibility for his or her own life. I believe there is a strong attempt in America to establish a theocracy. The Bible bashers failed, maybe they're trying the back door of Mormonism now. Judge keep people ignorant and docile. Make sure they do not anaylse your policies.

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    1. Richard's it's all so bizarre. They should do things in the English fashion. We don't do God; we have the C of E. :-))

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  18. If you believe Mormonism is a parody of Christianity, that is fine. You and Mitt Romney are both entitled to believe what you believe. However, your posting a picture of him in his underwear, which Mormons believe to be sacred, seems in poor taste. It is a shame that civility and respect for other people's beliefs have gone by the wayside. Badly done.

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    1. Kasey, that is not Romney's underwear. It's his head, and that of his wife, transposed on to a set of Mormon underwear just as a sense of humour should be transposed on to you. So far as respecting other people's beliefs is concerned I certainly can not respect a cult - and Mormonism is clearly that - which holds underwear, of all things, to be 'sacred.'

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