Friends don't let friends Baptize post-mortem

[Lithp]

Why waste so much money on funerals in the first place? Why not just throw the guy in a ditch & let the wilderness sort him out?

[N. De Plume]

The real question is:  why the fuck do people care in the first place?

They honestly believe that they are helping your soul along in the afterlife. To them, it is an act of compassion, just as sure as any act that save actual lives here and now.

[kefkaownsall]

I hate when this happens.  Mitt Romney did it to his father in law

[Code Monkey]

They've been warned before.  And they've said they'd stop.  But, apparently, none of that really matters to them.

These baptism lists are compiled by individual members, not by any of the higher-ups. It's not fair to blame the church as a whole.

[Lithp]

And if I was a higher-up, that would be just what I'd claim, even as I implied that this is what the peons should be doing.

[Yaezakura]

Really, I don't see the point of getting all huffy over it. Even the Mormons only believe that the baptisms give the dead the option of accepting. I mean... no one gets offended when someone offers a prayer to the dead, even is of a different faith. How is it any different?

[TenfoldMaquette]

Really, I don't see the point of getting all huffy over it. Even the Mormons only believe that the baptisms give the dead the option of accepting. I mean... no one gets offended when someone offers a prayer to the dead, even is of a different faith. How is it any different?

Baptizing someone is an act that takes them into the faith they are baptized under. It's laying claim to someone, making them a member of the religious community, and thus heavily implying that the baptized individual accepts as valid the tenants of the church under which they are baptized. To do this to someone who is dead, who cannot consent to nor nay-say their actions, is to white-wash the deceased person's personal beliefs  - and thus to some extent, their identity - into something more compliant with what the church would prefer. It's horribly disrespectful and thoroughly tasteless.

[Askold]

Really, I don't see the point of getting all huffy over it. Even the Mormons only believe that the baptisms give the dead the option of accepting. I mean... no one gets offended when someone offers a prayer to the dead, even is of a different faith. How is it any different?

Well I guess the difference is that the Mormons were actually listing the deceaced as mormons. They had records saying that these dead people had converted to Mormonism after their death.

So even if they claim that the dead are merely given an option they still claim that they had in fact accepted and are now mormons. This is taking advantage of people who have no way to defend themselves. (Well other than coming back from the dead to claim their revenge...)

[Lithp]

What I just don't understand is why people are questioning why people who obviously value symbolic gestures are offended at mere symbolic gestures.

[Eniliad]

I know that if I became noteworthy in some way, I'd hate to have my final rest disturbed so my bones can be dunked in water just so some Mormon ... priest? Whatever the equivalent is... can get their spiritual rocks off. It's bullshit.

Well, obviously I couldn't hate it. I'd be dead. But you know.

[Yaezakura]

I know that if I became noteworthy in some way, I'd hate to have my final rest disturbed so my bones can be dunked in water just so some Mormon ... priest? Whatever the equivalent is... can get their spiritual rocks off. It's bullshit.

Well, obviously I couldn't hate it. I'd be dead. But you know.

Uh... the baptisms are done by proxy. As in, a Mormon individual acts as a stand-in for the ceremony. They're not digging up corpses and dunking them in a tub of water.

[Eniliad]

Ohhhhhhhh.........

Okay, that's less horrific than I thought at first read.

Still mightily disrespectful, though.

[Lithp]

I thought they just kind of threw it on the tombstone.

[e13]

I thought they just kind of threw it on the tombstone.

I'm picturing a bunch of Mormons running down the rows of a graveyards, flinging holy water at all the gravestones while they sing the theme to Pokémon. 

[Eniliad]

I thought they just kind of threw it on the tombstone.

I'm picturing a bunch of Mormons running down the rows of a graveyards, flinging holy water at all the gravestones while they sing the theme to Pokémon. 

Gotta catch 'em all!