Ron Paul defends Mitt Romney

There is a different between condemnation and ridiculation.

I ridicule people like devout-LDS believers, devout people of any faith who believe in crazy stories, because they believe in crazy stories. If you believe in wearing fancy headgear (Hasidic Jews), not cutting your hair (Sikhism), not eating onions due to spiritual reasons (Jainism), special underwear (Mormonism), that the Earth is 4000 years old (Catholicism), divine healing (Protestantism) that man was created when a guy sneezed (Hinduism), that violence is never acceptable under any circumstances (Buddhism), fortune telling (Taoism), etc. I think it is sad. I think it is unfortunate that people believe that. But as long as they internalize it, it is fine.

You can also have moral integrity and be religious. Without a doubt, there are elements in religion that encourage people to act morally and help lead people toward moral lives. However, most religions I see, if followed to the letter (ie, fundamentalism), would require one to give up moral integrity.

In most cases, morality is based on things independent of religion. Religion may recognize things that are moral or good, but those things are moral and good because they are moral and good, not because religion recognizes it.

If you are talking about philosophy, of course you can have a moral philosophy while being religious. There are plenty of religious Randists, Aristotilists, and Vyasaists.

Back to my point on ridicule vs. condemnation.

I condemn people like Pat Robertson or Osama Bin Laden who are religoiusly intolerant to the point of force (and in OBL's case, violence), and more importantly, work actively to undermine our government's secularism, our society's freedom, and scientific progress.

I heat this argument often, and it is a veiled excuse to create a false equivalency.

"Let's look at how the world had suffered under some who worshiped science, facts, and data as their own form of religion"

Lie. The dictators you mentioned didn't worship science...they worshipped an ideology; they worshipped their own power. White supremacy, communism, statism, ethnocentrism, etc. They didn't worship science...what a load of horse dung.

"Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and others dispensed with religion and the spiritual entirely to cold-bloodily build their worldly utopia--by brute force"

There is considerable evidence that 3 of those 4 believed in the concept of god....people like Stalin got rid of religious figures not because he was an atheist, but because they got in the way of his power.

This is the key thing...people who are atheists have done horrible things not because they are atheists. But religious people have done horrible things precisely because they are religious. They do such things because their religion tells them so. That is the key difference.

"Hundreds of millions killed, and millions more oppressed, personal dreams and family relations sacrificed in the name of practical Marxist materialistic ideology"

Marxist materialistic ideology = atheism? In any case, more people have been killed in the name of Jesus Christ than anyone else.

"Wars, purges, gulags, secret police, all made for the sake of the perfecting the state by weeding out the "undesirables", as determined by men who treated humans lives as mere numbers and inventory on a accountant's debit/ credit sheet."

Wars (crusades)
purges (holocaust)
gulags (muslim empire)
secret police (inquisition)

" as determined by men who treated humans lives as mere numbers and inventory on a accountant's debit/ credit sheet"

Pretty much how the modern evangelical treats a religious convert....convert him by trickery and deceit.

"The rise of the cult of personality that made the few more equal than everyone else--because they could without scruples nor conscience. So to claim one can only be purely objective and intelligent because they adhere to the cult of science alone is a false premise.History has show us so."

I don't get where you are going with this. You say that these people worship science, but then say it is a cult of personality? Make up your mind!

People who worship anything; people who belong to these cults and who believe in things irrationally and have hostility and closmed minds towards other opinions are the real danger.

But who worships science like a religious man worships his holy book, a Nazi white supremacy, or a communist, Mao?

"And were does this concern of yours on Rommney's LDS beliefs put you with Ron Paul? Aren't you afraid his particular religions beliefs will impact his decision should he be president?"

Romney's beliefs make me cautios, because if you believe in those things, what will you not believe in? If you believe that a senior citizen took two of every animal and put them on an ark, what will you believe in? If you believe the Earth is 4000 years old, what other nonsense could you possibly believe in? That is what is dangerous.

Ron Paul, on one hand, isn't like that. He doesn't believe the world is 4000 years old...he isn't evangelical, he isn't a religious fundamentalist, and he takes the spirit of religion, not the letter of it.

Even on things like climate change, where his opinion would matter when it comes to policy, he tries to understand the issue and look at the facts. He could do a lot more, but that is a lot better than 98% of Republican politicians who don't care about facts.