Religion and Politics - When to be Wary

Wow it's been a long time. Maybe I'll start posting again. In a political year there is much to try to sort through.

One problem to sort through is the candidate to support. I guess it's down to two Republicans and two Democrats. I've been a registered Republican all my life; voted for the Gipper first time I was eligible to vote. Not sure I would still be one, however, if registering as an Independent didn't deprive me of the opportunity of participating in primaries in my state. Still, I lean clearly toward the right (though not so far right as I was once headed). I now truely fear too much right wing power -- perhaps more than I once feared the lefties. Well, that's debatable; both sides are quite scary. Whatever happened to the reasonable middle? Actually the religious right is clearly trying to move in a direction that is healthy neither for the church nor the state. But, I really didn't begin this post to talk about church/state. Perhaps tomorrow.

Since I am a Republican (even if a reluctant one), I am caught between McCain and Romney -- assuming both Huckabee and Ron Paul are not viable (both can still, and still will influcence the outcome!). One another thought: what would happen if we had either McCain or Romney for the Republicans and either Obama or Clinton for the Democrats -- but in addition, what if we had Bloomberg running as an Independent, Paul running as a Libertarian, and Nader running for the Greens? I don't know how likely that is, but I don't see it beyond the realm of possiblities. Even without that extreme, we may well be beyond the days of the final winner ever getting a majority again (hasn't happened for the last 3 (or 4?) elections anyway). Perhaps we may have a real chance for a third party to rise up and save this country.

Back to McCain and Romney. The far right has been trashing McCain hard since the primaries have been getting close. The more likely McCain has become to win, the harder the right has worked to trash him. Clearly he has weaknesses. So it's down to which has greater flaws -- Romney or McCain?

I can't get past Romney's Mormonism. It's not that I disagree with the religion. I mean, I do. Clearly Mormonism is a religion built on lies and deceit; it is a perversion of true Christianity (i.e. historic Christianity -- I write as an Evangelical, and historic Christianity is what Evangelicalism is [or was meant to be before it began to morph into Fundagelicalsim]). But beyond the typical Evangelical objections to Mormonism, I think there is a really good reason to be concerned about a person who completely turns off his intellect when it comes to his religion. I believe -- strongly in Separation of Church and State; I don't vote just for the Christian candidate. But with Mormonism, you have the absolute lack of intellectual credibility. Can I vote for a man who actually believes the absurdities required to be a a Mormon? (I won't bother to list them here, I believe they are well known). I would have the same objections to an Evangelical (Fundamentalist) who insists that creation occurred only six thousand years ago, for example. The kind of Fundamentalist who thinks that the Creation Museum is the field trip to teach your children about science; The kind of Fundamentalist who believes that John Hagee or Benny Hinn actually does something other than cast shame on the name of Christ. Some people compartmentalize their faith, and otherwise completely logical, reasonable people believe absolute idiocy in the name of religion. But in these dangerous days, that kind of person may be very dangerous behind the largest armed forces in the world -- with their hand on the nuclear arsenal. I think I would rather have an atheist who uses his mind in control of such crazy power. The religious zealot is the one who scares me. You can argue Romney is no zealot, but you can't be a Mormon without believing the crazies (you can be a Christian without being an inerrantist or a young earther or a KJV/Received Text crazy).

On another note, I can't figure out why the hard core right won't hold Romney to the same standard that they use to trash McCain? (see, for example, the article here). There is still a long way to go, who knows what might happen between now and November. Interesting times.