Obama v. Romney

[Gob]

Ray, it's (the US election,) the most expensive and nasty and incoherent dog and pony show in the world.

BUT!! Think of all the fun and entertainment you provide, gratis, for the rest of the world. Five more months of a pie fight between the Marx Bros and the Adams Family!!

Bring it on....

[Gob]

I've changed my mind, I'm voting Romney, he's one of us!!

It's well-known that Republican contender for the US presidency Mitt Romney is a Mormon - but not that his family was converted in England.


He doesn't mention it on the campaign trail, but his great-great-grandfather, a Preston carpenter, became one of the first British Mormons, 175 years ago.



"This is the spot - this is where it all started," says historian Aidan Turner-Bishop pointing down to a small, unmarked and unprepossessing, shingle beach.

The sun is just starting to set over the banks of the River Ribble in Preston. The birds are singing gently. It is an idyllic scene.

"On a hot summer's day, this is where the kids come to play," says Turner-Bishop.

This is the site where the very first Mormon baptisms outside North America took place.

And it is almost certainly the spot where the Romney family were baptised into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) in the late 1830s, at the start of a wave of 19th Century Mormon conversions in England.

"In order to compete to be the first people to be baptised, some of the men began to run, to race each other, down to the little beach… People were just carried away by the sheer excitement of it," says Turner-Bishop.

"There would be crowds on top of the bridge and crowds around here. It was a big event. And they'd stand and watch these exciting, unusual American evangelists baptise people in full immersion in the waters of the river."

The church, founded in the US in 1830 by Joseph Smith, faced intense persecution in its early years, so it was a bold move, when - just seven years later - it sent missionaries across the Atlantic Ocean.

The first country they came to was England, and the first place they preached was Preston, in the summer of 1837.

According to a family history, one "fine day" as Mitt Romney's great-great-grandparents, Miles and Elizabeth Romney, were on their way to the market, they saw a crowd gathered around a Mormon preacher, and stopped to listen.

"They beheld a group of people assembled on a street corner," wrote Thomas C Romney, their grandson, in 1948.

"Their curiosity led them thither and they discovered that it was a religious gathering and that the preacher was a Mormon Elder from America... They were much impressed with the message delivered."

It was this chance encounter that set off a chain of events that has culminated in Mitt Romney's challenge to Barack Obama in November's US presidential election.

[rubato]

God DAMN that Romney fellow! He is a fucking MORMON, and he actually believes what they teach,and tries to live by it, and counsels others (who claim they are or want to be good Mormons) to do likewise.

... "

Coming from you, an anti - Mormon religious bigot, that is really funny.

yrs,
rubato

[dgs49]

Do you know what the word, "bigot" means?

I have NEVER indicated hate, condemnation, or any sort of animosity toward any Mormon, in anything I have posted here. Indeed, I have plainly stated that I will vote for Romney gladly and enthusiastically, in spite of the fact that he professes a faith that I find absurd. I have often pointed out LDS errors, perversities, and conflicts in Mormon teachings, the BOM, and practices. This is not bigotry.

It is priceless that you, the second most obvious anti-Catholic bigot posting here, would call me for bigotry against Mormons. I won't even bother citing the common metaphors.

[Lord Jim]

the second most obvious anti-Catholic bigot posting here

Dave, I really must rise to defend rube from that be-smirching of his reputation...

He is easily the first most obvious anti-Catholic bigot posting here....

Rube has called repeatedly for the Catholic Church to be banned....

And without EGlide posting on this board, (who called for all organized religion to be outlawed) rube also gets the pinball crown as the most anti-Christian in general bigot posting here.

[rubato]

Do you know what the word, "bigot" means?

I have NEVER indicated hate, condemnation, or any sort of animosity toward any Mormon, in anything I have posted here. Indeed, I have plainly stated that I will vote for Romney gladly and enthusiastically, in spite of the fact that he professes a faith that I find absurd. I have often pointed out LDS errors, perversities, and conflicts in Mormon teachings, the BOM, and practices. This is not bigotry.

It is priceless that you, the second most obvious anti-Catholic bigot posting here, would call me for bigotry against Mormons. I won't even bother citing the common metaphors.

You have said it is a 'cult', rather different from what you admit to, and an example of bigotry.

And I condemn the Catholic Church as an institution for its proven actions throughout history. I treat all "invisible sky god" theories as equally valid because they are all equally based on pure invention. I have no greater disrespect for your superstition than any others. None is more plausible than any other and none can claim any basis in science or logic.

yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

none can claim any basis in science or logic

Maybe so (I don't agree but....). Of course that stands opposed to the faith belief that the irrational gave rise to the rational, that the basis of rationality is accident - both thoroughly proven by rigorous scientific experi.... oh wait a bit. It must be logic that supports the bel.... no hang about. Hmm I am now puzzled

Meade

PS it doesn't take much to puzzle me though

[RayThom]

I feel ya'. God is dead, but if never alive what is there? There is no there there. A figment is all I can assume. "... an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about (God,) whatever it is..." And finally, to continue with my string of quotes, "God is a concept by which we measure our pain."

We may be a distinct minority in the USA (2% atheist, 4% agnostic) but that doesn't make us any more right, or wrong, although true believers like to paint us as idiots, psychopaths, and friends of Satan. I figure they just feel threatened because we are different. "The Crucible" come to mind. That said, I don't like to belabor this "god, no god" issue. Free thought will probably be shunned from now until doomsday, and there's way too many of "them" to make any convincing inroads. Shoveling sand against the tide, that's all. We all know what we know and that is that.

rubato, I just needed to let you know you're not alone but you know that. And me? I'm going to sit back and watch the rhetoric fly. This religion shit makes me dizzy. DIXI

God bless, America!

[dgs49]

Stating that the LDS Church is a cult is not bigotry. It is a statement of opinion based on a commonly understood definition of cult and the facts of the case, to wit, charismatic founder, wildly unconventional beliefs, persecution complex, and so forth.

Bigotry is irrational hate. I do not hate people who profess faiths that I find absurd, or people who disagree with me about politics or sports or anything else.

You, on the other hand, go out of your way to be critical of the Catholic Church, bring up the various actual and perceived faults of the Church and people in it, even when it is only tangentially related to the subject at hand. You constantly - constantly - deny any positive aspect of the Church or anyone connected with it. At any mention of the RC Church you take the opportunity to neurotically dredge up every news report that is even remotely related to the subject or the person at hand.

This is not "disagreement," or discourse. This is irrational hate. Indeed, I can see you now, reading this posting, and fighting your visceral reaction - your absolute need - to post something dafamatory about the Church, just for the joy of it.

But you are still only second best. Andrew is the most prolific and hateful bigot posting here when if comes to the RC Church. He is like Mr. Bacciagaluppe on the old Abbott & Costello shows, reacting to the mention of Niagara Falls.

[Gob]

But you are still only second best. Andrew is the most prolific and hateful bigot posting here when if comes to the RC Church.

That's very unfair!!

I've worked hard for that title...

[Crackpot]

You're much too rational.