Baptism and saying “God bless you” are not remotely similar. According to the CJCLDS, Weisenthal is actually a member, and has accepted Jesus as his personal Lord & Taylor, acknowledged the prophecy of Joesph Smith, and is living on planet Jesus or whatever. If Weisenthal had had any desire to do any of these things, he plenty of opportunities to do so. The people doing this are asserting a control over someone else’s soul. You don;t have to believe in a soul to be offended by that.
How about if I go to a Baptist cemetery and swap Darwin fishes for all the crosses? No harm, no foul, right? After all, I am firmly convinced that Christianity is a crock, and so making it look like the dead person wasn’t a gullible fool only compliments his memory.
BTW, forcible conversions did not just happen in the Middle Ages. In the 19th century a Pope kidnapped a Jewish child and made him a Catholic. In any case you, like the Mormons, obviously feel you know more about what Jews feel than we do.
Reminds me of a saying to use in case of a false sense of satisfaction: it’s like peeing your pants. The unstated follower: a nice, warm feeling, but it ain’t gonna last.
Mormons do claim it affects Mr. Wiesenthal, or they wouldn’t do it. If he specifically expressed an opinion against retroactive baptism, doing so would be disrespectful. I don’t think it’s necessarily disrespectful just because he’s a famous dead Jewish person.
I wasn’t aware of that–I thought the church itself was doing it officially, if it’s just some schmucks, then I retract the stuff about the church lying.
Yes, it is. It is considered a sign of disrespect to “baptize” someone without their consent (and presumably against their will). That’s why Jews are upset about it. Why else would they be upset about it, after all, if they didn’t consider it disrespectful?
The “default” position is that a person who has lived their whole life and died in one religious tradition did not want to change religions. Otherwise, somewhat logically, they would have changed religions while they were alive, no?
(Replying to this one, although others made the same point) All I said was that it’s a bad analogy because pissing on someone is, in general, considered a sign of disrespect whereas baptizing someone is, in general, not considered such.
The example of forced conversions of Jews throughout history is a better analogy, IMO, even though in those cases, the Jews were still living.
In any case, I think the best analogy is when people from other religions pray for you. Basically, it does no harm, who cares?
RS
It’s an inherently illlogical position. It rejects free will - in the case of a baptised adult who has lived a long life yet chosen (or did not, for whatever reason come to believe) the faith in question. If the choice is important, then baptism of this kind (even if, as I believe i’ve heard before, it’s more of an “option” to the baptised spirit rather than enforced) negates that, because it’s outside the period of choice, and so pointless. If the choice isn’t important, then the creation of beings who can, through free will, reject that faith, is a monstrous crime.
Not to mention that it makes life pointless beyond that life itself. Which as an atheist I can’t really complain about, but seems somewhat un-Christian.
“Hello Moishe, I hope that you find Jesus.”
“Well, thank you, but I’m really not interested and I’m secure in the Jewish faith. Thanks though.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m still going to pray that you find Jesus.”
Still a dickish thing to do.
The ones who gave in. The ones who refused, not so much.
If someone prays for me that are not saying anything about my beliefs or my feelings. That isn’t the case here.
I agree it’s a dickish thing to do, similar to continuing to pray for someone after they’ve asked you not to. I don’t think it’s a cause for outrage, which, according to the OP, is how the Jewish organizations feel.
I don’t think I’m a Voyager-level debater, but I’ll try anyway. I don’t think the Mormons are saying anything about Wiesenthal’s beliefs or feelings. But, if you disagree, then I’ll say that someone who prays for you, knowing that you’re of a different (or no) religion, is saying the same thing about your thoughts and feelings that the Mormons are saying about Mr. W.
Maybe the Mormons involved are offended by all those Jews who keep banging on about how Mormons are NOT god’s chosen people, and never can be? You can see how that would be considered disrespectful?
Mormonism is a religion - you should not be surprised when it’s adherents spout a bunch of lunatic nonsense. Apparently it’s a fundamental human right. At least they aren’t waging a holy war, for which I for one respect them.
Perhaps if you had a cite for Jews saying that about Mormons…
And the bar is lowered once again. 
Weisenthal may have been secular, but like many secular - or atheist - Jews, he still defined himself as a Jew. And baptizing a Jew is a sign of disrespect.
Besides, Jews don’t think of other religions as “wrong”; they think of them as “not ours”. Judaism was the religion Weisenthal didn’t practice, not Mormonism.
Why would anybody find it offensive that Jews say that they’re the Chosen People? It means that they were chosen to bear a burden and that everybody else on the planet can be just as righteous in God’s eyes by doing even less (much less) than Jews are obligated to do.
Seems like an odd thing to become upset about.
I’ll take a wild guess and assume that, like many, you don’t actually know what is meant by “the chosen people” and think it is an expression of inherent superiority on the part of Jews.
Would it surprise you to learn that it means no such thing? That, under Jewish theology, a good non-Jew is just as “righteous” under the Noahide laws as the most observant Rabbi?
I sense an excluded middle here …
Edit: ninja’d by Finn. D’oh!
This has nothing to do about disrespect for the dead guy. It’s about disrespect for the religion that claims him. or the religion of the family that claims him, depending on who finds out and takes more offense. It’s a claim that the other religion somehow can’t take proper care of the person in the afterlife.
I agree that it’s all pretty silly, but then again I’m an atheist and I think everything related to religion is silly. Apparently a lot of people disagree.
Hmmm, so you are arguing that maybe the views of a small but high profile religion might be misunderstood? By golly, you might be on to something! I wonder if there might be any parallels in other small but high profile religions?
You know, that’s a lesson I am going to take away from this thread - don’t be offended by wacky but ultimately harmless religious views. Mormons probably think that a good Jew is just as “blessed” as the most observant Mormon, particularly if you’ve done the baptism thing for them.