Whilst the underlying stories in Mormonism are downright nutty, are they any nuttier than any other religion? The question should not be about whether a Mormon can take high office, but can any candidate with a literal interpretation of scripture take office? This has particular concern if policy decisions are vetted by holy bureaucrats rather than the elected representatives of parliament.

Great Article, I agree with the commenter above that mormons baptising the dead is no less wierd than a catholic consuming the body of christ or a jewish monster yahweh who dislikes pork roast and seafood or the muslim god who cant stand the sight of a women's body.

Again, Good article, I think it is ignorance rather than acceptance that makes this a non issue. The religious are a dishonest bunch, claiming to know things they either do not or could not know

I am not sure if we need to worry about a Mormon presidency, but we certainly should be worried about a Romney presidency.

There does seem an issue with a president who recently purchased a controlling interest in the machines that opaquely deliver election results in 50+states?

Joseph Smith claimed that the Book of Mormon was written on golden plates and the location of these plates was revealed to him by the angel Moroni who delivered them to him in 1827. He claimed that they were written in “reformed Egyptian” and that he translated them into English. He published the translation as the book of Mormon. This was not a metaphorical claim but a literal claim and eleven of his early followers attested that they had seen the plates. Smith claimed that after he had translated them he returned them to the angel Moroni, consequently they are no longer accessible for scrutiny. It seems to me that if Mr Romney actually believes this claim to be true he must be highly gullible and naïve. If he doesn’t believe it is true then he is dishonest with himself and others and doesn’t have the independence of mind and courage to break free from his Mormon upbringing. These are not the qualities I would like to see in an American President.

I accept that God may choose to reveal himself to humanity through his chosen prophets and messengers whose revelations are their own proof, in the context of the conditions under which they were revealed. But, for Joseph Smith, not his followers, to legitimise his prophetic claim with such a preposterous story is an affront to both reason and faith. If Mr Romney becomes President and applies the same degree of scrutiny and objectivity to the problems facing American, and the world, as he has applied to the claims of Joseph Smith then we will be in deep trouble.

I usually like The Conversation, because I read Stephan Lewandowsky's excellent articles on climate change, but this article by Prof. Verhoeven is the most bigoted piece of trash I've seen in a long time. As a Mormon myself, I'm used to people listing off reasons why our beliefs sound weird--some of them ARE weird. But then, it's easy to make any religious beliefs that involve the supernatural sound weird. Jesus rising from the dead? Moses parting the Red Sea? The Sun standing still in the sky? Jesus healing a blind man by spitting on some clay and sticking it on his eyes? Native American shamans shape-shifting? All of that sounds really weird... unless you believe in the possibility of the supernatural, in which case it only sounds weird if you aren't used to those particular beliefs.

Beyond the cheap "Let's make someone's religion sound as strange as we can" line of non-reasoning, what bothers me most about this screed is that Prof. Verhoeven can't even get our weird beliefs right. We don't "baptise the dead," for instance. We do baptisms FOR the dead, much as Catholics pray or light candles for the dead in Purgatory, and baptism for the dead is mentioned in the New Testament, for Pete's sake. We also don't have any "magic underwear". We have ritual undergarments that are physical reminders of covenants we make with God, and those covenants are supposed to give us spiritual protection. Boy, who has ever heard of ritual garments?... except among ancient Jewish priests, various Catholic and Orthodox orders, Sikhs, and well, you get the idea.

All this from a guy who is supposed to be a "Lecturer in Modern History." My guess is that Prof. Verhoeven isn't religious at all himself, and probably didn't grow up very religious. But as a historian, wouldn't it be a good idea to make some effort to understand religious people, when religious people make up a rather large segment of the population? At least it might save him from publishing further bigoted, ignorant screeds about others' beliefs.