Elie Wiesel calls out Mitt Romney on dead Jew baptisms.

[crazy canuck]

  You got caught saying something stupid, so you are acting the weasel again, I see!  Even you can see that right?

No, silly rabbit.  You ignore that being raised in religion and being born into a religion are the same thing.  Of course if one is born in a family that has no particular religious beliefs the child will probably follow suit.  Also you ignore the simple truth that some people are in fact born into a religion - literally.  But you cant see that because of the particular ethnocentrism you were born into....

[CountDeMoney]

Not because I like to offend Jews, or Holocaust survivors, but because I think these kind of bizarro religious exercises are pretty funny and deserve more attention.

No, you like to offend Jews.  You've demonstrated that before, usually by predicating it with "not because I like to offend Jews...", Costanza.

It's not like the Jews don't have their own set of religious functions that are just as logically bizarre, if not so outwardly offensive to non-Jews.

What do the Jews do to offend you?  Not answering the phone on Yom Kippur?

I think they are the only ones to at least try to answer the logical dilemma of salvation for the innocent but ignorant.

Stalin had his ideas, too.

[Malthus]

How is it in any way "the same"? 

It offends them yet we keep on doing it.

Can you see any distinction between repeatedly telling off-colour jokes to an audience when you've been told some find them inappropriate, and telling people that honour killings are bad?

I can think of some. 

[Admiral Yi]

Can you see any distinction between repeatedly telling off-colour jokes to an audience when you've been told some find them inappropriate, and telling people that honour killings are bad?

I can think of some.

I can think of quite a few, just as I can think of quite a few differences between those two and proclaiming a dead Jew baptized. 

My point, and it seems now you agree, is that a party taking offence is not in and of itself enough for us to judge an act as something to be condemned.

[Malthus]

Yes, i am addressing the issues raised in the thread, not just issues you have raised in the thread.  Not everything I write will be about you.

Seems at least somewhat logical to assume that you are not just blathering generally when you respond, directly, to me and quote me.

Here, again, you are using terms I am not sure I understand.  "Other peoples' dead" is one of them.  Who owns the dead?  At what point to they get to say that prayers (or other religious observances) for their dead are "offensive" in more than the "I am personally offended" sense?  What if the "other people" disagree?  What if some are offended by the religious rite and others are not?  Is one offended person enough to make the religious rite "offensive?"

You don't understand how people have dead relatives? 

I don't much care if people are offended by actions of others that are not intended to offend, and would not offend the "reasonable person" on whom we hand so much of our law.  It will happen whether I care or not, of course.

Versus

Exactly the point I made!

...

Quite so - and both practices have been rejected by the respective churches.

Which is it? Something no reasonable person would find offensive, or something that is so obviously offensive that the Mormons themselves have rejected it?

As to the "reasonable person" - seems to me you are using that as a code-word for your own opinion. Given that the Mormons themselves acknowledge it's offensive, what are you basing your opinion on?

[crazy canuck]

My point, and it seems now you agree, is that a party taking offence is not in and of itself enough for us to judge an act as something to be condemned.

What do you think makes an act worthy of condemnation?

[Martinus]

Incidentally, if you want to point fingers, the practice of baptising babies who are unable to consent is infinitely more offensive and violating an individual's religious freedom than what Mormons are doing.

What exactly is the violation of religious freedom involved in infant baptism?

Are you kidding me? If it violates someone's religious freedom when they are baptized into a religion without their consent once they are dead, surely this is a greater violation when this is done to them while they are still alive.

What is a greater violation? Having sex with a corpse or having sex with an infant. Both are unable to consent but the latter is clearly much more horrible.

[Berkut]

How is it in any way "the same"? 

It offends them yet we keep on doing it.

Can you see any distinction between repeatedly telling off-colour jokes to an audience when you've been told some find them inappropriate, and telling people that honour killings are bad?

I can think of some. 

But wouldn't this be more like telling off color jokes in private where the only people listening all say they love them their off color jokes?

It's not like the LDS is going around beating people up over what they are doing - absent someone going and asking, there probably isn't even anyway to find out if your deceased relative is on some piece of paper (or computer disk) somewhere as being posthumously baptized.

I don't think it is a great analogy for that reason. The LDS would be perfectly content to keep all this completely out of the public eye, so far as I can tell.

Would you be upset if I told you I was writing down the name of your great grandfather on my personal list of Berkutian worshippers? Or better yet, would you be offended if I did so and didn't even tell you about it?

[crazy canuck]

Are you kidding me? If it violates someone's religious freedom when they are baptized into a religion without their consent once they are dead, surely this is a greater violation when this is done to them while they are still alive.

What is a greater violation? Having sex with a corpse or having sex with an infant. Both are unable to consent but the latter is clearly much more horrible.

Wow, baptizing an infant is just like have sex with the said infant?  Once again you are the master of analogies.

[Admiral Yi]

What do you think makes an act worthy of condemnation?

Plenty of things, but in this context whether a reasonable person would take offense.

[Martinus]

Are you kidding me? If it violates someone's religious freedom when they are baptized into a religion without their consent once they are dead, surely this is a greater violation when this is done to them while they are still alive.

What is a greater violation? Having sex with a corpse or having sex with an infant. Both are unable to consent but the latter is clearly much more horrible.

Wow, baptizing an infant is just like have sex with the said infant?  Once again you are the master of analogies.

Wow, you are just master of logic.

If I am saying that A is to B as C is to D, that does not mean I am saying A is similar to C.

Edit: And btw, the fact that you are a father of a child you are having sex with does not make it somehow permissible.

This all boils down to a simple fact we have rehashed thousands of times before when talking about religion - religions are allowed to do shit noone else can get away with if they are old enough and "it's a part of a tradition". Whether it is mutilating little boy's dicks or painfully slaughtering animals or violating religious freedom and autonomy of babies because "they are born into religion" (whatever that means), they get away with it. Mormons and scientologists get a lot of crap not because their crap is more offensive and weird but because they haven't been around for as long as the other, older scams.

[Berkut]

Not because I like to offend Jews, or Holocaust survivors, but because I think these kind of bizarro religious exercises are pretty funny and deserve more attention.

No, you like to offend Jews.  You've demonstrated that before, usually by predicating it with "not because I like to offend Jews...", Costanza.

No I haven't, and you saying so doesn't make it so Crankypants.

So there.

It's not like the Jews don't have their own set of religious functions that are just as logically bizarre, if not so outwardly offensive to non-Jews.

What do the Jews do to offend you?  Not answering the phone on Yom Kippur?

Not a thing, I don't find much of anything they do offensive. A very passive religion, compared to most.

Not keen on the selling military secrets to the Chinese though!

I think they are the only ones to at least try to answer the logical dilemma of salvation for the innocent but ignorant.

Stalin had his ideas, too.

Some of them were pretty good, too.

[Malthus]

Can you see any distinction between repeatedly telling off-colour jokes to an audience when you've been told some find them inappropriate, and telling people that honour killings are bad?

I can think of some.

I can think of quite a few, just as I can think of quite a few differences between those two and proclaiming a dead Jew baptized. 

My point, and it seems now you agree, is that a party taking offence is not in and of itself enough for us to judge an act as something to be condemned.

Certainly I'd agree. It isn't an entirely subjective test. That would be drawing the net far too widely.

That being said - it isn't entirely free of subjective factors either. You look to the entirely of the situation.

The example you gave of proclaiming honour killings a bad idea is a good one. Irrespective of the beliefs of anyone, is there a good policy reason for this? Sure. Murder is against our laws. Given that fact, whether someone finds it subjectively a good idea or not is irrelevant. The subjective beliefs of those who think honour killings are a good idea are trumped.

Contrast with baptizing dead Jews. Some mormons think it's a good idea, but objectively? It makes no difference. OTOH people generally accord the presumed wishes of dead folks and actual wishes of their relations a certain amount of deference in matters such as organ donations, burial rites and the like. It is a safe presumption that those who have died in one faith did not wish to convert to another, absent evidence to the contrary. Therefore, the subjective beliefs of those thinking it's a good idea are trumped. 

[crazy canuck]

Or better yet, would you be offended if I did so and didn't even tell you about it?

I am not sure that works in this context.   Isnt' Seedy's argument based on the fact that is public?  If you want to make a list of Berkutian worshipers and kept it private I would think about this issue differently  - and perhaps suggest a mandatory Psych assessment but that is getting off topic.

[Malthus]

How is it in any way "the same"? 

It offends them yet we keep on doing it.

Can you see any distinction between repeatedly telling off-colour jokes to an audience when you've been told some find them inappropriate, and telling people that honour killings are bad?

I can think of some. 

But wouldn't this be more like telling off color jokes in private where the only people listening all say they love them their off color jokes?

It's not like the LDS is going around beating people up over what they are doing - absent someone going and asking, there probably isn't even anyway to find out if your deceased relative is on some piece of paper (or computer disk) somewhere as being posthumously baptized.

I don't think it is a great analogy for that reason. The LDS would be perfectly content to keep all this completely out of the public eye, so far as I can tell.

Would you be upset if I told you I was writing down the name of your great grandfather on my personal list of Berkutian worshippers? Or better yet, would you be offended if I did so and didn't even tell you about it?

From what I understand, the geneological records are public.