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LDS told to ready for secularism fight

He seems like the kind of man I'd like to have as a friend!

Mitt Romney attacked secularism? Does he think that religion has a monopoly on morality? It wasn't conservative religions that were at the forefront of the civil rights movement. It was the secularists and the liberal religions. Now that its popular, the conservative religions have come along. Just as Romney wouldn't attack another religion for their shortcomings, why is he attacking secularism as a whole?, which makes mistakes but is less tradition based and more reason based?

Fascinating. More power to him.

Unfortunately, your friend confuses secularism with amorality. While secularists have some values that don't fit with fundamental religions, they are in no way amoral.

He posits that raping girls is a result of secularism. Quite the opposite is true. It is the secularists who have led the charge against child abuse and fought religions who would forcibly marry their daughters.

It is the secularists who defend women in violent marriages

It is the secularists who are attempting to save the world and her species from the heat of corporate greed.

It is the secularists who defend the world from the abuse and over-reaching power grab of religions.

In Darwin we trust!

This is a truly wise man. Good looking, too! I wish there were more people like him in this world. I hope I can also gain the same sort of insight and intelligence he's mastered.

Thank you Mr. Robinson. Merry Christmas.

Hmmmm. I thought the rape comment was figurative. I guess you could look at it as either one. But the figurative road is definitely more applicable if you think of the assault we as people of faith face in areas such as marriage, family, sexual identity or just regular identity. If I am not the same as you I don't deserve to exist because that makes me a bigot or racist or stupid. The forcing of values is a type of rape; the force of anything is a figurative rape.

His counsel sounded much like Elder Ballard's counsel in his most recent conference address, "Faith, Family, Facts, and Fruits". Elder Ballard challenged, "...there is a great need for clear, simple statements that present those who are curious with the basics about the Church as it is today. Let me share with you some of the things we have found to be helpful. You may want to prepare your own list of talking points that will assist you in explaining what we believe to your friends and acquaintances of other faiths. It may be helpful for you, as it is for me, to have on one page a few facts about the Church as it is today to give to them along with a copy of the Articles of Faith."

I agree with Danny Chipman. I would like to gain the insight of this well informed man, and I wish there were more people like him. He will have a positive influence on those who are teachable, and not set on being politically correct.

I think Randall says it best. To be honest with you, I am eager for a fight. Hopefully this fight will be limited to words. Looking back at history, I don't see a lot of reason to have this hope. What's needed is an organized, concerted effort to proselytize against immoral religion. Religion thus far has had it easy.

We don't need this kind of incitement. Romney is over. Spirituality operates on a totally different level than the fight this guy advocates. The secularist argument is simple to understand when you take into account the truth of the apostasy. Religion has failed on so many levels. Why shouldn't they work to bring about a better world in the best and most reasonable way they know how? We Mormons call that urge to do good the light of Christ. If it is less clouded for them without the politics of religion mucking it up - If they are more prone to act out of it from the secular perspective, more power to them. Let's face it, all the flap about Romney's religion is perpetrated by professors of religion who don't know they have something MUCH better to do. As is often the case secularists end up doing much of our work for us. For this they have my admiration and respect. It seems to me a secularist who works for a better world is more righteous than a Mormon who doesn't.

In response to Randall above

The secularists claim high moral ground of protection of children and women when in reality most of them want to separate them from the family and religion. They lead the charge to force our children to be educated with their dogma in public schools and encourage women to leave their children in the hands of "day-care" providers who could never love their children like a mother can.

The secularists of Hollywood even in commercials and cartoons consistently portray men as stupid and childish and women as intelligent and super individuals who can have a high paying career and family and juggle it all swimmingly.

The homosexual agenda is to kill the nuclear family and supplant it with surrogate mothers for gay couples and sperm donors for lesbians. Most gay men aren't interested in fidelity or marriage they are just interested in legitimizing their depravity and in the process the institutions of marriage and family are in serious danger.

Secularists fight the good fight. Knowledge is a wonderful thing. Embrace knowledge and let go of the antiquated mystical teachings of the dark ages (and the 19th century for you of the LDS persuasion).

All Romney is doing is insuring that the American public views politics is at its all time skankiest.

It is such a shame that we must put labels on ourselves and each other. Every person I know of another religion are good people seeking to do the best they can. Those who claim no religion are the same. They are not demons but good people searching their way through life. Isn't it a shame that we can't cast off labels and come together as the good honest people we are and in unity search for truth? As the song says, "What the world needs now is love!" To find truth we must go forth together, leaving our hostility, bigotry, racism, and all other isms behind. We must go with open minds, respect for all humanity, and a desire to discover ideas and concepts, solutions to problems, all for the benefit of all. If a small group could start this, composed perhaps of several people from many religious and non-religious groups, maybe we could set an example for all. May there be pece on earth and goodwill toward all men!

I love the part about "a world in which children are educated, not raped." Since when has religion kept a child from being raped? It seems to me religion and rape have a long history together.

That bugbear of fundamentalists everywhere, "the separation of church and state" seems to go hand-in-glove with ol' Joe Smith's 11th Article of Faith, "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may." It seems the best way to respect the 11th is to make good and sure that no one single faith runs the country.

"Filtered wisdom?!" Filtered wisdom?! What?! Filtered by whom, exactly? Filtered wisdom smacks of fascism.

I like this guy. I completely agree that there should not be a rift between science and religion. The goal of both should be a pursuit of the truth. Just as there are erroneous religious views there are erroneous scientific views. We do the best we can in the pursuit of what truly is.

Re: What?!

I don't think he meant censorsed wisdom. I took what he said to mean "purified." Ideas and "knowledge" are like water seeping through granite in the mountains. They start off with impurities, inaccuracies. Over time they are filtered through experience and application, testing an refining and molding them until they come through the filter as wisdom. Wisdom that can stand the test of time. That is what he asked the students to seek out.

More sound advice may be to "take care of your own" before waging an all out war upon secularism. Incest, mental, emotional, and physical abuse in patriarchal and religious environments is a disturbing dilemma when teachings are counter to commonplace practice, and forgiveness with out appropriate treatment (and I use that term carefully) is granted while wives take prozac and little children suffer and grow up to continue the cycle. Educate youth to take charge of their own lives, to think for themselves, to expand their knowledge, to be their own warriors and stop the blind sheep syndrome!