Sheesh. Do the LDS have an Anti Defamation League?
That’s such an enormously rude and insulting thing to say, which I suppose is the point of saying it. I guess you feel you have to even up the outrage in order to make it better all around. (Incidentally, please spare me the feigned innocence of “how is it insulting?”. You calculated it to be hurtful.) At any rate, Christianity is a proselytizing religion, and so it is only natural that its followers would pray for the conversion of Jews — and atheists for that matter. I certainly pray for yours.
I think their main objection is that it’s a step in the wrong direction. It’s also an indirect endorsement of attempts to convert Jews, which haven’t always been voluntary.
Yes, it’s a slight to Zoroastrianism, which may have been the first monotheistic religion, although not a notably proselytizing one.
i don’t think someone praying for my enlightenment about the supernatural is insulting exactly, but it seems awfully condescending. To me it says, “Gee, I really hope that you can achieve my level of enlightenment.”
In the chapter Is Only Rome Right? of his book Crossing The Threshold of Hope, I thought Pope John Paul II came within a hair of saying, “You others are all Roman Catholic down deep, but you just don’t know it yet.”
Are our Yiddish brothers and sisters still on Jew1.1?
what?
I’m a Jew and it doesn’t bother me any. Naturally people in religions think they are correct and wish to convert others, for their own good (Judaism itself is of course an exception to this, in that Jews don’t seek converts and in fact believe that non-Jews can be just as “good” as Jews - but we can’t expect others to have the high intellectual and ethical standards we Jews have 
).
I can see why it bother other people though - it is a matter of history. Catholic attempts to convert Jews have a long and unhappy history to 'em. The move seems to be a regression to a not-so-distant past in which Catholics officially viewed Jews not only as wrong, but also as bad (I believe the term was “perfidious”).
I just found out today that “perfidious” doesn’t mean what I thought it meant.
I means “faithless” or “without faith”, but I thought it meant “treacherous”.
Granted- “perfidious” could be taken as “unfaithful” or “infidel”, but it could
also just mean “unbelieving”.
Alas, setting aside the words used, the actual behavior towards Jews by Christians has been pretty abominable.
<My bolding>
Please stop doing this. Just the other night I was walking down my passage when this voice out of nowhere said, “Psssst, Mass at 7am tomorrow, be there, and BTW, Liberal says howdy.”
Crapped myself, I did.
Really? I too always thought it meant “treacherous”, and that’s how my Oxford dictionary defines it: “perfidy: breach of faith; treachery”.
Did it have a different meaning in within the Church?
The ADL found yet another excuse to be offended. Now, ain’t that a shock? :rolleyes:
Trouble is, so many people are already praying for Bryan that there’s a six-month backlog on the prayer line and the important stuff (world peace, a Red Sox division title etc.) isn’t getting through.
For a Red Sox division title all you need not pray. All you have to do is wait patiently-for what, thirty years? That’s with or without prayer.
I’m bemused by the whole concept of intercessionary prayer. It smacks of effrontery in reminding an Omniscient Being that He has somehow forgotten to use His Omnipotent Power to correct a simple oversight.
Well, maybe the blog from where I got my information was wrong. Imagine that!
If our original impression is correct, then yipes! Although “perfidious” has been dropped from the prayer for conversion anyway.
Yeah, at this point it is just of historical interest - a bit of the background to the issue, which perhaps explains why some Jews get annoyed by the conversion thing.
For me, it just makes sense that religions which have traditionally been prosthelytizing would seek converts. And I suppose it also makes sense that Catholics would seek to convert Jews, as in terms of religions, Catholicism sprang at least in part out of Judaism.
It is simply unfortunate that this particular call for conversion triggers such unpleasant antecedents.
Why is this such an issue? Pope calls for people to convert non-Christians to Christians? Gee, alert the press. Unless he’s organizing groups to stand outside temples and yell at worshipers I don’t see a huge problem. Maybe they can have special weeks for different religions like ‘Hug the Jewish’ week and ‘Preach to a Muslim’ week and ‘Have lunch with a Wiccan’ week. I don’t really see the problem here.
Are the Mormons still baptizing the dead by proxy? I remember that got some groups honked off.
I still don’t get it. You can baptize someone in your church even though they’re already dead and have no say in it? So, if they’re in hell because they’re not Mormon, and then they get baptized, do they suddenly get moved to heaven? What if they’re already in heaven, do they get moved to another section? What if none of their friends are Mormon and now they have to spend eternity in the company of strangers?
It’s insulting and disrespectful and arrogant but mostly harmless in practical terms (there’s no danger that the prayer will work). At worst, it shows Jews that the Pope really doesn’t respect Judaism as an equal or legitimate reason, so that’s going to strain Jewish relationships with the Church. The Catholic Church is rather tame in this regard, though. A lot of the Protestant Evangelical denominations are far more aggressive, intolerant and arrogant than this.
It’s not a horror, it’s just insulting and intellectually backwards and socially retarded. A belief that “only my religion is true” does not deserve to be respected just because it’s a religious belief. I can express an opinion that doctrines of exclusivity are stupid without necessarily thinking it’s a “horror” (though it definitely has been a horror historically).
Oh, if I was going to do that, I’d have to orchestrate hundreds of years of war, inquisitions, pogroms and a big ol’ heaping spoonful of Holocaust. That might even things out… a little.
Of note is the shock following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, at the hands of another Jew. We’re quite unaccustomed to that sort of thing - typically the killer is a Christian or Muslim, when they take a brief break from killing themselves and each other.
Besides, if you or the Pope wants to pray for the end of Judaism, I see no problem in saying outright I’d like to see the end of Christianity, and give some of my reasons. If you feel insulted, that’s not my problem. I seem to recall something in that “new” testament about turning the other cheek. Maybe your copy says “font”.
Yes. There are certain strictures in place and those LDS members who violate the strictures are subject to Church disciplinary action. In essence, the ceremony is a prayer.
The LDS belief is that the person in the Spirit World does have a say in it.
The LDS do not believe the departed are in Hell or that they get moved to Heaven at the time the departed accept the ordinance done on their behalf.
Apparently, it’s an issue because people don’t understand it. After all, plenty of people are running around praying for all and sundry to be converted to their denomination. Evidently, that’s not newsworthy. I guess it’s just more fun to castigate the Roman Catholic and LDS churches.