Post-deathbed conversion
By DougJ, Head of Infidelity January 27th, 2012
I have absolutely nothing against Mormons. I found Jon Hunstman and Mitt Romney to be far the least horrifying Republican candidates in this primary so far. But there’s no denying that Mormons do some weird shit (via):
Gawker’s substantial Mormon readership has come through for us: Two readers have sent us confirmation that Edward Davies, Mitt Romney’s militantly atheist father-in-law, was indeed posthumously converted to Mormonism by his family, despite the fact that when he was alive he regarded all religions as “hogwash.”
In a way, the Mormon weirdness might hurt more with real Applebees-going Americans than with Tebow-hating hippies like me. I don’t care about this kind of thing at all, who cares if some nut likes to pretend that his father-in-law loves Joe Smith’s imaginary sky-man? But people who have strong feelings about their own sky-men might get bugged by this and other stuff like it.
Posted in Election 2012
DougJ,
Think you want “deathbed” in the title.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:17 pm
A few years ago there was some big brouhaha when some Jewish families found out their relatives were being posthumously converted, wasn’t there? I seem to remember something like that.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:17 pm
@Steeplejack:
Thanks.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
By all means, create a religion that goes around hacking off other religions with shit like this. These idiots wonder why they’re so hated? Their lack of respect for others screams at the others. It’s self fulfilling prophecy for martyrdom.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
Agreed – nothing against Mormons whatsoever. But the practice of posthumous baptism strikes me as odd and a tad arrogant.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
I wonder if Mittens has the same fixation on baptizing Holocaust victims that the rest of the LDS does.
Something that some FL voters might want to know. Too bad no one in the media has the balls to ask.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
It beats carrying on about how he’s burning in hell forever.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:21 pm
That’s a pretty rotten (and strange) thing to do to someone, to disrespect their personal beliefs like that. At the heart of it, it seems like a refusal to accept one’s own belief that people who don’t have the right religion are going to Hell for all eternity. If that’s what you really believe, then go with it. Don’t try to find some cosmic loophole where you can “save” an unbeliever after their death just because you can’t deal with the fact that your beliefs are pretty inhumane. I don’t believe in Hell, but if it exists it’s not just for the people you don’t know.
Having said that, I will admit that I told my dad, who is a pretty militant atheist, that after he dies we might decide to have a totally Jesusy funeral just to play a joke on him. He had to admit that, pursuant to his own beliefs, he wouldn’t have the faintest idea what we were doing with him after his death, so he couldn’t really complaint!
But of course, the fundamentally decent thing is to respect someone’s beliefs and handle their funeral arrangements as they would have wanted, whether or not you believe they’re looking down from Heaven to judge whether you did it right. Also a fundamentally decent thing to do: respecting someone’s beliefs enough to refrain from “converting” them after their death.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
The joke in my family is we may possibly be Mormons thanks to some distant relative. Seems like a shot what thing with Romney, I think self worship is his big thing.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
@Emma:
You are absolutely right. I’m pretty certain the Mormons were posthumously converting those who died in the Holocaust. Considering they were murdered for being Jewish, it was particularly offensive that the Mormon Church tried to remove their very identity after death.
People can get very strange about religion.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
What, is this supposed to be something that all Mormons do or something? Because as it is, this just sounds like weird shit Romney’s family did as opposed to weird shit Mormons do.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
@Sentient Puddle:
It’s a common practice within Mormonism.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:24 pm
@Emma:
Worse than that, Holocaust victims:
January 27th, 2012 at 2:24 pm
As a nonbeliever, I find it troubling, but also kind of funny.
How would this work?
A few days into his Edward Davies’ arrival in hell did he get a tap on the shoulder from Satan informing him he was saved through posthumous baptism? Wow, what a relief that must have been.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
I have to say, even as an atheist, posthumous baptism strikes me as incredibly creepy.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
Doug, you ignorant slut.
If you can’t accept the word of Joseph Smith, reading scripture from golden tablets found inside a hat and seen by nobody else, clearly – you’re bound for hell and damnation! Get with the program! And wash your dirty magic underwear.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:26 pm
@Percysowner: It’s not the religious views themselves that cause the problem; it’s the insistence upon controlling others. Religious beliefs are just the vehicle through which quite a lot of control freaks exercise their illness.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:26 pm
Is it wrong to think that the evangelical base won’t have a real problem with this because Pop-in-law was an atheist? Had he been a Baptist, this story might have some traction.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:27 pm
Ask the Jews. They’re pretty steamed about it. I suspect most non-Mormon religious folks find this, at best, grossly insulting.
Clue to Mormons: It’s this kind of shit that got the mobs after you in the first place.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
I wonder whether the LDS have succeeded in converting Galactic Emperor Xenu yet?
January 27th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
Mitt Romney held a ceremony and had his previous self declared a conservative.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Apparently all the dead relatives on my Father’s side became Mormons a few years ago. Still waiting for my magic underwear to arrive.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:30 pm
@MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson: I demand a Battlefield: Earth/Battlestar Galactica crossover to find out.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:31 pm
@dmsilev: Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and a donkey on the way to Egypt. That’s…. obscene.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
And, for the general amusement:
http://www.livescience.com/181.....acism.html
January 27th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
At my husband’s grandfather’s funeral, who was Presbyterian, we had some serious issues with the branch of the family who was Jehovah’s Witness and wanted to hijack the funeral. It struck me as very strange, since, in life, the deceased wanted nothing to do with that religion.
But Mormons take it a step further.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:33 pm
@The Moar You Know: Sometimes the mob action is going in the other direction.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:33 pm
I hope they do this for me.
That way I cover all my bases and get to have my caffeine too. Sweet, sweet caffeine.
I’ll be hopped up in heaven, suckers!
January 27th, 2012 at 2:34 pm
@4tehlulz:
Yeah! But let it be a gay one. Like, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler finds love with Dirk Benedict’s Starbuck, where together they battle cylon psychlos in an alternate universe made of marshmallows and graham crackers.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:35 pm
@Villago Delenda Est:
Atheism is not a religion, so the father-in-law stuff shouldn’t upset anyone. As to any of the other stuff, all religions are equally wonderful and equally ridiculous.
Whether you want religions to be separate but equal, or one is better than another, is arbitrary, and a any notion of a religion “respecting” another is kinda meaningless.
Unless Mormons are forcibly converting real live people, I just can’t get exercised about any of this foolishness.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
As I mentioned over at Gawker yesterday, Mormons do this all the time. It’s not a conversion, it’s a baptism. The LDS church received a lot of negative publicity for posthumously baptizing holocaust victims and prominent dead celebrities. I read they even baptized Obama’s dead mother.
My husband’s brother converted and when I first met him he was asking all sorts of questions about my family, like my mother’s maiden name and her birthday and where she was born. He wrote it all down. I felt very uncomfortable but didn’t know why. I’ve since learned more about the Mormon religion and am sure he was asking so they could posthumously baptize her.
I shouldn’t care because I don’t believe what they believe, so whatever, you know? It’s like saying “abracadabra”—doesn’t mean squat. But I do find it a little presumptuous and offensive, to do this without even asking ME if I’d mind, or if I’d think my mother and father would have minded or if it’s something they’d want. It’s just WE DO THIS SUCK IT UP. That is the part I don’t like.
And I’m quite certain that the very LAST person my Mormon relatives would want to spend eternity with is my chain-smoking, martini-drinking, blue-streak-cussing mother. I quite certainly do not want to spend eternity with THEM. I can barely handle an afternoon. It’s like they’re brain dead. Everything is always WONDERFUL and just so gloriously superficial. It’s like they’re pod people. I’m not saying this is because they’re Mormon, but the rest of my husband’s relatives are normal people so perhaps that has something to do with it. So we talk about the weather and that’s about it.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
“Doooon’t…. convert me when I’m goooone…”
January 27th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
@The Other Bob: “A few days into his Edward Davies’ arrival in hell did he get a tap on the shoulder from Satan informing him he was saved through posthumous baptism?”
Mormonism doesn’t have a Hell, really. The reasons for posthumous baptism are theologically pretty complex.
(The temporal reasons are more obvious: to give people the chance to go through the temple rituals more than once.)
January 27th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
“If you convert me when I am gone, I am going to come back and tell people the truth about your secret worship of a demon made from pasta!”
January 27th, 2012 at 2:38 pm
@4tehlulz:
With a certain amount of Orgazmo fusion cuisine too, please.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:39 pm
@Southern Beale:
I shouldn’t care because I don’t believe what they believe, so whatever…
I am an athiest, so maybe I should not care if that was done to a family member, but I would care, especially since it was done all sneaky like.
I would kick his a**.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:40 pm
I might be o.k. with this. In the Mormon heaven, I’ll be remembering all the good shit that I have drunk! When I get my own planet, there will be some grapes grown, and it won’t be Manischewitz, you all.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
@The Other Bob:
Well exactly! If it’s nothing to be ashamed of or worry about, why the big secret? Why not just be upfront about it?
I suspect it’s one of their weird beliefs that the Baptists would really hate though—you know, you’re supposed to confess your sin and give your heart and life to Jesus and be “born again,” which is kinda hard if you’re dead and they’re doing this by proxy without your say. I suspect it’s one of those things the born agains would say proves Mormons are a cult and not real Christians.
I dunno, I don’t want to get into what people can believe, free country folks—you can believe whatever the fuck you want. Just don’t make ME believe it.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
A few years back thought GENI, the build-your-family-trre online site would be a good way of sharing some old family pictures with relatives.
I could associate the pictures with the apropriate ancestor and show how they fit together.
I ended up engrossed in tracing the history back. It is a very different way of viewing history, individual by individual, migration by migration, both time and space highly ordered.
When I got back to mad old Irish and Scots chieftains the best source was the Mormons. They’d investigated and baptized every one.
Seems like the Mormon afterlife has hoovered up every soul that can be found.
I ended up fin
January 27th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
@Brachiator:
You and I are not those who get all “hang these bastards high!” precisely because we don’t care about the foolishness. Other fools, on the other hand, DO get upset by them. Like I said, Mormons wonder why they’re hated? They take actions like this that piss other god-bothered types off something fierce.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
Not to worry. I’ve converted Mitt to the FSM by dunking his bobblehead doll in a plate of FSM goodness. I used extra parmisian to cancel out the hair spray.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:46 pm
So yeah, the last relative of mine who died had become a Mormon late in life due to the nurse who was caring for him. The nurse’s church took it upon themselves to baptize all our dead relatives. Thanks! At the funeral, this caused quite an uproar from the Protestant priest and other family members.
Amusingly, this same priest recently killed himself (in Bangor ME) when he was tipped off by the police that there was an investigation about his sexual molestation of children about to go public.
Yay Religion!
January 27th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
As Rep. Grayson said about the Florida primary, GP voters may have been born again, but they weren’t yesterday.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
@MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson: Oh fuck. The howling will be audible from Mars.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:51 pm
@kindness:
sweet! do you get extra pirate points for covert conversions? more ramen noodles in the afterlife?
January 27th, 2012 at 2:52 pm
@Brachiator:
It’s a belief system, just as religions are. But the offensive aspect isn’t about religion, per se, it’s about trying to forcibly make your dead relative over into something for which he had no time when alive. It shows a huge lack of respect for what he was as a person. I’d be just as offended if atheists began de-baptizing evangelicals after they died.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:53 pm
it’s kinda creepy, yes, but wouldn’t getting bent out of shape about it be a tacit admission that the mormons (i keep wanting to leave out the 2nd “m”) actually might be on to something? if you think that mormon rituals could actually have an affect on the souls of the departed, aren’t you saying that their theology is sound?
January 27th, 2012 at 2:53 pm
@artem1s: No but I gave the plate to the dogs afterwards. They thought it was absolute heaven.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:54 pm
@The Moar You Know:
We really ought to do this, for that reason, if no other.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:54 pm
The posthumous baptism thing is offensive because Mormons are putting a claim on other people’s dead relatives, and essentially telling survivors something they thought they knew the dead is false. And I am another atheist who finds it outrageous.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:54 pm
@blahblahblah:
No, Smith did not find the tablets inside the hat, the actual story is weirder than that. Smith’s main occupation to supplement meager farm income was that of (secular) lost treasure-hunter using seer-stones (whatever they are) which were placed inside a stovepipe hat Smith wore and which he claimed gave him the ability to see information needed to find treasures in reflections from the stones. But the seer-stones were distinctly different from the golden tablets themselves. There’s (surprise!) a glowing (brief 17-minute) biopic film of the Joseph Smith story at the Mormon Visitor Center at Temple Square in Salt Lake City which entirely omits anything about using seer stones or his (secular) treasure-hunting occupation, or for that matter anything other than positive influences he had in spreading word about the tablets and converting people to found the Mormon church. Unsurprisingly, it omits the troubling fact that Joseph Smith had a repetitive history of eventually harshly alienating a great many people he was involved along the way, both within the Mormon church movement and outside of it, not even counting the many other Christian churches and people who generically regarded him as an undesirable heretic and crank. It seems that Joseph Smith was often a rather unpleasant fanatic to deal with even aside from his messianic religious visions and proselytizing. All this is completely aside from the inherently fantastic nature of the golden tablets story, and the fact that somehow, no one except Smith himself ever saw the plates themselves (the Angel Moroni prevented anyone but Smith from seeing them); all people such as Martin Harris who helped Smith allegedly “translate” the plates saw was Smith’s transcription of the “reformed Egyptian” script the tablets were allegedly written in. To be fair, in the somewhat analogous Old Testament account of Moses and the stone tablets containing the ten commandments, no one but Moses ever saw those, either, but nevertheless Joseph Smith’s story is that of a young man who was powerfully charismatic to some (enough to sell them on such a fantastic story), but simply an untrustworthy, treacherous crank to many others.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:56 pm
So my body could be moldering in its grave, when suddenly “I” am reconstituted and find myself in Mormon heaven? Whoa.
January 27th, 2012 at 2:59 pm
@kindness:
isn’t that considered cruel and unusual punishment for your dog? I mean, I certainly wouldn’t want to eat anything Mitt’s head had been in, even if it was just a booblehead. ;D
January 27th, 2012 at 2:59 pm
@cmorenc:
In sum, Joseph Smith had a magic pebble and an invisible friend and found these wonderful golden tablets. But then he lost them again.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:00 pm
@RSA:
You know, there’s got to be at least one great Zombie Mormons Meet Jane Austen novel in all of this….
January 27th, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Since I’m an atheist, this baptism-of-the-dead bunkum should just crack me up. And it does, kind of, but somehow it also pisses me off. Can’t explain it rationally; I’m also Jewish, so maybe that’s part of it. I feel like sputtering, “How dare they!” except my sputter isn’t very convincing.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Smith couldn’t spell either, and as a result people don’t realize that the two great world religions are one.
It is the angel “Macaroni.”
January 27th, 2012 at 3:09 pm
Dude, knock off the humor. I can’t explain this joke to my coworkers and they are wondering why I’m cracking up.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:09 pm
@MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson:
And a hat. Don’t forget the hat. Without the hat there’s nothing.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:12 pm
@Villago Delenda Est:
Mormons are not “hated” because their beliefs. Most people don’t even know what Mormon beliefs are.
The dumbasses who hated Catholics a few years ago now have problems with Mormons because their ignorant religious tribalism naturall kicks in and leads them to view other branches of Xtianity as inauthentic.
But let me be clear here. There is nothing that Mormons currently do that “cause” other religious people to hate them. This is as bigoted as if someone were to suggest that there might be something that Jews or Mooslims do that “naturally” or understandably leads other people to hate them.
And while I understand part of it, it’s just funny to see fellow Balloon Juicers creating these ad hoc rules for religious segregation, with the weird expectation that if religions just pretend that other faiths don’t exist, then there will be no friction. If only it were that easy.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
@cmorenc:
And glasses. You forgot the glasses.
He had the magic seer stones which were named Ummun and Thrumin or something like that, and he put them in a hat and the he put on the magic glasses and stuck his face in the hat and that’s how he interpreted the fake Egyptian hieroglyphics of the golden tablets.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:14 pm
@Hungry Joe: It doesn’t have anything to do with religion, you know. It has to do with agency. These sob’s are imposing their own worldview on people who cannot fight back. They deny the person’s KNOWN beliefs and force theirs on them.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:15 pm
@RSA:
You find yourself on a planet with all your Mormon descendants who neither drink nor smoke nor cuss nor have sex except to procreate and basically just talk about the weather all day.
Sounds like my idea of HELL.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:15 pm
there was good reason that lincoln sent the army out to watch the cricket stompers and install gun batteries facing towards SLC. a pretty good explanation of LDS fundamentalism and early history can be found in the krakauer (sp?) Under the Banner of Heaven.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
@Culture of Truth:
I like it!
January 27th, 2012 at 3:18 pm
@Southern Beale:
So Joe Smith was The Cat In The Hat as well? This explains numerous things.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:18 pm
Mormons believe that any infant/embryo that is miscarried will be waiting for its parents to raise it when they arrive in the hereafter. I don’t see why, given this, that victims of posthumous conversion can’t take it up with the convertor once he/she leaves this life and beat the s#*t out of them.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:18 pm
As is too often the case with today’s Republicans:
The problem is lack of consent. Mitt and other faithful Mormons believe they’re doing something meaningful, against the will of the person they’re “baptising”. It isn’t less an act of aggression against that person’s dignity just because they’re wrong about the meaning of their “baptism”. It’s all the more awful, because they truly believe that they can get gentiles into Heaven against our own chosen beliefs. Not only are they right, they know better than I do what’s good for me, and there is no safe word.
Domination and submission: pls add leather pants.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:18 pm
I’ve just conducted a ceremony and converted Mitt Romney to Pastafarianism.
Yes, it’s against his will and not what he wants, but really, what standing can he have to complain? At least I had the courtesy to convert him before his death.
I do insist, though, that from now on news reports identify him as the first Pastafarian candidate for the Republican nomination.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
@Brachiator:
My attitudes are not in play here. I’m describing how others view this particular aspect of Mormonism.
Yes, they do things that create animus in others, unnecessarily in my opinion. Others do take severe offense at these Mormon practices. These practices are disrespectful toward others’ beliefs, and they react with animus at specific practices that are exclusive to Mormons.
Trying to deny this is turning a blind eye to a very real issue for a great many people, an issue that colors their perception of Mormonism and its followers.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
@The Other Bob:
Those who are converted to Mormonism after their deaths will just self-deport out of hell, or whatever pagan paradise they otherwise wound up in.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:21 pm
I learned everything I know about the Mormons from Southpark.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:22 pm
@Southern Beale:
Urim and Thummim actually appear in the Bible as sacred stones or perhaps gems put into or attached to the high priest’s breast-plate. They seem to have been used in divination, although scholars disagree wildly about just what they were and how they were used. Joe Smith was clearly not without resources of self-belief.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:23 pm
My GOP voting, evangelical co-worker was shocked at how much of an uproar Mitt generated at his bible study.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:24 pm
@mellowjohn:
This is kind of my position. This is a very rude thing for the Mormons to do, and genuinely insulting when they do it to Holocaust victims.
But the people who really believe in [WHATEVER] are probably likely to be less offended than everybody else. If I were to ask my mother, for example, I think she would say that Mormon baptism has no effect on one’s immortal soul, whether carried out pre- or post-mortem, because the Mormons are just plain wrong, theologically speaking.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:24 pm
@MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson:
That’s “Uma Thurman” folks. Jeez! (Also, too, your Lronhubbardfan connection is now made.)
January 27th, 2012 at 3:30 pm
@Arclite: Unfortunately in one South Park episode, it is indeed Morman’s who are declared the one true religion.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:31 pm
It does reflect a basic and fundamental lack of respect for what anyone else believes. Everyone else is just objects to be rearranged as they see fit. Like flies to the wanton gods are we to the Mormons: they baptize us for their sport.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:33 pm
@Tripod:
What was said at this meeting of the godly? What hath the Mittflop wrought?
January 27th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
@cmorenc: I had heard that he bought/stole some kind of magician’s trick kit that contained some of the stuff he used to start the ‘19th Century version of Scientology’ (love that phrasing).
January 27th, 2012 at 3:37 pm
@Paul in KY:
I heard he was a long
gunconman.January 27th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
They tried to posthumously convert George fucking Carlin, for Joe Pesci’s sake. I mean, seriously.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
@cmorenc:
Excuse me, but I learned everything there is to no about bormanism from South Park. Get with the program!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEBPmY_5L4k
January 27th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
@RSA:
Dou you think they did a baptism of John Brown?
Or perhaps he was to friendly to those people…
January 27th, 2012 at 3:46 pm
@Villago Delenda Est:
Bullshit.
Mormon practices supposedly create an issue for other people. BFD. This frankly is as vile as saying that people who appear to be openly and flamboyantly gay create an “issue” for straight people, and so invite violence.
Again, the dopes who have issues with Mormons often have issues with Moolisms. Would you care to cite some of the things that Moolisms should stop doing so that they can be more accepted by Jeebus Loving Real Americans?
January 27th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik: Jiminy Cricket. The gob, it is smacked into library paste.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
@kindness:
I’ve only seen a few South Parks, mostly because my son loves it, but I love the one where the Mormons get their own wing in Heaven because they are so annoying to God & everyone else there.
January 27th, 2012 at 3:49 pm
@Brachiator:
What exactly is a Moolism?
January 27th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
@Brachiator:
I call bullshit. Their bankroll is the prime reason Prop 8 passed in California, and we’re still stuck cleaning up that mess years later. Fuck them.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:01 pm
@Villago Delenda Est: yeah, here I’d say you’re right. It’s Mormon’s relentless refusal to respect the validity of other beliefs that cause some of the animus, but they share that relentless refusal with lots of other faiths. Though I’m not aware of any other ones that posthumously baptise. I find that really offensive too, especially as regards the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. And since it’s Yom Hashoah and they were killed specifically for being Jewish it’s beyond merely “disrespectful”.
BTW, I’m agnostic.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:02 pm
@Brachiator:
Yes, yes, it’s exactly like that (rolls eyes), because all those flamboyant gay folk are so busy insisting that straight people are actually gay and referring to them as such after conducting dramatic conversion ceremonies over them. Having a little trouble following the thread of your own argument?
January 27th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
@MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson: I think it’s the mammon worship of large amounts of money. Coincidentally, Mitt’s a member of that church, too.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:04 pm
@shortstop:
Ah, I see. Well then, I don’t see what brachie’s problem is. Don’t all decent people hate greedy, corrupt wankers?
January 27th, 2012 at 4:05 pm
@shortstop:
I think he’s got his magic underpants in a twist.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:06 pm
What I have learned in the past few weeks is that Mitt Romney’s father was born in Mexico and his father-in-law was an atheist. How in the hell is he leading the GOP field for the presidential nomination?
January 27th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
@Brachiator:
What did you do this morning? Eat an extra bowl of obtuse?
No matter what YOU think, the fact of the matter is, this particular Mormon practice pisses people of other religions off. That is an objective, observable phenomenon.
Whether or not it makes any rational sense is totally irrelevant.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:11 pm
@MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson: Brach’s got a reflexive “argue energetically but pointlessly like a teenager against 89 percent of what everyone around him says” shtick and he’s stickin’ to it here.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
@shortstop:
So which one of the Slate wankerati is he?
January 27th, 2012 at 4:14 pm
Well, I do have a problems with Mormons and their beliefs. They have never repudiated their racists beliefs. In 1978, their profit received a ‘revelation’ that black people had atoned for their sin and black men could now hold the priesthood. The excerpts of letters from the Mormon elders admontioning Mitt Romney’s father for his support of civil rights spefically referred to church doctrine and warned that he risked God’s displeasure in supporting civil rights for “the negro”.
Their ‘church’ appeals to racists wingnuts and I don’t see any reason to pretend otherwise. They are not just another church.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:15 pm
@MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson: Dunno, I’ve moved on. I’m busily trying to figure out how someone can retroactively make me skinnier, fluent in more languages and able to sing on key after I buy the farm. There’s gotta be a percentage in this.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:18 pm
@shortstop:
I’ve got this little newsletter, which I neither read nor write, but which goes out in my name. You might find my prescription for precisely what you need in there…..
January 27th, 2012 at 4:19 pm
@trollhattan
Dude had Umma Thurman sitting on his head??
That explains anything.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:21 pm
@Sasha:
While I was aware of their regressive attitude towards accepting blacks in their church, Google failed to answer me whether they are now posthumously baptising the blacks they refused membership in their more openly racist past. I wonder if they have revised their chrono-baptismal policies or not?
January 27th, 2012 at 4:22 pm
@Brachiator: They can be as wa@Brachiator: They can be as wackadoodle as they please, they have the right, but they can’t demand people shut up and/or respect them for same. They’re fee to consider me damned for all eternity, I consider them wackadoole, seems fair to me. There’s a real gap between lack of respect for wackadoodlery and using wackadoodlery as justification for violence and denial of civic rights. Or is mockery and being pistol-whipped while tied to a fence in winter the same in your books? ckadoodle as they please, they have the right, but they can’t demand people shut up and/or respect them for same. There’s a real gap between lack of respect for wackadoodlery and using wackadoodlery as justification for violence and denial of civic rights. Or is mockery and being pistol-whipped while tied to a fence in winter or automatically targeted as dangers to the state by the NYPD the same in your books?
January 27th, 2012 at 4:32 pm
According to Wikipedia, their doctrine never stated that Black people wouldn’t be admitted to heaven. On earth, however, Black men were not considered worthy to hold the priesthood. There is no distinct clergy in the sense most people use it. All males 12 and older hold the priesthood and are eligible to serve the sacrament and give blessings etc…. My point is that this was a much bigger deal than most people realize. It’s not that Black men were denied entry to a seminary (which would have been racist enough), they were banned from performing even simple rituals that any twelve year old white boy could perform.
Then when it was no longer politically acceptable to be so overtly racist, Schazam!, god reveals to the mormon prophet that it’s all good now. Black people have done their time in desert for whatever supposed sin we were cursed for. Now we can eat at the grown-ups table. Coincidentally, just when they wanted to be admitted to the union, their prophet also received a very timely revelation that polygamy, one of the foundational principles of their faith, was no longer according to God’s plan.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:47 pm
@Rafer Janders:
Now that is funny.
January 27th, 2012 at 4:52 pm
@MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson:
I am intrigued by your newsletter and would like to subscribe…
January 27th, 2012 at 5:11 pm
@Rafer Janders:
Tonight’s my night for not proof-reading it and not talking to my top lieutenants about it, not to mention not printing it and not sending it out tomorrow.
January 27th, 2012 at 5:20 pm
@Brachiator:
(Cross reference to post at:
@Sasha:
People are making a big deal – rightly – about the racist content of some of Ron Paul’s newsletters. Let’s say that it turned out that he had been an energetic practicing member of an organization that banned blacks from full membership, on the grounds that they were fundamentally inferior, and deserved that designation because of something they had done. That Paul had not been just a nominal member but an energetic one, supporting it with 10% of his pre-tax income, and travelling to a foreign country to recruit new members for a couple of years. If this were to be revealed, there would be hell to pay, and rightly so.
Well, that’s true of Mitt Romney. He was in his thirties when “the new revelation” changed the doctrine concerning blacks.
Why is this suddenly OK, and unacceptable to mention as evidence of a fundamental character flaw in Romney, just because the organization adds “and that’s not just our opinion – God told us so!”
January 27th, 2012 at 5:22 pm
There are more than enough reasons to despise Mitt Romney that it’s actually a little sad that there are probably a large number of people who will fixate on his religion instead of, you know, his “let them eat cake” Lifestyle of the One Percent attitude.
Really, as long as your religious beliefs are not “I drink the blood of the innocents and string the entrails of small animals around my house”, I don’t think anyone should care what someone believes, as a general rule.
Romney has a million terrible things about him, but Mormonism isn’t one of them.
January 27th, 2012 at 5:26 pm
meh.
the only reason you juicers dont hate morons is that you have nevah lived next door to them.
Colorado blows but Mormons sukk….bigtime.
January 27th, 2012 at 5:44 pm
@Sasha: also too.
Mormons DO NOT BELIEVE in the any separation of church and state.
Jeebus wrote the constitution.
January 27th, 2012 at 5:48 pm
@MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson:
It is what you get when you combine a Muslim with a Hindu.
January 27th, 2012 at 5:51 pm
i just think Mormons are intentionally secretive, for good reason, about a lot of their practices, and i don’t think those kids in white shirts riding around on bicycles are going to tell you exactly what you’d be getting into in the end.
January 27th, 2012 at 6:05 pm
i had been wondering about the Mormon response to majic underwear and whether any of them talk about it or refute any of it, and i found this
January 27th, 2012 at 6:43 pm
Well, technically, I suppose I had no more choice in my baptism as an infant into the Roman Catholic Church than the deceased Mr. Davies had in his Mormon baptism. The only reason I’ve never bothered to ask for an official certificate of excommunication from the church is that I might want my remains buried in the family (Catholic)cemetery plot.
January 27th, 2012 at 6:46 pm
@Samara Morgan:
.
We’ve lived with you in our threads for years, Tokie.
January 27th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
My parents were skeptics, even tho they took me to the Presby Sunday school for a few years when I was really young. They (the Presbys) gave me a Bible, which I read, and found really unbelievable!!
Later, my parents joined with other religiously liberal folks in town and formed a Unitarian/Universalist fellowship, which is what you did when you couldn’t afford a minister.
Mom was more an agnostic, and Dad was more a total atheist.
Years pass. Mom gets COPD from Pall Malls, and stops smoking afgter it’s too late to really do much good. As she nears death, over about 4 or 5 years, she becomes totally atheist, and becomes more relaxed about her whole passage from this plane.
After she dies in Dad’s arms, in their home he built for the family, Dad begins to slide from atheist to agnostic, because he hopes he gets to be with her in some undefined afterlife.
I don’t know which of then I admire more. To think that Dad could keep house and feed Mom well enough for her to outlive the Dr’s estimates by years, well, unbelievable! Not a housekeeper type guy at all.
We saved Mom’s ashes, and poured them into the river at a place they both loved along with Dad’s ashes. Tears galore! No one really had a strong religious belief, there was no funeral, just a picnic, with everyone in town who was interested invited. Then the family, which was me and my wife, my bro and his family, and a few cousins drove down the hill to the waterfall, as dusk settled into the WVa mountains.
Sweet.
As an atheist, I would despise any Mormon who attempted to interfere with the impossible afterlife of these two lovers who only wanted to be together forever.
So there, Mitt! FU!!
And leave my Mom and Dad alone, you hear?!!
January 27th, 2012 at 7:07 pm
@cmorenc:
I saw that film while doing acid in 1976, surrounded by happy LDS types and their many children. They could not understand my giggling, and I barely made it out of there.
January 27th, 2012 at 7:21 pm
I’d rather they convert dead people than live ones.
Atheism FTW.
January 27th, 2012 at 8:52 pm
@cmorenc: Joseph Smith
Dum Dum Dum de Dum Dum Dum
Martin Harris Dum Dum Dum De Dum Dum Dum
His wife Smart smart smart de smart smart smart
January 27th, 2012 at 9:01 pm
@hitchhiker:
I had a similar experience: Arrived in SLC sleep-deprived and dessicated (no AC in my car back then). My friends said, “Perfect!”, gave me a beer, and hustled me over to the Visitor Center. Trippy, indeed.
January 27th, 2012 at 9:02 pm
@Sasha: Also there was a problem with growing the Mormon faith in other countries, especially in Latin America, where persons of African descent or with some Africa heritage was much more common.
Mormon Missionaries in Brazil had big problems trying to convert people, when they found out prevalent the race mixing was. It was a business decision, jus as it was political decision.
January 27th, 2012 at 9:16 pm
Umm. Hello? That’s kind of the point of this sort of stupid bullshit. “No one gonna pay attention to my cheesy weak-ass cult till I start infringing on the other cheesy weak-ass cults, so hey ho, let’s go! Convert the dead, they can’t complain.”
Like stealing the garden gnomes from the invalids.
ETA: Hey ho ETA! Thank you, ETA!
January 27th, 2012 at 10:03 pm