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Keeping the FaithConsidering the religion of our next president.

Compiled by Adam ChristianPosted Saturday, Dec. 23, 2006, at 10:47 AM ET

Jacob Weisberg's assertion that the strangeness of Mormon beliefs should and will give the American electorate pause in considering Mitt Romney's 2008 candidacy for president revealed the familiar fault lines of religion and politics.

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CalLawyer thinks we should take all claims of religious belief by politicians with a grain of salt: "Sure, most politicians and public figures claim to believe in their religion. But this is a charade, and an extremely elaborate one."

On the question of true believers, Bionerd emphasizes the human mind's ability to perform intellectual compartmentalization:

Folks who think that those who hold irrational beliefs shouldn't be trusted with jobs, like President, that require complex rational thought underestimate the extent to which people are capable of compartmentalizing irrational belief so it doesn't interfere with their ability to interact with the world in a completely rational manner or to solve complex real world problems.

Weisberg is wrong to assume that someone who truly believes absurd things like virgin births, angelic visitations, partings of seas, and other "transparent frauds" is necessarily dogmatic or irrational in contexts outside of personal religious observance, or that such a person fails to think for himself or see the world as it really is. Most believers who've given it much thought will concede that what they believe doesn't have much rational basis. But they choose to believe anyways because it helps them make sense of the world, gives them a sense of purpose, provides a foundation for family strength, or any other number of personal reasons.

For AspiringSkeptic here, Weisberg's piece is less of a dig at Mormonism than it is an effort to determine whether Romney "is the type of man like G.W. Bush who may put faith and 'gut feeling' before logic, science, and reason."

Azathoth is the first to characterize most religions as kooky but doesn't think we should single out Mormonism: "It is easy to find open holes in any religion, picking on one and pretending the others are OK is not honest or fair." Similarly, viqtohr criticizes Weisberg's scrutiny of Mormonism as "totally arbitrary," given that all religions are irrational to some degree:

The only thing that the passage of time does to religious myths is give them an air of respectability. The more ridiculous tenets of Mormonism only feel more absurd to us than Biblical stories because they allegedly happened so recently. In religious services, the preacher doesn't focus on the strange idiosyncrasies of dogma, but on how to live a "holy" life and find true happiness. That's what religion is actually about.

The candidate's willingness to separate politics and religion is really what's important, writes Baba: "The question isn't whether or not a candidate is a believer in this or that religion (or none). It's whether or not he/she will try to impose his/her beliefs on the rest of us." For donq, the religious test for office should take a more comprehensive view of the individual candidate's background and accomplishments:

Romney is not the first candidate with unique religious beliefs. Eisenhower grew up in the church that was the forerunner to the Jehovah's Witnesses. Nixon was a Quaker. Barack Obama has a background in the Muslim faith.
Religion has always been a way of explaining an endermatic universe. We should not choose our national leader based on adherence to a more ancient and venerated irrationality than her opponent. The only rational religious question for a national leader is "does the person's belief interfere or assist the candidate." As Jesus said "by there fruits ye shall know them." Let's judge Romney and all other candidates on their life and what they have done. Romney is intelligent. First in his class out of Harvard. His life's work has involved turning around struggling companies. He did a great job with the winter Olympics and as a Governor. I am sure not every one agrees with these points. But that is what we should be talking about.

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