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Yeah, Well, My Imaginary Friend Just Beat Up Your Imaginary Friend!
2008.11.11 (Tue) 15:15
Ah, the sound of children bickering. Only these aren't children. Well, not literally, anyway.
Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.
...
Baptism by proxy allows faithful Mormons to have their ancestors baptized into the 178-year-old church, which they believe reunites families in the afterlife.
Using genealogy records, the church also baptizes people who have died from all over the world and from different religions. Mormons stand in as proxies for the person being baptized and immerse themselves in a baptismal pool.
...
"We don't think any faith group has the right to ask another to change its doctrines," Wickman said. "If our work for the dead is properly understood ... it should not be a source of friction to anyone. It's merely a freewill offering."
Wow. Let's count the layers of nonsense here. First, religion itself is nonsensical, so the baptisms performed by the Mormons on live people are just silly. On top of that, their practice of baptism-by-proxy of dead people who have never indicated their desire to be baptized as Mormons is even more silly. Then there's the absurd little nugget that the Jews involved are offended by these silly, silly fake ceremonies that have no impact on anyone anyway, which is even more silly. Finally, the offense that the Mormons are taking at the perceived request to change their practices tops the silliness cake off quite nicely. Anyone got some candles? Not that we want to blow them out, mind you — we'd just like to set fire to the whole affair.
Folks, both of these belief systems are just plain nonsensical from a rational standpoint, whether you indulge in them or not. What the fuck does it matter if some other group of silly people pretends to posthumously induct your silly people into their silly club? Seriously, who gives a fuck? What, are these already-dead Jews going to be sitting on a cloud in Jewish Heaven, enjoying the afterlife, when all of a sudden the Cruise Director of Jewish Heaven flies over on little angel wings, scans a clipboard containing the monthly Mormon data, and pipes up:
"Hey, Irv, sorry — it says here that you're a Mormon now. Grab your stuff and head over to Mormon Heaven — but you can leave your yarmulke...they'll be providing magic underwear when you get there."
Not too astoundingly, of course, our silly argument holds more water than the actual silly argument put forth:
Michel suggested that posthumous baptisms of Holocaust victims play into the hands of Holocaust deniers.
"They tell me, that my parents' Jewishness has not been altered but ... 100 years from now, how will they be able to guarantee that my mother and father of blessed memory who lived as Jews and were slaughtered by Hitler for no other reason than they were Jews, will someday not be identified as Mormon victims of the Holocaust?" Michel said Monday.
Gee, Mr. Michel, how can we guarantee that this little exercise in idiocy won't change the historical record? Are you fucking kidding us? Fuck, what the hell does a little Mormon spreadsheet matter to anybody except the fucking Mormons? They're not exactly going to be the definitive keepers of history a few hundred years from now. Let's face it: these are people who have decided that, historically speaking, a Middle Eastern Jew from two millennia ago was wandering around North America, the Native Americans are a lost Jewish tribe, and Joseph Smith saw fucking angels (and, after losing the first transcriptions of his divine revelation, "read" a "different" version that was also totally, completely, for-real the God's-honest truth, no really, even if it's a little bit slightly different this time, I swear!). For fuck's sake, does anyone really believe that their little Microsoft Excel file of posthumously converted Mormon Jews is going to replace the actual history books? Even if they put in some devastatingly cool macros? (Is ƒx=MORMONIZE(J1,J6000000) a valid function?) The only people who take the Mormons seriously are the Mormons. And, frankly, we're not entirely sure they do. (Seriously...magic underwear?)
We really should just point out that this fucking insidiously asinine crap merely punches up yet again that any one religion is stupid enough...but the fact that there are so many of these silly mythologies, all utterly contradicting each other, is just further evidence of the stupidity of it all. Especially given the bullshit these assfucks pull on each other. The only saving grace is that, while they're focused on their petty religioso squabbles, maybe their efforts to push their beliefs as law will fall by the wayside.
With all this outrage from Jews over the Johnny-come-lately conversions of dead Jews to Mormonism, how come they've never been particularly pissed about the entire Christian fairy tale being based on the conversion of one dead Jew to the Granddaddy of all Christianity? Obviously, we don't think they should be, but a little consistency in their internal logic would be nice. For a change. Fuck, man.
And just when you think the silliness can't be laid on any thicker, the last sentence of the article takes it to new and dizzying heights:
In May, the Vatican ordered Catholic dioceses worldwide to withhold member registries from Mormons so that Catholics could not be baptized.
Whew! Thank fucking Christ they dodged that bullet. After all, Catholic angels are former nuns — they don't just escort you out of heaven, they kick your ass on the way out the door.
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[ Filed under: % Religion ]
Comments (19)
Darthcynic, 2008.11.11 (Tue) 16:20 [Link] »
Silly Green Monkey, 2008.11.13 (Thu) 11:58 [Link] »
Crosius, 2008.11.15 (Sat) 11:52 [Link] »
The Two Percent Company, 2008.11.17 (Mon) 23:45 [Link] »
Silly Green Monkey, 2008.11.19 (Wed) 08:16 [Link] »
Jason Spicer, 2008.11.20 (Thu) 00:46 [Link] »
constanze, 2008.11.28 (Fri) 17:11 [Link] »
The Two Percent Company, 2008.11.30 (Sun) 23:16 [Link] »
Jason Spicer, 2008.12.01 (Mon) 02:31 [Link] »
The Two Percent Company, 2008.12.01 (Mon) 14:35 [Link] »
The Two Percent Company, 2008.12.01 (Mon) 15:38 [Link] »
Jason Spicer, 2008.12.03 (Wed) 20:58 [Link] »
TimmyAnn, 2008.12.04 (Thu) 01:12 [Link] »
Akusai, 2008.12.04 (Thu) 23:35 [Link] »
TimmyAnn, 2008.12.05 (Fri) 02:58 [Link] »
The Two Percent Company, 2008.12.05 (Fri) 18:03 [Link] »
Akusai, 2008.12.06 (Sat) 01:06 [Link] »
Timothy, 2008.12.08 (Mon) 02:05 [Link] »
Tom Foss, 2008.12.08 (Mon) 19:57 [Link] »
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