This past weeks Economist was one of the best I have ever read. Every article struck me as interesting and important. Yet, one article set off a big debate between a Catholic buddy, Dan, and I about the nature of America’s religiousity. I really enjoy discussing thing like this with Dan. He is level-headed, fair minded, and interested to debate. He is the opposite of most religious folk I know.
The article discusses Mormons in politics and surprisingly does the religion a service for their political candidates, namely Mitt Romney. It states, “Mormons are, by many measures, disproportionately successful… All boys from an early age learn to become (church) leaders…” and so on. Thankfully, the Economist did get a jab in there for both Mormonism and Christianity when they wrote in the same article, “How plausible is it that a semi-literate man in upstate New York should find golden plates written in ‘reformed’ Egyptian and translate them while burying his face in his hat, to reveal the tale of a family who left Israel in 6000 BC and ended up in North America? Then again, to be fair, how plausible are the miracles and resurrection of Jesus?” 
Despite the great newspapers praise, I could not stop thinking about Amerca’s – obviously predominantly the GOP – mandate that a candidate be religious to hold office. It seems that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States” has been forgotten.
It is ridiculous that the GOP will obviously support not one, but two Mormons over any atheist. If an atheist ran as Republican, he would certainly cast himself a death sentence in the political realm. Absurdly, the GOP prefers people to believe that the Garden of Eden is in Missouri, the Native Americans are really a lost tribe of Israel, and “special” whitey-tighteys protect you from disease, as the Mormons do, than have godlessness – or as I like to call it, being realistic. (On a side-note, I would imagine most atheists wouldn’t run with the GOP because of their beliefs on, well, almost everything (except fiscal issues like myself)).
It is ridiculous to prefer someone as president who openly states that they suspend reason to have faith. I only hope that these stated Christians – like Bush and Obama … unfortunately – and Mormons really aren’t who they say they are. That way, they will only be something that we already know to be true – liars.
