This is exactly what I've been saying all along. The evangelical voters will follow their leaders and vote for whoever their leaders endorse.

The evangelical leaders like Romney because they see him as someone desperate to be president who will do whatever they want him to do and return favors for them. They don't trust McCain enough for that.

I wonder who will be the first to bring up in the primary debates whether Willard Mitt plans to be God of His Own Planet someday.

Supposedly, Falwell does not, but the media still cover him as if he does. Regardless, Romney will do well with the others as well. They are good judges of talent and electability.

It just goes to show that the far right will do anything to retain the presidency, even endorse a candidate whose religion is incompatible with their own evangelism, if they think that person has the best chance to win. If you look at the GOP candidates objectively, one-on-one, in group settings, and on TV, Romney blows the rest of the GOP competition away.

Power trumps belief for these guys. It's pretty simple.

It's not a joke. As members of the LDS faith we believe that becoming joint heirs with Christ (as is promised the faithful in the New Testament) allows us to also receive what Christ receives of the Father which is delineated here--

"All things that the Father hath are mine"

Since we believe the Father hath far more than just a planet the reference to having our own planet is an attempt to trivialize and mock our litteral belief in being joint heirs with Christ and obtaining "all things that the Father hath."

So it's our own universe/pluriverse, not a single planet, not even a single star system nor galaxy.

Does anyone know how Romney fared among Conservative Evangelicals in his Massachusetts Gubinatorial campaigns? (and yes, there are some in the Bay State)

I would think this would yield the most accurate prediction of how he would do nationally.

-Dave Adams-

The Church doesn't do any of it. God's the one making the promise. Here's something in cutting edge modern Theoretical Physics on a possible scenario in which the best candidate for a Unified Theory, Superstring Theory (or M Theory) provides many possible areas for God to provide for his promises--

PAUL STEINHARDT: One of the ideas in string theory that was particularly striking to me, and suggested perhaps a new direction for cosmology, is the idea of branes and the idea of branes moving in extra dimensions.

BRIAN GREENE: Some scientists have proposed that the answer to the Big Bang riddle lies in the movements of these giant branes.

BURT OVRUT: It's so simple. Here's a brane on which we live, and here's another brane floating in the higher dimension. There's absolutely nothing difficult about imagining that these collide with each other.

Taken from PBS's "NOVA: The Elegant Universe" Transcript, Hour 3--

BRIAN GREENE: According to this idea, some time before the big bang, two branes carrying parallel universes began drifting toward each other, until...

BURT OVRUT: All of that energy has to go somewhere. Where does it go? It goes into the big bang. It creates the expansion that we see, and it heats up all the particles in the universe in this big, fiery mass.

BRIAN GREENE: As if this weren't weird enough, the proponents of this idea make another radical claim: the big bang was not a special event.

They say that parallel universes could have collided, not just once in the past, but again and again—and that it will happen in the future. If this view is right, there's a brane out there right now, headed on a collision course with our universe.

PAUL STEINHARDT: So another collision is coming, and there'll be another big bang. And this will just repeat itself for an indefinite period into the future.

If you would like to see, if you haven't seen this special previously, they offer it free streaming from the internet along with the Transcript here--

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

The whole episode on Superstring theory is fascinating, even if you have no interest in LDS Theology this episode is really good, and the attempted graphical representations of more abstract ideas (like multiple dimensions) are rather well done. It's informative and entertaining.

I'm not saying for certain that that's how God would give to those who are joint heirs with Christ what he has, but it certainly shows that the universe is not as cut and dry as some people think it may be. Multiple universes, under the current leading attempt at finding a unified theory for all of physics, has a high likelyhood of being the norm.

Falwell was bought off the way that Ralph Reed was bought off by the gamblers. We should help get the word out about this to the people of the Christian community, who has been terribly used over the last decades.

Mormons are no more Christians than Scientologists are. (Or me, as far as that goes.)

I'm rather certain that there's other life. We believe in what I've heard termed "perfect economy"--

37 And there are many kingdoms; for there is no space in the which there is no kingdom; and there is no kingdom in which there is no space, either a greater or a lesser kingdom.

-- Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints section 88 verse 37.

Essentially we hold that the whole of creation is constantly in use by some form of intelligence, in my mind that means that the whole of the universe is filled with some kind of life/intelligence or another. Thus inheriting all that the Father hath would entail that custodial role in whatever realm one was made steward over.

On the realm of Universal fate, have you heard about the theory of the "Big Rip" as an end to the Universe that's been proposed since it was learned that Universal expansion is accellerating rather than just going off of Big Bang mommentum?

"My favorite scenario is we (or some Life, somewhere), learn to make Universes, and get to tweak the parameters for maximal Life production.

Have you seen the computer program in development called "Spore"??? It enables a person to take an organism from a single celled existance, through evolution, to sentience, to world domination, to the capacity to colonize the galaxy and tweak certain parameters and combinations in a somewhat open ended simulation?

If not there's a good presentation of it here--

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-262774490184348066&q=spore

You guys aren't evangelicals, are you? I'm not talking to you, OK?

Mormons' additional scripture and additional prophet are beyond what most fundamentalists would normally accept.

As for the Moonies, Moon has openly claimed to outrank Jesus (his little brother). Politics makes strange bedfellows.

"We ("Mormons") are certainly as Christian as any claiming Christian."

I believe you. Personally I have no problem how people categorize their religious beliefs.

The problem is the hard core evangelical community. They have all kinds of groups and web sites dedicated to converting Mormons to Christianity.

If Romney's primary opponents wanted to exploit the evangelical phobia of Mormons I can see them doing it. They can outsource it to a swift boat type of group. Maybe call it "Christian believers for truth" and do all kinds of nasty ads and whisper campaigns. Bill Frist is a nasty guy and if he runs I can see him exploiting the religion issue.

A little exploration of Mormons' beliefs about the afterlife might be enlightening.

Dude Lutherans believe about 99.9% of traditional Catholic doctrine. Doesn't make them Catholics.

Suggesting that the Resurrection is "really, the only central unifying belief of Christianity" is trivialism of the most ludicrous sort. I don't suspect Gregory VII, Luther, Joseph Smith, and Mary Baker Eddy would all gather together in the same room and agree "Well yes what unites us overwhelms what divdes us".

Hey it is a free country, you can worship what you want. But pretending that in drawing a line between Christian and non-Christian Mormons are firmly on one side of the line and Scientologists another is to be drawing distinctions without differences. I daresay most Christians are not expecting to be assigned their own separate planet to rule for all time.

The fundamentalists who lavishly ridicule Muslim paradise are not going to be amused that Romney's church endorses a strikingly similar view. "Polygamy is only a sin on THIS earth"
http://www.exmormon.org/mormwomn.htm
Okay it is from ex-mormons. Discredit it how and where you want. But a little dissemination of anything resembling this will sink Romney like a stone and won't be doing Mormons decades long effor to mainstream themselves any favors.

"This isn't your Father's Oldsmobile". No and fundamentalists are going to have a difficult time even recognizing that this is a car.

Catholics and Lutheran's classification of themselves under such titles comes from them defining what it means to be those respective titles. Such have definative definitions and delineations that either land you inside or out. There's NOT, however, any such thing for the whole of Christianity beyond claiming Christ as being what he claimed and, as best the individual sees, following his teachings. If you want to try and relegate the label "Christian" to only those abiding your creeds or your conceptions of Christ then you are taking liberties that land you outside common labeling. The likes of Origen and Justin Martyr and many many other early Christians had many significant divergant beliefs from what the vast majority of traditional Christianity adheres to today. Does that make THEM less christian? And who decides the title? Beyond a folower of Jesus Christ I'm not aware of any authoritative canonical definition.

And can we knock it off with the whole "own planet" thing? I assure you it's far more than "one planet" We see the promise of being Joint Heirs with Christ a bit more litterally than the present traditional Christian community. That doesn't mean we are less of followers of Christ. Expecting that God will make good on his promise of the faithfull reaching the "fulness of the stature of Christ" to a litteral extent does nothing to lessen our allegiance to Christ or his gospel.

To think the fundamental definitions and structures of families and marriage are trivial compared to the other presented items just doesn't jibe with my analysis.

The commonly endorsement of society in terms of what constitutes a family is akin to the genetics of biological beings. tweaking it can do all sorts of unexpected things.

To brush this issue off as if it were mere result of some dogmatic bigotry or blindness to the relative implications of the spectrum of policy issues on the table is itself a blindness to the scope and impact that would come from changing societal focus from one ideal in family definement to another.

Family fundamentals are key to the demographic trends that are presently set to turn Europe and Russia into Islamicly dominated states in the next fifty years. To think any tweaking of societies stance is of less impact next to all the items you presented is, in my view, to profoundly underestimate the impact inherently tied to familial nature.

So many can see the potential danger in GMO's yet many of these same individuals think you can tweak the family, or societies nature of endorsement of such, with minimal or relatively insignificant consequences.

It just makes me scratch my head and wonder.

"Many views held by early Christians would not be accepted by most fundamentalist traditional Christians today."

I agree but that is not the point here.

I have a secular approach to politics and vote based strictly on policy matters, not religion.

If Romney had been running as a Democrat I suspect his religion would not have been an issue in the primaries. It might even have been a plus since Dems have a soft spot for underdogs. They elected the first Catholic president, almost elected the first Jewish VP so a Mormon nominee would have fit in just fine.

But Romney will be running in the GOP primaries where the evangelicals are a big part of the base that turns out. He will also be running in a GOP where "willy hortonizing", "swift boating" and "race-religion-gender baiting" are SOP. John McCain has already hired the guy behind the "call-me-Harold" racist ad in Tenn. It will be child's play for this crowd to bury Romney with all kinds of innuendo and whisper campaign.

Just do a google search on Mormons vs evangelicals. I don't think kissing Jerry Falwell's ring will satisfy them.

I will defend Romney when the inevitable Mormon-boating comes. That said he has chosen to align himself with a party that revels in bigotry.

Re: The most important decision of early Christians was whether there should be a dogma, entailing a universal (catholic) church.

Plaese cite some evidence (from real history, but latter-day revisionism) that any Christian sect ever tried to get by without some sort of formal theology. Those people were part of a deeply intellectualized culture, imbued with the technical philosophy of Greece. Of course the more learned of them engaged in speculation as to what their religion all meant in terms of metepahysics.

Re: Since a Church has organization, it's not surprising it won over looser, non-dogmatic woshipers that felt no need for intercession by a priestly hierarchy.

Again, evidence please? The Greco-Roman world was a fairly regimented and hierarchial one. I know of no Christian group which did not have some sort of organizational structure, generally along the lines that the New Testament itself envisioned: Overseers (bishops), Elders (presbyters, thence "priests") and Servants (deacons).

Cyby9, You are correct. Romney lied his way into office proclaiming views that were acceptable to the electorate,waiting for the opening that would be his chance to make a Presidential bid. As soon as that opening appeared, he reneged on many of his promises, took positions opposite those he supposedly upheld, and has toured conservative locations outside Massachusetts, holding Massachusetts up to scorn and ridicule in his speeches in the South and elsewhere. How anyone can believe a word this two-faced opportunist says is beyond me,and this duplicity should be even more of a telling point against him than his religion.

Sorry to give a seeming plug to Amazon, but you can find the same book at your favorite bookseller. I just got off the road on a 4-hour return trip from a son's for thanksgiving, the last hour in heavy fog, and I'm too tired to offer more. 

But....

Just finished reading "Misquoting Jesus", which goes into all the history of how what eventually won out as the "orthodox" orthodoxy happened, and is a fascinating history by a very careful scholar.

 In short, it's a long story that covers 350 years or so, and it would be a useful read.

http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060738170/sr=8-1/qid=1164339309/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-0140791-5744610?ie=UTF8&s=books 

There's a lot more to this history than can be put in a blog like this.  

Aside from the fact that I see both parties as reveling in bigotry (Much of such a perception is derived from experiences as an LDS Missionary in some of the most liberal cities in the world, primarily those of close proximity to the Bay in CA.) The most hate I've ever felt dirrected at myself occured simply from walking through the downtown of Santa Cruz CA in my standard protlytizing atire. I wasn't down there contacting or preaching yet the snarls, harsh stares, the loud demeaning commentary every min. or so, and the clearly visible muttering under breath while giving animosity filled stares provided an experience I didn't think possible untill that point in out 'modern' and 'enlightened' America. You would think a town that votes so hardline democratic and has peace bumper stickers on it's fleets of cars (many VWs) would be the bastion of acceptance and forward thinking.

So while I see far too much of bigotry in those who often vote for the same candidates and issues I do I'm rather certain that bigotry is neither exclusive nor even primarily found among my political peers in the Republican Party.

It's likely not a point we'll agree on but I felt I needed to present such in light of a comment like "he has chosen to align himself with a party that revels in bigotry."

On the issue of Evangelical vs. LDS I have to say that I expect to see an attempted balancing act on the whole. You reference a google search of the two terms to bring to front the emnity and hostility. I know that those on McCain's side have to know that any all out assault or overly agressive campaign will hurt his side more than it will Romney's--even in a Republican Nomination contest.

I look forward to see, out of sheer curiosity, how things on both sides will unfold, especially with this connection to my faith and politics. Both areas in which I'm rather deeply involved.

I do appreciate your commitment to defend Romney against religious bigotry, however. Thank you.

"I'm rather certain that bigotry is neither exclusive nor even primarily found among my political peers in the Republican Party."

You are right. I sometimes hear anti semitic remarks from people in our office who seem normal and reasonable.

"It's likely not a point we'll agree on but I felt I needed to present such in light of a comment like "he has chosen to align himself with a party that revels in bigotry.""

There are bigots in both parties but with the GOP it is institutionalized. It is SOP. We see it in election after election and people are no longer shocked when they see "Harold, call me" ads. The GOP candidates themselves might not be bigots but they are willing to exploit bigotry to win votes.

Where has he lied? Where has he renegged on promises? Give us an actual list of specific items.

If you think reference to "Branes" (short for Membranes, a presently theoretical item that, in theory, could be the slate on which our Universe fits) is sign of needing a brain unclogged then we have a major dillema with our presently graduating Theoretical Physicists, because a majority of such are aiming their whole lives work in the direction of a theory that currently has our existance holding at least 11 dimensions and manifold possibilities for other universes existing also.

So if my intellectual system is clogged for referencing this theory then we have a much more serious problem because we are sending armies of physicists after this very same 'clogging' theory.

Quick! Go talk those Physicists out of it before they waste their lives and a generation of 'true' advancement in physics over some 'brane' clogging garbage!

Re: I don't recall the New Testament describing bishops etc., but I don't spend any time reading it.

Describing in detail, no. However the NT does refer to Christian leaders as "episcopoi" which is Greek for overseers and thsi is the root of our word "bishop". Obviously the office took on a lot of trappings and had its role defined in later eras, but it does date back to the first generation of Christenity.

Re: Cathars and Gnostics, as I understand it, were believers in the direct experience and opposed to the need for intercession.

The Cathars were a medieval cultic group. They were opposed, certainly, to the Church hierarchy, but were also intensely elitist, with a small inner circle of "Perfects". The Gnostics too were an elitist faith, porposing that only some tiny fraction of humanity could gain Gnosis and salavtion. Thats' a big reason why the Gnostiocs failed: a religion which limits its appeal to an enlightened few is unlikely to attract a m,ass following.

Birth rates tend to decline as women's educational opportunities increase. European Muslim women will not continue to have large numbers of children into the future.

Empty Italian resort towns? Are we talking beachfront property? I think that's a problem Euro-Americans might be happy to fix.

That's alot of faith to place in a trend that's likely already occured, possibly to the greatest extent it will, for populations steeped in religious dogma. Reports recently come out on how the Muslim populations in europe have the distinction of NOT having the same degree of loss in atrition to secularism. So it's not a given that education will dampen Muslim birthrates more than it already has. For example Tunisian women in France went from a birth rate in 1981 of 3.4 up to 4.2 in just eight years. Are we then to conclude that the Tunisian women in France are being un-educated? If they are (even though it sounds silly to me) then what's the certainty you hold that your expected trends will hold?

Certainlyt the vacuum will be filled.

My intent, and "virtual" descriptor, were meant to just entail the erradication of ethnic itallians native to, or long time residents of, these towns.

Re: Global warming's suppose to magically spur growth?

No, global warming affecting the other end of the equation, i.e., death rates. Whatahppesn to Europe if the Atlnatic thermohaline circulation shuts down? I'm betting its Muslim immigrants will hasten on back to Arab-land if France suddenly gains the climate there equilibrates with Labrador. Lots of native French may be looking to relocate too.

Re: Have you heard of ANY country loosing a third of it's population over the course of fifty years and remaining stable?

Well, Europe as a whole lost about 1/3 of its people in the course of four years back into 1347-1351. (You're heard of the Black death?) Yep, there was some upheaval (pogroms, Jacquerie rebellion, Wat Tyler's revolt, etc.) But the long term result was positive: the 15th century had a higher standard of living than any era previous, or again until the 18th. Plus, a lot of freed up capital fueled the Renaissance, the voyages of discovery, and the rise of modern banking.

Re: They are at least 12 percent of the present population.

OK, 12 not 10 percent. You still cannot get from 12% to 50% plus in less than a human life span without a mass die off or out-migration of non-Muslims.

Re: Do you think that some magical breakthrough is more likely than say a pandemic that would, in all likelyhood concentrate relatively more on the older largely non-Muslim French constituency?

You are ignoring socioeconimics here. Pandemics are especially rough on the lower classes. In Europe that means the immigrant communities. For example, despite the supposed "democracy" of the Black Death, only one ruling monarch out of a dozen or so died in that catastrophe, as opposed to 1/3 other total population. Europe's native-born upper classes would survive at a differentially higher rate.

Re: Do you remember the Bird flu at the begining of the 1900's?

Since I was born in 1967, no. Now, are you talking about the Spanish flu of 1918? A nasty epdiemic to be sure (and one that had a predilection for killing the young and healthy) What however were its demographic consequences? (By the way, I do agree with you on one thing: a pandemic is highly likely in this century. This of course is yet another wild card.)

Re: And in 60 to 70 years it's almost certain.

I still come up with 300 years, and sorry, I trust math rather than you. However, why do you assume that any current trrend will continue unabated? As someone else pointed out, Muslim birth rates will quite likely equilibrate to local levels too. Also, the birth rate in France is very near replacement, unlike the situation in Russia or Italy. A small blip upward and it will be at replacement. Finally, another factor not mentioned here is the effect of non-Muslim immigration: France receives a population influx from eastern Europe (the stereotypical Polish plumber) and from black Africa and the Carribbean.

Well, Europe as a whole lost about 1/3 of its people in the course of four years back into 1347-1351. (You're heard of the Black death?) Yep, there was some upheaval (pogroms, Jacquerie rebellion, Wat Tyler's revolt, etc.) But the long term result was positive: the 15th century had a higher standard of living than any era previous, or again until the 18th. Plus, a lot of freed up capital fueled the Renaissance, the voyages of discovery, and the rise of modern banking.

I meant in the context of birth rates. You see when the Black Death came upon Europe it didn't really affect the mindset, and thus the momentum, of per woman birth rates--at least not in a negative direction. In fact it likely helped birth rates. Similar to the frog vs. boiling pot analogy. Europe then was thrust into loosing a massive swath in less than a decade. Whereas this occurance has dampers to it. France can claim a higher birth rate (I don't think this is something you're factoring in here) because it's counting many of the resident Muslim women (who are having between 3 and 4 children per lifetime) into their equations. Thus France's claim to the highest birth rate doesn't mean that they are inherently fending off a muslim take over bettter than the rest of Europe.

OK, 12 not 10 percent. You still cannot get from 12% to 50% plus in less than a human life span without a mass die off or out-migration of non-Muslims.

Certainly you can, especially if the demographic momentum is working against the non-Muslim population AND in favor of the Muslim one.

For example, here in Utah we have, as one could imagine, thousands of chapels. Every Sunday we get together for a three hour meeting broken up into three sections. I wished to go to a certain service of a friend's recently (a baby blessing) but still wished to attend the primary meeting (called sacrament meeting) in the congregation I belong to. It seemed doable. I'd never really paid too close attention to the time of each sub meeting and guestimated the primary meeting was an hour long. The meeting arrangement for my congregation compared to that of my friend's was backwards so it seemed that I'd have an hour of transit time, which was nice because that was about ten min. more than such a distance would normally take me. I thought I had a ten min. buffer.

Well it turns out the firts meeting isn't an hour, rather, it was closer to an hour and ten min. But with this my error was doubled because I'd not only misread the time I would get out but I didn't factor in that I'd ALSO need to arrive ten min. earlier than I initially thought. Thus my mistake ended up chewing up a third of my commute time and I didn't make it on time.

This is what you seem to be doing with the numbers. Do you see anything wrong with my calculations that have us at 22% Muslim population by 2030? If you can more than double the percentage of gain an ethnicity makes as a portion of the over all populations in just 24 years then what's to completely rule out another doubling plus as a percentage of the populatoin in the coming 26?

I believe you are making several errors in your calculations that have like effect as my church scheduallling errors, thus landing you with egregiously off results out of the fact that it's multiple ends of the total overall equations that you're leaving out.

A list again of factors I don't believe you're considering--

• Relatively high french birthrate you find is NOT distinguishing between muslim and non-muslim French women.

• The tilt to occupy the younger segments of the french population that the Muslim population has at present.

• The fact that muslim defection rates in the face of secularism are no where near the levels that secular Europe has depended on from other religions it's been in contact with (traditional Christian being the primary one) over the centuries.

• The momentum on the side of the Muslim populations. This is seen in perceptions of the norm. With most non-muslim French growing up with one or no siblings the idea of having, being able to handle, or even wanting, more children (or even the same amount) as their parent(s). Whereas the Muslim children growing up in homes with an average of 3-4 siblings (or more) are more likely to view such numbers as acceptable, normative, feasable, and even desireable. Myself as an example. I'm the oldest of nine children (all from the same woman--no twins). My experience leaves me both receptive and desireous of having a similarly large family. Now I'm not going to have any more children than my future wife, whoever she might be, would want to have--but the fact that my present situation highly encourages a wedding with one in my faith the likelyhood that I'd be married to one of like mindset is far higher than it would be for most others in the US population.

I still come up with 300 years, and sorry, I trust math rather than you. However, why do you assume that any current trrend will continue unabated? As someone else pointed out, Muslim birth rates will quite likely equilibrate to local levels too. Also, the birth rate in France is very near replacement, unlike the situation in Russia or Italy. A small blip upward and it will be at replacement. Finally, another factor not mentioned here is the effect of non-Muslim immigration: France receives a population influx from eastern Europe (the stereotypical Polish plumber) and from black Africa and the Carribbean.

Would you be willing to lay out your numbers and calculations? I think you have either overly simplified setups, are ignoring trends and demographic momentum, and/or are forgetting the dynamics between the both ends, the aged and the youth.

I've enjoyed this exchange. I hope you'll forgive my beligerent tone in some of my last posts. I often take debates too seriously.

I can't think of any examples of a modern state (18th cent. forward) that has turned over from immigration population increasing. The native culture persists in all cases. (I exclude colonists overwhelming indigenous peoples in the Americas.) Only the Russification of the Baltic states comes close.

Europe will eventually incorporate its Muslims. It is because they are not easily accepted that they persist as an alien culture.

As to Latinization in the US, the Spanish influence never went away. It left its mark in Florida and California, and of course in Texas, although that mostly the Mexican version.

I have no doubt that you will see other conservative elites and indeed conservative Christian elites say basically the same thing as Falwell about Romney's Mormonism. They got over religious differences with conservative Catholics and conservative Jews, they can do it with Mormons. The average conservative evangelical voter is another matter, however. I think the key will be whether there is a conservative alternative to Romney. Anti-mormonism among the Christian right will not get them to vote for Guiliani, but it may well push them into the arms of a weaker candidate such as Brownback, Huckabee, or even Santorum. If such are available. All that said, Romney is still a very formidable candidate and his problems are mild compared to those of Guiliani. The latter will try to paint himself as some kind of social conservative, which will be one of the biggest insults to the intelligence of American voters in modern times.

On last thing--a GOP primary where Guiliani and Romney are serious contenders is even more evidence that political clout is moving north. The good Southern conservative contender is no where to be found, and you could well have a general election race between two northeasterners, insuring the first election of a non-Sun Belt president since JFK.

Not so much institutionalized as an emergent manifestation of the foundations of conservatism. In it's purest form (the core of Conservatism--not bigotry) I see it as a virtue. I mean to conserve anything there must be a core ideal, us being finite humans and all this at some point needs a core in some dogmatic belief. It's a misextension or misdirection of this that I believe constitutes bigotry as an evil. It's inevitable in our system that something someone holds to as being worthy of conserving will lead to actions at one point or another that someone else will classify as bigotry. It's a lot easier to lay things out and claim them to be bigoted, either in intent or simply as manifestations of bigotry.

As an example I didn't see the effectiveness in the "Harlod, call me" ads being anything at all linked to rascism in the least (I'd be curious as to what would have been the reaction if the woman portrayed was not white). Rather I see it as simply appealing to social conservative dogmatically linked perceptions on sexual morals. I personally would be warry of anyone, left or right or up or down or whathave you that was willing to participate in some softporn party. I can see where one could even call that bigoted and I'm perfectly fine to let them have that view of me in my faith grounded morals. Plenty of people laugh, scorn, or are revolted or simply wag their heads that anyone would think such things to be wrong or worthy of discounting worthiness for public office. In my case it's simply tied to the fact that I believe in concrete ideals, morals and laws that should be followed. I don't believe that someone who's been to such a party is some horrible horrible person, but I do believe them to be foundationally misguided. Heaven knows there are a vast vast array (sadly in my view) of social conservatives that have problems with thing pornographic/salecious etc.. I'm a man, I'm by no means ignorant to the potency and pervasiveness of such things.

I guess that's what I wanted to clarify from my perspective. I try to be a liberal in what I see as being the best sense of the word. But I can't/won't permit it to get in the way of certain foundational convictions I hold.

It may sound duplicitous with todays present labels like 'progresive' and 'neocon' or 'theocon' but I really want to be the best liberal and conservative I can be at the same time. I don't want to hold to dogmas that are not necesary to my foundational beliefs regarding my immortal soul and the nature of God. In that sense I want to constantly challenge and rechallenge any presumptions or views I gain. I want to even be certain that I'm reading and understanding the implications and bounds of those fundamental dogmas I have.

And not to really go tit for tat but to pretend that one can be 100% liberal or free of bigotry becomes an entrenched source of some forms of bigotry itself, in my view. At some point ALL of us have to make some leap of faith or cling to some assumptions for some ammount of time, else nothing in the world would ever be comprehensible, or even vaguely conceivable.

Re: ... insuring the first election of a non-Sun Belt president since JFK.

George HW Bush was not a sun-belter. He had some business associations with Teaxs, but his roots and culture were in New England. Meanwhile, McCain would qualify as Sunbelter.

Re: Do you forsee any culture having a minority working class ascend to the seat of power without fundamentally altering the base culture, economics, and governmental means and organization?

But the problem is I do not see the Muslim Helot class "ascending to power". How woudl they do so? They are simply shut out of such opportunities. Sure, there are no "Ghetto laws" of the sort that affected the medieval Jews, but social attitudes can be just as effective at keeping an out-group decidedly out.

Re: Jews weren't allowed to ascend to make up more than half of Europe. Certainly some degree of the act of Europeanization will occure, but I'd rather think you'd be as, or more, likely to have Islamitization of Europe, and Europeans occure also. I don't need to look any farther than the Latin influx into the States as an example. It affected where I was sent on my LDS mission and the language I learned, the whole of America is becoming in many ways "Latinized" by the latino influx.

A lot here to parse out. If a European Islam is to emerge it will have to be European, making its peace with various facets of European culture, including women's rights, alcohol use, and pluralistic democracy. Perhaps this will happen (it seems to be in process among the native Muslims peoples of the Balakans whose latitude in these areas shocks the occasional Wahabbi imam vistor.) The template here would be Catholicism in the United States, once seen as a dangerous and alien cult, but which eventually nativized and became wholly and fully American. As to America's Hispanics, first off our culture is far more open to assimilation than any nation in Europe is, so the comparison is difficult. But I see no evidence that, after multiple generations of course, Hispanics do not assimilate, bringing pinatas and tex-mex food and Our Lady of Guadalupe into our culture with them. I live in S Florida and work with peoples surnamed Vargas and Sanchez, all of whom were norn in this country and are so Americanized you would now know their ancestry of you did not know their last names.

Re: If a populace remains at relatively small minority status for a very long time (like many Jews did) then the interplay is far more likely to favor the demographically strong culture, in terms of which culture ends up with the most dominance coming out of the mix.

The interplay as you put it also tends to favor the population group which holds the superior wealth, power, education and technology. This is why Persians still speak Farsi not Arabic, why Hiatian Blacks speak a dialect of French and image Christian saints as Vodun loa, and Gothic (along with Arianism) died out centruies ago in Spain.

But the problem is I do not see the Muslim Helot class "ascending to power". How woudl they do so? They are simply shut out of such opportunities. Sure, there are no "Ghetto laws" of the sort that affected the medieval Jews, but social attitudes can be just as effective at keeping an out-group decidedly out.

Demographics. First off they are not entirely, or even to the extreme, of being a Helot class. Compared to their equivilants in the MidEast even the poorest have it pretty good, they can go to the extreemest mosques after picking up their social welfare allocations. Saudi Arabia doesn't treat foreign Muslims as good as Germany and France do. That's a significant reason they are more empowered to rise. They are not as underprivilaged as their equivilant populations in other parts of the world AND their demographics are allowed to ascend in ways Jewish ones never were permited to. If Germany originally treated the Jews the way it's treating it's Muslim population then it's likely Jews would be a far more significant force in the world (granted Jewish cultural tendancies would likely take far better advantage of the social welfare and tolerance that's now enforced in the likes of Germany than we find in Muslim communities in general)

A lot here to parse out. If a European Islam is to emerge it will have to be European, making its peace with various facets of European culture, including women's rights, alcohol use, and pluralistic democracy.

To some degree I agree that some compromizes will be made. I'm just not certain that your seeming certainty as to the scope of compromize and adjustment will be as significant as you think it will. I don't find it a given that women's rights or views on alcohol use or democracy will go along with it. There are significant forces who want some manifestation of Shari'a Law. Read the reports of all the Muslim men who downloaded the videos of the beheadings to their digital devices if you want to understand the severity with which this co-mingling can occur. You could as easily have a society bereft with well educated individuals with same convictions as those held by the 9/11 attackers. We can have (as you can see in very modern and semi-european looking cities in the mid-east) very well educated engineers and such that can and may attempt to gain significant power over European Islamic communities.

Perhaps this will happen (it seems to be in process among the native Muslims peoples of the Balakans whose latitude in these areas shocks the occasional Wahabbi imam vistor.)

Certainly, some of the much older Muslim communities such as those found in the Balakans, are toned down. But many of these individuals would likely have the propensity to actually increase in Islamic allegiance upon gaining an education. I had a friend who served an LDS mission in Albania and said that the vast majority of people there were Muslim only because they claimed to be. They didn't necesarily have concept of religion as something to be practiced or observed, rather merely as a label. The fact that the Wahabbi imams are visiting there should be some manifestation of at least the potential for the community to become both MORE educated and at the same time MORE fundamentalist in their religious leanings.

The template here would be Catholicism in the United States, once seen as a dangerous and alien cult, but which eventually nativized and became wholly and fully American.

I would hope you would conceed that this comes as much from an overal liberalization in the faith proper and in the actual allegiance of the populace to the doctrinal claims of the Catholic Church.

This is exactly my issue on the Islamic front. We're assuming that since Christianity and Catholicism's frontline with secularism has had an effect of A to B attrition in favor of secularism and W to Z concesions in terms of doctrinal definitions that the same will be the same with Islam, that you'll get the same institutional softening in combination with waning adherent zeal in the same degrees.

Yet all the indicators are saying, in the very least, that these are not paralell comparisons. Islam rather prides itself on it's no-nonsense approach to miracles. The only ones Muhahmed ever claimed were visions and recitations, he didn't go around healing people en masse. Many Islamic adherents in the sciences rather pride their faith on this and see it as a means of mixing devotion and faith with the revelations of science.

Now certainly there's some softening that occures. But the intensity and permanence of such is not, in my view, as significant as you seem to think it to be. There are significant portions of the Islamic community in Europe that say they would not necesarily interfere with, or report, any evidence they saw of an incoming attack from Islamic radicals.

As to America's Hispanics, first off our culture is far more open to assimilation than any nation in Europe is, so the comparison is difficult.

This whole differrence is one of the keys to my argument. Europe feels that assimilation and getting along with largely means leaving alone and providing these imigrants with social support without any real concessions made by them culturally. They get the advantages of high technology, European refinement, and social welfare, yet they don't have to feel any presure whatsoever to stop going to their Wahabi supported Mosques or remaining amongst primarily their own.

The interplay as you put it also tends to favor the population group which holds the superior wealth, power, education and technology.

Unless that group caters to the likes of the lower socio-economic strata by providing them the same, or enhanced, governmental subsidies without any significant strings attatched. Muslims have access to power education and technology. In that sense the disparities come more and more as cultural ones. This also assumes the parites in power remain for a long enough time in possession of their capacities and realms to effect a softening on the ascending lower class.

This is why Persians still speak Farsi not Arabic,

Writen now in Arabic (plus four letters) rather than the former cuniform script of ancient Persian and having significant swaths of vocabulary consisting of Arabic words and phrases.

Think about a Europe where Frency or English is written in Arabic script. The Persians already have "merci" in their modified Arabic script.

The ultimate point being that, while both cultures get blurred along the way, the one that's more blurred and more compromized can still be considered, to one degree or another, an usurped culture.

Re: Demographics.

Sorry, but demographics is not enough: it is NOT destiny as some people fecklessly assert. Another poster above mentioned something that needs to be reaffirmed here: what you are predicting has never happened in all of known history. There has never been a case of an immigrant population taking power and imposing its culture in some foreign land unless that population was either backed up by political and military strength from abroad, or else possessed of superior technology (or often enough, both). The Muslim immigrants to Europe and North America can claim neither distinction. "Never before" of course is not 100% identical to "never at all", but when you cannot find examples of a phenomenon occuring in the past (especially when there is a lot of data to survey) it is usually a good indication that you should not bet on the unprecedented event coming to pass.

Re: I'm just not certain that your seeming certainty as to the scope of compromize and adjustment will be as significant as you think it will.

Wealth and knowledge factors must be used to weight population figures here. Even a quick survey of history teaches as much. Hence the Germans who conquered the Roman Empire adopted Latinate languages and Roman Christinaity; the Slavs in the Balkans kept their languages but adopted Byzantine Christianity and other aspects of Eastern Roman culture; the Mongols and various other conquerors of China all became Sinified; Haitian Blacks speak a French-like language and invoke Catholic saints in the guise of Vodun loa; each Native American culture in Mesoamerica adopted the forms (and writing system) of the previous one, etc. and etc.

Re: There are significant forces who want some manifestation of Shari'a Law.

Sure. But to the extent that they demand such distinctions they will be ghettoizing themselves, building a wall of Shari'a bricks around their communities and insuring their isolation. In which case they would become rather like the Amish in this country: a people whose ability to particpate in the larger culture around them is self-limited by religious stricture. Religious groups which are able to successfuly integrate into foreign cultures and ascend their power structures have always adopted large portions of that culture of their own. This is true of Roman Catholicism, of Buddhism, of the LDS, of the Jews, while maintaining core dotrine of course. It has also been true of Islam historically. And if it is no longer true of Islam today, then Islam will collapse for the simple reason that you can no more run a modern society on medieval principles than you can power a modern car on medieval fuel sources.

Re; I would hope you would conceed that this comes as much from an overal liberalization in the faith proper and in the actual allegiance of the populace to the doctrinal claims of the Catholic Church.

Ah, but this liberalization occured precisely because Catholic population became immersed in liberalized cultures like that of the US. To be sure, the 19th century Church resisted as strenuously as the Shari'a-preaching imams resist today-- they condemned everything from parliamentary democracy to religious toleration to railroads to smallpox innoculations. But observe the outcome of this obstinancy. Who now adheres to the Syllabus of Errors?

Re: Writen now in Arabic (plus four letters) rather than the former cuniform script of ancient Persian and having significant swaths of vocabulary consisting of Arabic words and phrases.

Yes, and English is written with the Roman alphabet, not with the Anglo-Saxon futhark. And given a choice between the Arabic alphabet and cuneiform, I'd choose the former too!

Well, you could have faith of a sort that's not literal and doesn't depend on all of these stories being actually true.

Let's say that all I know about Mormonism I learned from the episode of South Park where a Mormon family moves to town.

Have you seen it, and if so, which parts of it are incorrect?

For those who haven't seen it, it involves Joseph Smith, a member of the lost tribe of Israel, gold plates, a hat, and magic seeing stones.

Transcript:

http://www.rickross.com/reference/mormon/mormon134.html

He's totally craven. He showed it while governor of Massachusetts, and he's showing it again in his choice of bedfellows. Just compare Mitt Romney 2002 with Mitt Romney 2006. The two fellows don't see eye-to-eye on anything!

These issues have nothing to do with him being a Mormon or running against McCain (who is also totally craven, and his 2000 iteration wouldn't recognize his 2006 version either, running around begging Pat Robertson for forgiveness).

These issues have everything to do with Romney's political character (and lack thereof).

One can disagree with someone's religious beliefs without being a bigot.

I have some serious doubts as to the veracity of your story, as I don't think most people in Santa Cruz would even recognize your "standard proselytizing attire." Maybe they were just saying that it was odd that someone was walking around wearing dark pants and a dark tie in Santa Cruz.

I'm pretty sure McCain can figure out a way to attack Romney without leaving any fingerprints. The GOP are the masters of this game.

If you truly think the GOP isn't the primary party of religious bigotry, it's hard to take the rest of your statements seriously.

"Mormons' additional scripture and additional prophet are beyond what most fundamentalists would normally accept."

No reason to limit it to evangelicals and/or fundamentalists. It's beyond what mainline Protestants and Catholics accept. The differences b/t Protestantism and Catholicism are like the differences b/t and Oldsmobile and a Buick, but to echo an earlier comment, the differences b/t either one and Mormonism are like the differences between a GM car and a rocket ship. Yeah, they are all means of transportation, but aren't they really more different than they are similar?

I have seen it.

It's wise to realize that the creators of south park are both Apostates from the LDS Church. So while I certainly have a vested interest they are far from free of such. Put simply, both sides have potential axes to grind.

If the faith is true then they have been positioning themselves in one of the most unenviable of positions. Likewise with myself. If the faith is wrong then I'm in such a position as I'm either wasting efforts or misleading people.

I can get into it alot more a bit latter when I've more time to respond than at present. In the meantime I'd recomend reading over it and thinking about both the potential for misportrayal of any concept or history if it were presented in such a manner AND the potential motivations for the creation of such and episode.

I could go through and discect the episode. It would be a ton of work.

Here's a link to an online version of our scriptures--

http://scriptures.lds.org/

You can see the description and testimony of Joseph Smith about the revealing and translation of the plates. If you want to see the section detailing the Martin Harris story it's here--

Here's a rather comprehensive site that gets a bit less formal than the official sites and a bit more detailed--

http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDS_Intro.shtml

If there are specific items from the episode that you want me to address here then point them out and I'll do the best I can to answer your concerns or demonstrate any possible error or misconstual on the part of south park (named, if I've heared correctly, for the town of Park City, UT, since this was a minning town and one of the Utah towns with the least LDS/Mormon influence even today)

I'll start a new slot since this is getting slim.