The importance of insanity

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney believes the following: About 2600 years ago, a tribe of Israelites traveled across the sea and became the first humans to set foot on the Americas. As these humans multiplied, they split into two racial groups: The white "Nephites," who were virtuous, and the brown Lamanites, who were evil. Over a few hundred years, the evil brown Lamanites managed to exterminate the white Nephites through violence. These evil "Lamanites" became today's First Nations people (aka Native Americans).

Unless Romney has repudiated a core belief of his religion, the preceding must be what he believes to be the pre-history of the United States of America. Romney believes this story because it was revealed in 1823 to founding LDS prophet Joseph Smith, who was visited by the angel Moroni and given gold plates telling the tale.

There is, of course, precious little evidence to support the bizarre claims of America's first great original religion. (As jazz is to music, Mormonism is to religion. I think Scientology would be house music. Or maybe the twelve-tone technique.) And there is a mountain of evidence to contradict those claims. By any reasonable standard, U.S. voters should be deeply suspicious of anyone who has reached Mitt Romney's conclusions from the available evidence. They certainly should not consider this person suitable as the chief decider in the United States government*.

But, of course, delusional beliefs do not disqualify a person from receiving this enormous power from the electorate. Something else does.

(Thanks, Maria.)

*Obviously, Christian and Jewish beliefs are no less wacky than the LDS malarkey. However, Mitt Romney's beliefs are at least foreign to the vast majority of Republican voters. So they should be able to evaluate them without the prejudice of familiarity that keeps them from critically examining their own religious beliefs. That's one reason to hope that Romney wins the nomination. We can use the general election campaign to provoke a conversation about religious belief by starting with Romney's. As far as I can determine, there is no basic criticism of Romney's beliefs that would not also apply to the more dominant delusional system in the U.S. I relish the opportunity to trick Christian leaders into launching criticism of Romney that can immediately be turned back on them. The net influence on the mushy middle -- those people who passively endorse religion only because they rarely think about it -- will be positive.