Despite his Super Tuesday wins edging him ever closer to becoming the Republican Party candidate to stand against Barrack Obama in November's Presidential election, there are still many who have a problem with him because of his faith. He is a Mormon, and the USA has never had a Mormon President.
Mitt Romney
Why though, in the "land of the free" should bring a Mormon be a problem? How is it any different from being a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu or a Christian?
The Mormon church, or to give it its proper name, The Church of Latter Day Saints, was founded by Joseph Smith in upstate New York in the 1820s. According to Smith, he was visited by an angel who directed him to a buried book inscribed in a language only he could translate on gold plates. He published a version of this book in 1830. (Surprise, surprise, the plates have only ever been seen by a dozen of Smith's inner circle and theit whereabouts are not known). Mormons believe in the Bible but also the Book of Mormon and they believe that after his resurrection Jesus visited the Americas.
Joseph Smith
Mormons have many unusual beliefs that don't sit well with modern society. They have compulsory tithing of a percentage of income to the church. They ban drugs, alcohol and caffeine. They say any adult male can become a priest but ban females and o ky allowed black men to become priests in 1976. They believe there are multiple heavens and multiple worlds, each with its own God. And the list goes on and on.
But hang on a minute....
While rational people will find Mormon beliefs and practises peculiar, if not outright bizarre, but why are they any more odd than the beliefs of all the other religions?
Why is Mitt Romney's Mormon belief any more lunatic than Barrack Obama's Christianity?
The answer, of course, that it isn't.
Both Mormonism and Christianity, and all the other faiths, rely on a good story, lack of evidence, gullible and stupid people, and a "priesthood" happy to abuse the stupid, feckless and at risk.
What we should be asking, instead of attacking Romney's Mormonism, is why anyone with religious faith should be elected to a responsible office?
Does it make any more sense to give power to a man who believes a person came back to life after their death, or that the world was created in six days, or believes our souls will be judged and some will go to heaven and others to hell?
And how does it make any sense to have a President who holds dear to his heart blatant bigotry?
These are, of course, the beliefs of lunatics and the mentally ill. People who believe in imaginary super beings should not be trusted to run local councils, let alone superpower nations.
Sadly,however, through the all-pervading cancer that is religious indoctrination, there has never been an atheist President of the USA and, in all likelihood, there want be for many generations to come. All of the Republican candidates for the Presidency are extremist fundamental believers and they will be standing against another extremist fundamental believer to try to depose him of the White House in November.
It is time for the skeptical, rational, logical and sane to stand up against the monster of religion and snatch power away from the churches because,ultimately, it is the churches who will be President. It's just their face that changes.
