Comments on: Mitt Romney’s Speech “Faith In America”: Your Reaction

By: Adam Greenwood

Adam Greenwood — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 14:23:36 +0000

A visitor from the camp who thinks that the only acceptable Romney speech would be one in which he endorses all the allegations in anti-Mormon literature and announces his allegiance to the devil. Welcome!

By: Paul D

Paul D — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 14:02:32 +0000

I thought Romney was evasive, like most Mormons are, when it comes to answering the questions that people really want to know about. Also I felt that he was deceptive, misleading, and did an awful lot of revising of the facts all out of expediency and a wish to feel included in the mainstream, when there is nothing mainstream about Mormonism. The whole of my comments, along with the full-text of his speech can be found in my article \”Mitt Romney\’s Sleight of Hand Speech in College Station, Texas\” (http://apologeticsonline.net/Subjects/Mormonism/7.23.htm)

By: Guy C

Guy C — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:14:20 +0000

Thanks for posting the text of the speech and the links.
I felt the speech was good. It was bery much in line with typical political speeches, generalized on many things. But this is as it should be – concerning religion anyway. Mitt may not be the best ever political speaker, but he is good. I’m not 100% sure he has my vote yet, but he went a long way towards earning it with this one.

By: Matt Evans

Matt Evans — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:06:23 +0000

Djinn, the best book on the subject is Who Really Cares?, by Arthur Brooks. After controlling for all demographic and financial variables, people who attend church or say they're believers give more to secular charities, even though many of them give also to religious charities. And as Adam notes, they also give more blood.

By: Adam Greenwood

Adam Greenwood — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 14:11:28 +0000

other than charitable studies, which, when religious charities are not included comes out as a wash

By “religious charities” I assume you mean charities whose purpose is to proselyte, because otherwise I’d see no reason to exclude them. But what about blood donation? Religious people give more blood. Surely this benefits everyone.

By: djinn

djinn — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 05:05:16 +0000

The only study I am aware of (other than charitable studies, which, when religious charities are not included comes out as a wash) concerns medical students; religiosity as reported by the students did not correlate with them actually choosing to help underserved populations; the link is below.

http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2007/07/31/hscout606826.html

Could you please point me to the links you have in mind? I would love to read them.

By: Adam Greenwood

Adam Greenwood — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 03:25:32 +0000

We’ve hashed that kind of thing out befoah, Djinn. The short answer is that comparing nations is a really bad way of doing the comparison if you have any alternative. Within nation is best. Within the US, for example, you can take comfort in studies showing a high correlation between religiosity and charity, including things like giving blood and so on.

By: marcus

marcus — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 02:25:22 +0000

Did anyone else notice the subtle response to criticism that the church was/is racist? Anyone who thinks the church has a racist past is going to have a hard time reconciling it with Romney’s statement, “I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.”

By: queuno

queuno — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:06:56 +0000

This speech was easily the best political speech of the campaign season (107)

That’s a pretty powerful indictment of the inanity of our political process.

By: djinn

djinn — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:38:11 +0000

I find the question of religion and morality quite fascinating, but I freely admit to not quite understanding the philisophical arguments; they all seem at heart mean-spiritied–the Jacobins? Leo Strauss? Hobbes? In the bluntest terms weren’t all of their ideas basically that people had to be tricked into behaving? You’re not going to tell me that Strauss was personally religious, for example–didn’t he explicitly agitate for “noble lies” and “pious frauds?” To, at least arrive at a data set for analysis, I looked up the research on the subject and found:

A paper that finds a rather astonishingly high degree of correlation between various social ills (syphilis rates, suicide, teen pregnancy) and religiosity (taken at the national level).

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

A paper from 2006 from the Journal of Religion and Society that finds a high degree of correlation between the religiosity of a nation and murder rates in the nation. The paper also makes the point that murder rates are also correlated with inequality of income and other factors.

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2006/2006-7.html

The evidence, as I can see it, seems to show that attending religious services and believing in “God” makes people worse, rather than better. Why, do you suppose? I’m serious here. What gives?