Annoyed With Mormons
Dean
Jay Tea and some religious folks are angry about the Mormon practice of baptizing dead people.
From what I understand the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints merely finds a dead person's name and blesses them with what they think is God's love and promise for salvation in the afterlife. There's no property being taken, no graves being defiled, no living descendants being harassed. They just find the name and do the blessing. So really, who cares?
I mean, if these folks are right, it means they're guaranteeing someone a place in the afterlife, right? And if they're wrong, it means.... what exactly?
It appears to me that if they're wrong, it means nothing at all.
Listen, if I told you I just went to Japan and came back and had a Shintoist priest say a blessing for your dead grandparents, would you be mad at me?
I mean, seriously, what's the big deal, man? It reminds me of an atheist I once knew who got angry because a Christian promised to say a prayer for him. I said, "Oooh man, I can't believe he said a prayer for you! I hope you stabbed him!"
He didn't get it.
If the complainants were atheists, I would agree with you. To an atheist, there's no harm here. But then, to an atheist, there's no harm in grave robbing and defiling the dead. It's disgusting, but not harmful. (Well, maybe some harm to the grave robber: dead bodies can be a source of disease.)
But to a believer, this is sacrilege. Spiritually, it is a sort of defilement: involving the deceased in what the believer sees as an unholy ritual. Depending on your theological view, it can raise the same sort of ire you'll meet if you threaten to stuff a Muslim's corpse with pork.
If a believer gets upset about this, then they must necessarily believe that there's something a little more powerful about Mormonism than their own faith.
There's a big difference between a prayer or ritual and "stuffing a Muslim's corpse with pork": the latter involves actual, physical damage or defilement to a physical thing.
Besides, isn't forbidding people from practicing their religion as they see fit a threat to yours? Do you really want to toboggan down that slippery slope?
After all, transubstantiation means that every Sunday Catholics are indulging in cannibalism which is forbidden by law.
Although I think you're right that if you don't buy into the belief, then don't worry about it.
As a Mormon, though, I'd like to explain something a little more than what seems to be understood about ordinaces for the dead.
Geneology is done, and the names of those who have passed on are submitted either into the church's records of those who have had work done for them, and those who have not.
The Mormon belief is that things like the physical ordinance of baptism are essential for salvation. If I just really wanted to be baptized, but never was, it doesn't count. The physical ordinance has to be performed. A living person stands in as proxy for the deceased.
Additionally, we believe that for the most part, you die the way you lived. Somebody who has a deep and abiding hate for all things will have that same attitude on the other side of mortality. The performance of ordinances for the dead merely "does the paperwork" (in a manner of speaking). Those who have passed on have the opportunity to accept or reject the religion on their own terms (recall what I just said about attitude above - the state of being dead is not going to change your religious views unless you want them to be changed). If they convert on the other side, then all the ordinances done for them will be applied. If they reject it, then it isn't applied, and that's that.
And Dean, I think you are perfectly reasonable.
Presbyterian that I am, was I offended? No, not in the least. I can certainly see how someone who looks at it differently than I do might be offended, but was I myself offended? No, not in the least.
Dude. Excuse me? As an atheist, I can assure you I find that statement incredibly idiotic.
Well, Dean beat me too it, but I'll toss in my $2 (inflation and all) anyway.
Just because there is no God, doesn't mean that there is no respect for the dead. That is like saying "no God" = "no morality", which is also ridiculous, though I guess I can understand the confusion somewhat in people who believe that God is The source of morality.
Of course, Dean said the same thing much more succinctly.
Last night, you were playing with a "politeness" request on the comments page. It's gone now, so I don't recall the details (other than the apt quote from It's a Wonderful Life); but it included trying to be civil in posts. I don't consider "incredibly idiotic" to fall into that category. Ditto trimming off the important part of what I said:
If I chop off your arm, you suffer harm: pain, blood loss, permanent crippling, and the chance of bleeding to death. If I chop off the arm of a corpse dug out of the grave, it has suffered no similar harm. The act is offensive, but not harmful.
Unless you consider certain offensive acts to be so beyond the pale that they're harmful in an emotional sense, not a physical sense. And that's my point: as soon as you allow emotional harm, you get into the subjective realm where different people will have different tolerances, based in their beliefs.
If I chop off the arm of a corpse in anatomy lab, does it suffer harm? Does anyone? I think most people will agree the answer is No. Why? Is it because of the context? Well, to you or me it is, yes: that's the purpose of donating your body to science, after all. But I know people who have real theological qualms about this, and who will never donate their bodies to science precisely because of those qualms. So if someone of that belief system learned that a relative had accidentally been sent to the lab (which, as far as I know, can't happen), wouldn't they see a harm in their loved one being carved up?
So even the case of the anatomy lab is really an emotional reaction. And emotional harm is in the eye -- and the belief -- of the beholder.
And that invalidates their faith exactly how?
I'm trying to phrase this answer in a way which won't offend any Mormon readers. Mormons, if I fail, please accept my apologies in advance.
Many belief systems include the possibility that acts outside of an individual's or institution's control can still have spiritual consequences to the individual or moral consequences to the institution. (Mormons beware: this is the part where I'm absolutely not equating your rites with Satanism. I'm reaching to Satanism for an extreme example, to make a point.) Many people would feel that, if a Satanic ritual were conducted in a church, that church would be unclean, and no longer a holy place until it were properly reconsecrated. Many people also feel that someone dragged into a Satanic rite against their will (say, as a child) is still tainted and harmed by the act.
Does that mean that people who believe this way believe Satanism is more powerful than their faith? I don't know, and I don't care. What I care is that to them, an emotional harm has transpired -- even if the actual person involved in the rite doesn't share their belief. You can perceive an emotional harm even when you're not the direct target of the act in question. Witness Dean's response to corpse defilement above: I never said it was Dean's corpse being defiled, yet Dean still felt he had the right to judge that an emotional harm had transpired.
So now we're respecting a third party's assessment of an emotional harm inflicted by the first party upon the second party, in a situation where the second party is deceased and cannot (in the natural world) declare that any harm has occured. How far is that from someone feeling it's wrong to convert their ancestors?
On a different note (but sort of where I started this comment)... Some faiths include the concept of a struggle between forces of light and darkness. Some of those faiths see the end as foreordained, with light winning. Some see the opposite, with darkness foreordained to win. (Old Norse, anyone?) Some see the fate as something ultimately determined by the actions of the individuals on each side. And some see the overall fate as preordained (one way or another), but with each individual's fate up in the air subject to their own actions and the actions of others. Should any of these faiths be disrespected simply because it includes the concept that some individuals might lose the struggle?
See my comments above. No physical harm is done in either case. It's emotional harm in both cases. The only question is: what sorts of emotional harm are "acceptable"? And who gets to decide?
Quoted out of order, so that I can say: interesting you should mention this example...
We have to go down that slope. The only question is: how far do we go?
Why do we have to go down that slope? Because there are faiths which we collectively agree are harmful. Consider faiths which allow or even encourage cannibalism of persons who are (or recently were) alive in the natural sense. Consider also certain headhunter faiths, where slaying an enemy and shrinking and possessing his head is seen as a form of immortality for him, but also as a way for you to gain his cunning and power as a sort of totemic advisor. You may say, "Nobody practices those any more." Yes, but the reason, generally, is because people of other faiths stopped their practice.
Now let's step away from such obvious physical harm and get into more emotional harms. We have a freedom of religion clause in our country because state-controlled churches (or church-controlled states) were some of the problems that our forefathers fled when they came to this country. Yet over time, that clause has expanded to mean not "freedom to exercise your religion" but rather "freedom to exercise your religion whenever and wherever that won't offend people of other religions". Now you may think that trend has gone too far (I certainly do); but it has a lot of supporters. Why? Because somehow, in some way, they feel that observing the rites of a faith they do not share is offensive to them. (Yes, in some cases, the people who complain may have legitimate "establishment" concerns; but let's be honest, most such cases are about somebody getting offended, and making a federal case out of it.)
Our system is going to forbid some people from fully exercising their faith as they see fit. The tricky part is to find the way that minimizes physical and emotional harm for the greatest number in the process. And in the particular example Dean cites, I don't see the answer in terms nearly as black-and-white as he does.
Now please: can you justify an atheistic respect for the dead (who, from an atheistic perspective, are just flesh, just chemicals in organic compounds, sort of like the hamburgers in a restaurant) on anything other than emotional grounds? And as soon as we admit emotional harm as a valid concern, we have to decide whose emotional reactions are to be respected, and whose are to be ignored. This is an essential conflict in a tolerant society: how far can you extend your tolerance for all points of view before those points of view become irreconcilable, and one of them has to prevail?
Note that I'm not taking sides on the practice itself. I can easily apply all of my same arguments to the Mormon point of view (assuming I have understood Jason G.'s explanation properly -- and I thank him for explaining it). After all, if the physical rites are necessary for the spiritual transition, then denying the physical rites is an emotional harm.
I'm simply saying that there are different perceptions of emotional harm here, and we shouldn't blindly accept one perception as proper. Not even our host's.
Immaterial disrespect for my dead relatives - pointing at them and laughing, 'converting' them to a different religion, whatever, falls into the realm of purely emotional harm. I don't think it can be prohibited, but I reserve the right to be annoyed.
But is property rights what went through Dean's head when he called my point idiotic? Or was it, "Ewww, that's gross!" Or "That's disrespectful! Knock it off!" Or "Dude, that's just wrong." I'm betting on one of the latter.
The property rights theory isn't completely novel (witness debates over rights to ancient Indian remains, which can involve property rights aspects); but I'll admit, it's the strongest non-emotional argument I can imagine. Still, I don't think that's where most people begin when they denounce defilement. I'm sure most of them start with an emotional reaction, not a legal reaction.
Is it subjective? Yeah, it's subjective. Much of life is subjective. So pardon me if I think putting your grandmother's name on a card and performing a ritual to bless her in the afterlife isn't even a thousandth as offensive as digging up her grave and sodomizing her.
At some point I think people need to live and let live. If some people's religion requires them to go find the names of the dead and bless them and perform some sort of ritual to make sure they'll be okay in the afterlife, fine, get over it so long as they aren't bothering anyone.
Maybe I could have chosen a less provocative example to make my point; but as an example, it serves so well. Your invective proves my point: there are subjects that provoke an emotional response that can't be reasoned away. I just don't understand why one person's emotional responses are worthy of consideration, and another person's aren't. If one truly believes in an ashes-and-dust view of the body but also in a soul, then mucking with the soul may be far more profane than mucking with the body.
The complicated part, in this case, is the conflict between two equally sincere soul-centered views: one that holds that performing the rite dishonors the soul, and one that holds that skipping the rite endangers the soul. You would resolve this according to your standards, understandably enough; but that really doesn't resolve the conflict at all.
And anyone who can say this:
should take care in calling other people's statements dumb or offensive. While I actually agree with your point of view on this -- and I didn't hesitate to cheer when Uday and Qusay were knocked off, as another example -- a lot of people will find that statement pretty offensive.
Good point, Martin. And as a Mormon I am not offended by your analogy. But it's not apt, because no one is being dragged into a rite against their will in the case of Mormon baptisms for the dead.
As Jason G says:
So, if the Mormons are right, then no one is being coerced, because the spirits of the dead people on the other side get to choose whether or not to accept the baptism we perform for them. And if Mormons are wrong, then the baptisms are without force anyway, so it doesn't matter.
If Mormons offering your dead grandfather baptism means they are Mormon, then Jesus offering all the world forgiveness for sins makes all the world Christian. But it doesn't, because we all get to choose.
I missed that part of Jason's explanation. My bad: it was right there in plain sight.
Thanks for the clarification. And thanks for understanding the point I was trying to make, and not taking offense that wasn't intended. I appreciate that!
PS - If anyone is interested, the Mormon church has just announced that they are forming a committee with both Mormons and Jews to "examine and resolve remaining concerns" about Mormon proxy baptisms for Jewish holocaust victims. Here is the press release .
Here's how it works. Let's say that me and Jason G. are going to do baptisms for the dead. We go to the temple, get in the font (like a big tub or a little pool), and then I say something like 'Jason, I baptize you for great-great-grandpa Jason who is dead,' and then I dunk him in the water. And someone else standing by makes a note that we have done this for great-great-grandpa Jason. That's it. No bodies, no graves, etc.
(And the departed spirit of great-great-grandpa Jason either says Thanks or No thanks. Or nothing at all, if you believe Dean. But that's another story.)
What happens is that somebody stands in as proxy. So let's say that Dean dies (perish the thought!) I hope he doesn't mind me using him as an example.
Anyway, Dean has died. Were I a relative (or had permission from relatives), after a certain period of time I would submit his name (with dates of birth and death), and I (a living person) would be baptized on Dean's behalf. The geneological records in the Church's database would then show that Dean had been baptised.
Over on the other side of mortality, Dean has the option of accepting the baptism (and thus membership into the Mormon faith, etc.) or rejecting it. Everything is still his choice. But should he change his mind in the great beyond, he could not be baptised, having no physical body. As proxy, I did it for him, so it still counts.
Did that make more sense?