Posted on 06/19/2007 7:39:44 AM PDT by Reaganesque
Well, certainly religion won't be the only variable, and I do disagree with those who make it the only component.
You & I could even agree that "You know, congressional scandals like those that coincided w/the 2006 election shouldn't determine the outcome of an election." But voter-folks take all kinds of things into consideration, including scandals, character, social issues, voting records, public statements, looks, other dimensionly commitments (what we call faith), etc. If the election is close enough, any one of these in fact can and does determine the outcome. (I don't know why that would surprise you or anyone else...if races are decided by one or two percentage points, then it won't take much to alter that).
That is everyone’s right to believe as they choose
Of course, it's their right.
Follow me. Let's take every presidential candidate's faith structure away for a moment. Let's say we didn't know any of their beliefs or to what church or spiritual affinity they belonged, adhered to.
Let's say there was an open forum, and a new candidate named Joe Jones was in the midst. And I asked him the question, "What is your belief about God?" and he answered, "I believe I will be a god someday."
Wouldn't that cause you or anyone else to pause just for a moment? (First of all, how often do you get to meet an alleged "future god?"; Secondly, you begin to wonder about the mental make-up of this candidate if he takes this thought quite seriously; Thirdly, I would think if this guy thinks he's actually about to graduate into godhood, what kind of power pulsating through his veins will reign during his presidency? Scary.)
Buzz...Buzz...Buzz...
I can easily formulate equally embarassing NONSENSICAL questions to all the candidates of faith.
Buzz...Buzz...Buzz....
Very telling that you consider the doctrine of eternal progression (exaltation unto godhood) as "embarrassing."
The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were “gods” and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him—for we can prevent Him, if we choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said. [Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 174-175; emphasis in original]
This book was voted best book of the twentieth century by Christianity Today magazine in 2000. Lewis gained his insights through his careful study of the Bible.
“Gnats” - New one.
Well, if that is the case then he is focusing on being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men. Is there something in that list you don’t like?
Saint Irenaeus
- “Do we cast blame on him [God] because we were not made gods from the beginning, but were at first created merely as men, and then later as gods?
Clement of Alexandria
- “Yea, I say, the Word of God became a man so that you might learn from a man how to become a god.”
and
- “if one knows himself, he will know God, and knowing God will become like God. . . . His is beauty, true beauty, for it is God, and that man becomes a god, since God wills it.”
Justin Martyr
- “[in the beginning men] were made like God, free from suffering and death,” and that they are thus “deemed worthy of becoming gods and of having power to become sons of the highest”
Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria
- “The Word was made flesh in order that we might be enabled to be made gods. . . . Just as the Lord, putting on the body, became a man, so also we men are both deified through his flesh, and henceforth inherit everlasting life.”
and
- “He became man that we might be made divine.”
Augustine of Hippo
- “But he himself that justifies also deifies, for by justifying he makes sons of God. ‘For he has given them power to become the sons of God’ [John 1:12]. If then we have been made sons of god, we have also been made gods.”
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.”
Westminister Dictionary of Christian Theology:
Deification (Greek Theosis) is for orthodoxy the goal of every Christian. Man, according to the Bible, is ‘made in the image and likeness of God’...it is possible for man to become like God, to become deified, to become God by grace. This doctrine is based on many passages of both O.T. and N.T. (Psalms 82: (81) .6; 2 Peter 1:4), and it is essentially the teaching both of St. Paul, though he tends to use the language of filial adoption (Romans 8:9-17, Galatians 4:5-7) and the fourth gospel (John 17:21-23).
William R. Inge, Archbishop of Canterbury:
“God became man, that we might become God” was a commonplace of doctrinal theology at least until the time of Augustine, and that “deification holds a very large place in the writings of the fathers...We find it in Irenaeus as well as in Clement, in Athanasius as well in Gregory of Nysee. St. Augustine was no more afraid of deificari in Latin than Origen of apotheosis in Greek...To modern ears the word deification sounds not only strange but arrogant and shocking.
http://fairwiki.org/index.php/Deification_of_man
nits make lice......
Mitt Romney has probably been selected for the “second annointing.” His calling and election would be made sure by devine Melchezadek authority. We aren’t talking about election as POTUS, but as a god.
Makes me sick!
How do you know about the second annointing? It is super secret. Only a select few ever obtain those covenants. You’ll never catch any True Believer talking about it - even if they actually know anything about it.
Not embarrassing to me at all. Distortions are embarrassing. For instance, I can ask candidates, if they are canibals when they take the sacrament. It is equally unfair and embarassing.
YUP! I've heard that before...however looky here!
ABC’s Harris: Will ‘Uncomfortable Questions’ Torpedo Romney?
TODAY on the Newsbuster's site:
ABC’s Harris: Will ‘Uncomfortable Questions’ Torpedo Romney? Posted by Scott Whitlock on June 19, 2007 - 13:14. On Tuesday’s "Good Morning America," the ABC program used an attack by an aide to presidential candidate Sam Brownback on fellow contender Mitt Romney to delve into the former Massachusetts governor’s religious beliefs and whether bigotry will derail his campaign.
Comparing the treatment of Romney’s religion to past campaigns, Dan Harris asserted that this sort of thing "happened for orthodox Jews when Joe Lieberman ran for vice president in 2000."
But unlike in 2000, when Joe Lieberman ran for vice president on a liberal Democratic ticket, Mitt Romney is running a social conservative. And thus, Harris alternated from wondering if "a resurgence of the type of bigotry the church has faced since it was founded 177 years ago" might torpedo Romney’s bid, to speculating on the "uncomfortable questions" about Mormon beliefs:
Dan Harris: "There are other Mormon beliefs that may provoke uncomfortable questions for Mitt Romney. For example, Mormons believe God was once a human being. Mormons also believe in symbolically baptizing the dead, even if they're members of other religions. And, up until 1978, including a time during which Romney was prominent in the church, black people had second-class status. Mormons used to teach that blacks have dark skin due to a curse from God."
Some of us have been saying this for months, that the media would shed light on the mormon beliefs, only to be disputed as cubreporter just did.
Now it has started, and don't think this will end it.
Since all of the people you quoted lived after the death of the last Apostle who walked with Jesus, and since Mormonism claims Apostolic Authority left humankind from the last Apostle’s death until Joseph Smith came along and God restored Apostolic Authority through Smith, how are the quoted people to be received? None of them were Mormons. None of them recognizes Mormonism’s doctrinal assertion that there are three Gods in the godhood, not God as three personages in one as Orthodox Chrsitianity understands the triune nature of God. Mormonism’s founder claimed Jesus and Lucifer are spirit brothers. I mean, you Mormonism Apologists quote all these sources as authoritative yet your religion claims ALL Apostolic Authority ended when the last Apostle died, and Authority had to be restored through Joseph Smith the conman, adulterer, rewriter of the Bible. How are onlookers to receive this duplicitous approach of Mormonism?
Sawyer: "But as he moves, in a sense, to distance himself from some previous practices of the church publicly, he does get criticism from inside the church. So he's sort of getting it from both sides here. And I note that there is the article of faith, recognized as scripture by the Mormon church, which says Zion will be built upon the American continent. And I remember your asking him about the question of the second coming being in America. I want to play this and let you tell us what happened here."
Romney: "That doesn't happen to be a doctrine of my church. Our belief is just what it says in the Bible that the Messiah will come to Jerusalem, stand on the Mount of Olives and the Mount of Olives will be a place where there is a great gathering and so forth. It is the same as the other Christian tradition." Sawyer: "So does he get criticized inside the church for those statements?"
Stephanopoulos: "He did. Because one of the doctrines of the church is actually that God will return to both Jerusalem and the new Jerusalem, which they teach is actually in Missouri. And he did get criticism for walking away from the tenets of the faith there. But his much bigger problem is with other Christians, other evangelicals. What voters, bottom line, I think, Diane, are looking for is they want a candidate who believes in God. Being an atheist is an absolute political killer. But they also want to be assured that whoever gets that office is not going to try to impose their beliefs on the rest of the country."
“Well, I don’t care if he is a LDS or not. Religion should not determine the outcome of an election. That is everyone’s right to believe as they choose.”
By definition everyone can certainly believe as they choose. But to say everyone who believes as they choose has an equal right TO BE president (versus an equal right TO RUN FOR president), is simply nonsensical.
There are plenty of people in insane asylums who believe they are Gods, and they have every right to run for president, but they have no special right to anyone’s vote.
Gee, NAL, I would take your advice, however isn't that censorship?
[Mitt Romney has probably been selected for the “second annointing.” His calling and election would be made sure by devine Melchezadek authority. We aren’t talking about election as POTUS, but as a god.
Makes me sick!]
Which brings up an interesting question. Could Romney, after serving as President, become president of the Mormon Church and become looked on as a Prophet with special revelatory powers?
What are you, some kind of "Prophet" or something? (See my post #32 ;)
Wow the Mormon baiting started early on this thread
Copied off the Fred threads.
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