In his latest ad, Mitt Romney goes after Gingrich by reminding people that he has not changed wives or religions. Gingrich has been married three times and recently converted forom Protestant to Catholic.

But wait a second. By bragging about his faithfulness to Mormonism he must therefore be claiming that he believes his religion to be the correct one. (Otherwise it wouldn't besomething to be proud of.) But surely it can't be wrong to convert from an incorrect one. I mean suppose it was Mormonism that Gingrich had converted to? Would Romney have criticised such a conversion? Obviously not since he would have felt that it would have been the correct decision. Therefore if Romney think that Gingrich deserves crticism it can only be because he thinks that Cathlocism is obviously an incorrect religion. Does he really want to go there?

I'd assume he's aiming at the sincerity of Gingrich's faith rather than at the tenets of the faith as such.

I agree with AIF. Daniel Dennett said it best. People don't believe in their religion so much as they believe in belief. It's belief that's important to them, not what they believe. I'm not saying it's correct, but it's the way most people think.

I'm finding this to be the case in almost every religious person I've talked to. Nicely put.

It really doesn't matter if it is illogical. Romney is facing a lot of attacks as a flip flopper, and what he is doing here is establishing himself as being consistent on the things that matter to conservatives: family and religion. It is certainly dangerous because of his Mormonism but it might even work.

The Christian right has long been willing to more or less set aside differences between the innumerable sects (including Jews as well as elements of unquestioned solidarity) and what matters is if you are a consistent and strong man of god. Now mormon bigotry remains high (22% wouldn't vote for the Mormon in a generic vs generic contest).

That doesn't apply to the case of someone converting from one religion to another. Unless the conversion was obviously simply to please someone else. Converts, on average believe more strongly in their new religion than those who were born into it. And people know that.

I think with the multiple divorces, that would be implied, maybe especially so in the case of a conversion to Catholicism.

The line you're ascribing to him is just too poor a move to have passed all the sanity checks, imo. As far as I can tell, Romney's a pretty cautious cat. I doubt he'd do the ad if his advisors even thought voters might think he was touting Mormonism or attacking Catholicism. It would be suicide. That Mormonism is superior may be a logical implication of his statements at face value, but I would bet heavily that's not the intended take-away.

This.

Pretty uncharitable interpretation.

Nobody Romney's attempting to influence will get to the point of thinking that Romney is suggesting that Catholicism is a flawed religion. Romney thinks, though, that they will get to the point of thinking that Romney's supposed flip-flops are minor compared to a change in religious conviction and two changes of wives. These people revere Ronald Reagan in large part because "he stood up for what he believed in." What exactly it was that he believed is in many respects less important to them.

It's not about religion at all. (Nobody that this ad is directed to is going to examine the logic as carefully as you have). He's saying it's good for a president to be reliable and consistent and bad if they keep changing their position (it makes no difference whether that's true or not, nor whether this is an actual illustration of his point. In politics what matters is how the target market responds). No doubt there's a subtext about insincerity, but the main thing is just "I stick to my guns and the other guy doesnt".

Luckyme would know better, but I suspect it's also intended to counter the various 'Romney is insincere' suspicions within Republican circles.

EDIT: Yeah, what andyfox said.

I get all that. But you are wrong that nobody is going to examine the logic other than me. MSNBCs Chris Mathews did.

That's not what I said. Political ads are aimed at dumb people.

The people who are going to vote for Gingrich or Romney are completely uninterested in the type of logical analysis you're discussing, in general. Remember, this is the party for whom intelligence has a bad connotation. Romney is simply trying to allay the criticisms of his flip-flopping project that characteristic onto someone else.

It's not the entire GOP nor many independents who lean that way. Right now they are pandering to the dumbest of the dumb, the bottom feeders and the zealots for various issues, for caucus and primary votes. What a stupid system this is. When it is the Democrats you see the same kind of left wing goofiness and fringe candidates!!

The entire mainstream Republican party has come out against science and intelligence. It's not a fringe group, it's their party platform. Democrats, on the other hand, today are primarily the Republicans of 30 years ago.

Again, I get all of the posts above. In fact the real truth is that Gingrich does in fact deserve criticism for converitng from one religion to another. It is one thing to be vaguely religious, tend to believe, and decide that given that, you will stick to the religion you were born into. It is quite another for an adult to come to the intellectual decision that a specific religion is in fact probably correct. If you go to the trouble to convert, that is what you are claiming (unless as previously noted you are doing it to please somebody.)

Anyone who actually intellectually thinks that the tenets of a specific religion are more likely to be correct than the tenets of all other religions plus atheism and agnostism, combined is an idiot.

I disagree with your point to some extent. It is possible to feel that some aspects of the theology of a religion are unpalatable and to change religion for that reason. For example, suppose you were part of a fundamentalist sect of Christianity that held that all those who were not Christian were damned. You might well reason that given the huge bias involved in the religion of birth, it is not possible for such a position to be consistent with a benevolent God. You could change to a sect of Christianity that held that all could be saved, quite logically. Of course, you would not necessarily have to be believe that religion B was entirely correct. You would only need to decide that required aspects of religion A were entirely incorrect.

He didn't switch religions. He switched denominations within one religion. As politician waffling goes, that's exceedingly minor.

Thanks. I think you're an idiot too, but for different reasons.

Ladies and gentlemen, the owner of 2+2.

The more interesting question is: if one is not confused, how can one vote for republicans. I mean, for me, voting for republicans is just like voting for Osama Bin Laden's copy. And even if this shouldn't be true, it is surely true, that whoever wants to see more Bin Landen's living on this planet, he should take his chance to vote for republicans.

I'd be more impressed by Mr Skalansky's views on the admirability of switching between sects of Christianity if I had any confidence he knew what the differences between those sects actually are. In any case, it doesn't seem there is anything exceptional in it simply because one might have been a Protestant by upbringing and have known little of Catholicism, then upon marrying a Catholic might have learned more and realised that this was actually much closer to one's personal beliefs. Why Mr Skalansky would wish to denigrate a person for adapting his beliefs upon gaining new information is a mystery to me.