Last night, Mitt Romney followed up on last December’s “Faith in America” with a new speech called “Freedom & Religion: Perfect Together.” The speech was given at a dinner for the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty.
He took the opportunity to answer some criticisms and adjust his comments in response. Some critics took issue that he had no word on religious liberty for those who choose to not believe. They may be happy to hear that he took their criticism to heart.
Several commentators, for instance, argued that I had failed to sufficiently acknowledge the contributions that had been made by atheists. At first, I brushed this off — after all this was a speech about faith in America, not non-faith in America. Besides, I had not enumerated the contributions of believers — why should non-believers get special treatment?
But upon reflection, I realized that while I could defend their absence from my address, I had missed an opportunity…an opportunity to clearly assert that non-believers have just as great a stake as believers in defending religious liberty.
If a society takes it upon itself to prescribe and proscribe certain streams of belief — to prohibit certain less-favored strains of conscience — it may be the non-believer who is among the first to be condemned. A coercive monopoly of belief threatens everyone, whether we are talking about those who search the philosophies of men or follow the words of God.
We are all in this together. Religious liberty and liberality of thought flow from the common conviction that it is freedom, not coercion, that exalts the individual just as it raises up the nation.
He continued with defending his also heavily questioned line “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. . . . Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.” To defend those sentiments he cited the Founding Fathers and the last two popes.
As a politician, I imagine Gov. Romney wants to be known for more than just being the “Mormon candidate.” But, it’s nice to see that he hasn’t dropped his defense of religious freedom now that his personal faith isn’t under the microscope anymore. Romney may not win over any of his critics but hopefully his thoughtful response will help them see him in a better light.
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Tags: Mitt Romney, religious freedom
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“Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. . . . Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.”
Why? Beyond making the statement what evidence is there for this? In fact, isn’t religion the exact opposite of freedom? Last time I checked most religions tell you to do things an otherwise sane person wouldn’t do. My parents thought it would be smart to have the doctors take a knife to my penis when I was born because of their religion. I used to ask them sarcastically, “what, you mean your god’s design wasn’t good enough, so you had to improve it by cutting off my foreskin?” Such freedom…
Freedom needs religion like a fish needs a bicycle.
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“In fact, isn’t religion the exact opposite of freedom?”
No. Not if you are speaking English at least. (It may be that is you own secret Darron S language I suppose…)
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If you want evidence then look no further than the horrid atheistic regimes that murdered more than a hundred million people during the twentieth century. Centuries of religious abuses don’t begin to compare…
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If you want evidence look no further than the horrid a-unicornist regimes, a-dragonist regimes, a-fairiest regimes. I would people could get through there skulls that being an atheist is not a commonality and not typically people “do things” for. Have you ever done anything good or bad “because of” your lack in belief in Zeus? “Atheistic Regime” is just some silly title bestowed on evil people who happen to lack belief in gods. They have no more in common with other atheists than you and I have in common because we both don’t believe in the god Thor. Make sense? Or are you going to try and impotently retort with some brainless statement about owning up to “my belief system’s evil deeds”. If you want to know where I get my morals and ethics I’d say I’m a Secular Humanist. The tenets are as follows:
Need to test beliefs – A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.
Reason, evidence, scientific method – A commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence, and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
Fulfillment, growth, creativity – A primary concern with fulfillment, growth, and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general.
Search for truth – A constant search for objective truth, with the understanding that new knowledge and experience constantly alter our imperfect perception of it.
This life – A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us.
Ethics – A search for viable individual, social and political principles of ethical conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility.
Building a better world – A conviction that with reason, an open exchange of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children. -
Why do people get so tied into the idea that freedom and religion require each other, or that freedom and religion don’t require each other? Why not just deal with the idea that sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t–that there really isn’t a terribly tight connection either way?
Of course, i’m a religious secularist–someone who’s certainly a believer, but who feels that religion should not be required (maybe even should be not required, not sure) in the public sphere–and we fit so badly with any public figures’ opinions that we can apparently get freely ignored, so y’all can feel free to ignore me and get back to your arguing over angels on pinheads.
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Pingback from Romney on Atheists : Mormon Metaphysics on 12 May 2008 at 12:48 pm
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Many atheists think that religion is immensely useful and actually have taken a position fairly similar to Romney’s. Consider this from Voltaire.
What conclusion shall we draw from all this? That atheism is a very pernicious monster in those who govern; that it is also pernicious in the persons around statesmen, although their lives may be innocent, because from their cabinets it may pierce right to the statesmen themselves; that if it is not so deadly as fanaticism, it is nearly always fatal to virtue.
Of course Voltaire was an atheist and made many impassioned defenses of atheism. But he sure wasn’t sure he wanted an atheistic leader or people.
A similar view can be found among many neo-conservatives who often were atheists who felt like religion was important for the masses.
Note I’m not defending these views. I think they are defensible though and have been held by some atheists.
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Ah David B- so you believe people can believe what ever they want, as long as they don’t believe it.
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Believe as long as you keep it to yourself. Stop trying to spread your delusions to other peoples. Do like your prophet said and pray in the closet where nobody can see. Keep your mythology and superstition out of the public square. It’s embarrasing and silly, and makes you look unintelligent. I’m glad people are starting to be less tolerant of religiosity. Sad as it is to day, Bush did us a favor. There’s a new generation of youth who are completely disillusioned by religion and religious agendas, and we’re better off for it. I’m one of ‘em.
I hope all the world’s religions soon find a special place in the waste basket of history!
Cheers!
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Samuel Skinner–I don’t think i’m alone in reacting to your comment with a “Huh?”
I mean, it doesn’t scan as if you read what i wrote, really. Did you mean to reply to someone else, or did the one-liner nature of the reply result in something too opaque for me to unpack? Please explain.
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If anyone is still paying attention:
Clark –
I’m sorry but for some reason you’re comment was spammed until now.
Darron –
You claim you want to build a better world with “reason, an open exchange of ideas, good will, and tolerance” or is that only for people who believe like you?
If anything, I would have hoped that some atheists would have begrudgingly praised Romney for his change of heart. Lighten up a little.
Samuel –
I have to agree, Huh?
What David B isn’t necessarily wrong, but I do think that religion is a huge support to fostering freedom that should not be dismissed. Some societies may appear to successfully abandon religion (Europe) and still be liberal democracies. But I think their increasing dependence on one institution (government) will make freedom more vulnerable down the line.
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Hey David, the problem with tolerating religions is finding the place to draw the line. Here’s a little mind exercize I’m going to make up for anyone that reads this blog post. I’m going to do my best to push out some religion-specific items and people who read can decide where to draw the line:
1. Religious people praying to the chosen God in the privacy of their home.
2. Religious people praying in public places.
3. Religious people prosthelytizing in Churches.
4. Religious people prosthelytizing in public places.
5. Tax-exempt religious organizations using those funds to lobby members of government. (Moral Majority anyone?)
6. Religious groups pushing their “moral codes” into law (Sharia law for instance)
7. Government run by religious groups (Islamic law)
8. Honor killings.
9. Governments “crusading” against “evil”.
10. Whackjobs flying planes into buildings and committing mass murder.Just a quick braindump from me. Personally I stop at #3. While this post might seem any-Islamic or something, I’m just calling it like I see it right now. However, note that #9 is for ‘ol Dubbya. Religion really does poison everything. We should definitely have a level of tolernance for people’s beliefs, but taking a critical look at where to draw the line is of paramount importance in this day and age of suicide bombers and religious nut-jobs out to push a “faith-based” agenda. That term “faith based” just makes me cringe. I want to scream out, “what? We don’t have enough emphirical evidence for how this world works?!?!? ! We need your “faith based” reasoning to come in and show the “true path(TM)” or something?”.
Sorry, chilling out is not something I ever do when pointing out lies or inaccuracies. Regardless of the sting, people should be called on their BS. If they can’t support their side of the arguement with testable, repeatable, observable and falsifiable evidence, then they should just babble to themselves in their closets about their whacky ideas. In public I call believers out and it’s amazing how much they shrink away when you ask them if they believe in the resurrection or virgin births or any such non-sense. If anything, it makes them re-analyze their illgotten and blindly-accepted beliefs, which I think is a good thing. This battle is one mind at a time, and it’s high time atheists were on the offensive. Cheers!
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Reply to Darron S: There is a very good reason that slippery slope arguments like the one you’re using are considered to be based on a logical fallacy–they simply don’t work. Being human is all about drawing lines. You yourself stated that you have found a point to draw your line (even though it’s a line that doesn’t match up with your rhetoric). Other people have other lines. The issue is which line is correct, or at least works best for current circumstances.
However, slash and burn attacks are unlikely to get anyone to agree with your lines–rather they’re likely to get people to move to a more extreme position just to be able to disagree with you (which, incidentally, is IMO the greatest flaw in, for example, Richard Dawkins’s recent arguments against religion). You might find, if you engaged me in a rational debate, that my lines may be different than yours but aren’t really very much different (i am devoutly religious, but entirely in favor of public secularism, after all)–however, if you’re going to gratuitously slam religion (whether mine or that of others) before trying to find out if there’s common ground, i’m much less likely to take the trouble to engage you in constructive discourse.
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Hey David B: I’m my short time on the planet I’ve found that the “devoutly religious” aren’t likely to convert. I think Dawkins and others like me who are taking a solid and vocal position against religion are really just taking a clue from the tactics that religions have been using for eons: Get to those who are young or on the fence before they’ve had a chance to make up their own minds.
It’s very difficult to talk logic, rationality, and sense into those who are already deeply devout, but it’s very easy to talk to someone who is young like me and say, “be sceptical, don’t take things on faith, make people back up what they say with evidence, and make up your own mind in all matters.” And once that mentality is ingrained into an individual I’m sure it makes it very difficult for any kind of religion, or “unreality” as I like to call it, to get into the mind. Cheers!
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I’ve gone back and forth on responding to Darron S’s latest, so i’ll simply say the following, and then leave the discussion behind (for lack of interest, but more for family items that leave too little time to pay attention, actually):
If one sees religion (like i do) as, at core, the claim to Truth write large, or at least to the means by which one can arrive at Truth, then it appears that Darron’s brand of anti-religion (i.e., that the scientific method–as narrowly defined by proponents of this approach–is the only way of arriving at Truth) is actually turning into the religion that he so decries. This evolution of things is particularly intriguing given Darron’s missionary zeal in proclaiming this Truth, you know?
(And before you given me the whole “atheism is a religion only if not collecting baseball cards is a hobby” line, i’ll just point out that if you go on and on trying to convince me how much better it would be if i stopped collecting baseball cards, you’ve got yourself a hobby.)
p.s. Of course, i think that the philosophical underpinnings of postmodernism and deconstruction are at best silly and in any event blatantly wrong, and i’m incredibly aware of the limitations of human memory and cognitive processing (having done a little bit of scholarly research in areas tightly related to those), so i’m not likely to be swayed by a “make up your own mind in all matters” approach.
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