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Lds Secularism Fight

LDS Secularism Fight

PROVO - Days after Mitt Romney attacked secularism in a major speech on his Mormon faith, students at the presidential candidate's alma mater were encouraged to prepare themselves for battle against secularists.

Brigham Young University students must gather the intellectual and moral resources to combat abortion, same-sex marriage and moral relativity, Oxford University philosophy professor Daniel Robinson said Monday before a capacity crowd of more than 200 in the Lee Library Auditorium.

"It's important you recognize the burden you have on you," Robinson said. "You must be informed. Adversaries of everything you stand for are often informed, often passionate."
Ref. https://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695235295,00.html

Fight Secularism Lds

Before I begin to comment on this I want someone define what is the LDS secularism fight?

Lds Secularism Fight Studies Doctrine Mormon

I am not sure what he means. It is a very interesting piece of Rhetoric that he is using.
I am confused as to how he defined secularism. He seemed to attach the ideas of Pornography, child rape, moral relativity (which is a very vague term) and of course the always party line "gay marriage". It seems a lot of nothing to me.
I am not sure if secularism is for all of these things. I have some secular friends and they sure as heck do not support child rape, pornography, or gay marriage. I think that being labeled as such things would be offensive and confusing to them. Moral relativity is very confusing. Secularist are morally relative in relation to who? Conservatives who support the unjust war in Iraq is not Morally relative? I also do not understand about this "fight". I am not in a fight with secularism. Are we saying that they do not have the right to live and believe what they want to believe? Are we fighting because we feel threatened by there beliefs?

I also do not like how he lumps all LDS into one monolithic platform. Is he saying because I am LDS I cannot value some secular ideas, and goals? Is he by saying this creating a cast or conditions that we must politically follow in order to be LDS? Who also defines these LDS views? Robinson or the BYU students? I think this is just a bunch of propaganda and kind of offensive to any thinking LDS member on any side of the issues.

Fight Secularism Lds

I think that Romney was saying that we must fight against the secularism that is trying to restrict religious expression such as Nativities, crosses in War Memorials, and the general trend by secularists to take all religion out of the Public Arena. If a secularist is doing this then we should fight that attitude. If a Secularist fights for the rights of all to worship or not to worship as they may, then there would be no argument against them.

Also where secularism says that religious people do not have the right to fight against abortion and Pornography then we must fight that trend also.
I give the example of the ACLU's practice of wanting to defend the rights of Pedophiles to view whatever they want because it is free expression.
We must fight Secularism when it supports Abortion, Pornography and defend them to the death when they do not.

Fight Secularism Lds

Thank you dbackers for explaining. Cause I was a mite confused on just what Romeny's point was.

I was taught by a grandmother who had her child taken from her because she refused to give up her religion that one should NEVER foresake your beliefs, your ideals, and your values. No matter what worldly pain you might be in for.

I do agree with you as well dbackers that we must fight those that want to turn our country into Sodom and Gahmora and remove all moral character from us and debase us in the process.

Lds Secularism Fight

DBackers,
I am a little confused. I thought that the article we were discussing was not about Romney but rather Robinson's speech at BYU. I did not see anything in that article about freedom of religion. Am I wrong? I think you are referring to Romney's speech last week. The only problem that I had with Romney's speech is he was saying that we need to keep religion in the public forum. But my problem with him was that he only included evangelicals, Jews and Mormons into this arena. He never included Islam or others who believed in other Gods or none at all. This is the problem that I have with religion in public forum. For many conservatives the religion that they want in public forum is there beliefs. Trust me where I live if prayers in school were allowed it would not be a Mormon prayer, it would be a evangelical prayer. They would never allow a Mormon prayer in school. It is these same people who protest having a Hindu priest pray to open congress, because he was not "Christian" The only religion that they want it there brand, and we are not in there definition of Christianity. Trust me if you want public religion then it will not be Mormon prayers, or representation that will be there. It will be Christianity by there definition and it will not include you or any other Mormon. I am not too sure if I want this in public forums.

Lds Secularism Fight

I would want this in a public forum.

It starts by opening the way and letting 'them' know that if they get to have their prayers then everyone else is also allowed to have their own as well.

There is nothing wrong with prayer in school. Every child should be able to offer a prayer in the way they have been taught (sadly, not very many children these days are taught to pray, but that's another subject). There is no need for a prayer lead moment(s). But merely time allowed for those to pray as they wish. I don't see how a moment of silence can be a bad thing.

If your aethist and don't believe in God, then there is always self affirmations, yoga breathing excerises that can be done instead of praying.

I live in Oklahoma. I'm IN the bible belt! hehe And I'm soo thankful to be in a community that DOES believe in God. Id rather have a christen brother/sister next to me then a person claiming to be aethist and not teaching their children any values or Christ like behavior.

The schools my children attend say the pledge of allegance, and alternate the State anthem and the National anthem being sung on a daily basis along with other patriotic songs. Yeah for Oklahoma! My kids didn't even have THAT in Utah!

I am a firm believer in everyone has the free agency to choose their own way. I'm very thankful to be surrounded by those that have chosen to live as close to God as the governmental laws allow in a public forum.

Lds Secularism Fight Mormon Doctrine Studies

I agree with Robinson's Premise.
When one is saying they must fight against Secularism they are not saying they must fight against Science, but rather the idea of removing all religious influences from public life.

Extreme Secularism states that religious expression has no place in the public discourse and would restrict this by law. This would exclude prayers that are currently said in Congress and before sessions of the Supreme court, require the removal of crosses in military cemeteries (in fact they would have to remove those crosses to be true to a strictly secularist idea, because they are sometimes found on public land), Make it illegal to put the President's hand on the Bible when he or she is inaugurated.

Secularism in its purest form would restrict a President from saying "God Bless America" or having national days of prayer.

Secularism to a point is a Good thing, as it restricts the state from corrupting religion and prevents the undue influence of religion on the state, but our country has always had a religious culture. There is nothing in our constitution that would restrict public displays of religious devotion by the citizens if not sponsored by the state. In fact Congress does not have the right to restrict the free expression of religion. It seems that secularism is moving in the direction of restricting all forms of religious expression by the citizenry or public officials, and it is a trend that I am uncomfortable with.