Church of Latter Day Saints baptizes Anne Frank

Jews don't baptize (obviously) and don't really believe in proselytizing.

So, while it's generally true that Christians would be pissed if the shoe was on the other foot, it wouldn't be on the other foot in this situation.

edited 24th Feb '12 11:41:46 AM by Jordan

Hodor

So, just grin and bear it, huh.

I'm a skeptical squirrel

But there is nothing to bear! It's just some few silly words anyway!

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Hmm. I really don't know what to say about this issue. It is religion-based and I am not religious in any way.

And baptism originally was a new Christian term for things that the Jewish religion had done since at least the time of the Second Temple, according to That Wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism

edited 24th Feb '12 1:26:18 PM by TamH70

Ah, OK, that explains it. Thanks.

As I said, I really cannot agree with this theological doctrine; but as for the intention itself, I do not consider it offensive or disrespectful. From their point of view, all that they did was giving Anne Frank a post-mortem heads-up about Mormonism...

It's a bit more complicated than that. The Baptism is certainly inspired from older Jewish rituals — that's a good thing, by the way, not a bad one — but given a whole new significance supernatural character. Personally, I think that the practice of posthumous proxy baptism is not in keeping with this and that it cheapens the whole concept, but it's no skin off my nose — Mormons do not subscribe to Nicene Trinitarianism, and this alone renders their baptisms entirely invalid as far as I am concerned.

edited 24th Feb '12 1:35:25 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

No idea. But that's not the point - Anne Frank in many ways is a personification of people who were persecuted for being Jewish. I think it's very disrespectful to say "we'll honour her as a personification of people who were persecuted for being Jewish, but it really is a shame that she was a Jew so let's change that." I'm sure that wasn't the intended idea, but it comes over that way.

And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)

Note: even if she had converted to Christianity, she'd have been persecuted. Judaism is not the Jewish faith, Judaism is an ethnicity, and anti-semitism was against this racial-cultural complex. The Nazis couldn't care less about your metaphysical stances. Therefore baptizing her changes nothing to her symbolic status.

I think this is a beautiful gesture, and that they should hurry up, if anything, with their genealogical investigations. That said, an atheist Jew and a spiritual WASP wrote an interesting piece on live baptism which needs to be heard to be believed, and I fear some of the misaimed hatedom may be under the misguided impression that something similar was thurst upon the late Anne...

I understand they would be upset, then. Truly, it would be a desecration of her memory.

edited 24th Feb '12 1:54:40 PM by MarkThis

No, you're exactly wrong on terminology. "Judaism" is the term for the religion, as opposed to "Jewish ethnicity" or, as the Nazis put it, "Jewish race". The Nazis couldn't care less about Judaism per se, they simply persecuted everybody of Jewish descent.

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But his point is still right. It's just the terminology that was wrong.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

"Gesture" is a bit of a stretch. It's essentially cooking the books to make the Mormon church look even bigger, as if the youtube ads weren't enough of a pitch.

I'm a skeptical squirrel

What.

What indeed. That's not something that actually enters any statistic, it's just church internal magical jumbo wumbo.

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Well, churchgoers are basically like shareholders, so....

I'm a skeptical squirrel

As far as it goes, Anne Frank could have been sent to the camps even if she were Mormon. Aside from her Jewish Ethnicity, she could (possibly) have been sent for being a Moron.

(N.B. I'm not sure if there were any Mormons sent to the camps, but I am sure that Jehovah's Witnesses were. Thus, it would not surprise me to assume that Mormons would have been listed as "undesirables".)

edited 24th Feb '12 2:26:58 PM by OscarWildecat

Please spay/neuter your pets. Also, defang your copperheads.

Jehovah's Witnesses were persecuted for their doctrine of rejecting conscription. I don't think Mormons have anything similar. Mind, given what special place the Mormons give to America and specifically the USA in their theology I think they might have been persecuted for that, if there had been enough back then for the Nazis to form a coherent policy. But as it is, there weren't.

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Ah. Thanks for the info.

Anyway, I guess my original point was that if a person thinks "If only the poor girl was [x] instead of a Jew..." my response would be "Think again."

edited 24th Feb '12 2:38:38 PM by OscarWildecat

Please spay/neuter your pets. Also, defang your copperheads.

From a quick look on Wikipedia (again, sorry), there does seem to be a big following of the LDS in Germany. Well, at least they have at least one temple, unlike France for example. Don't know how long that presence was there for though...

Yeah I think that's recent, or post-war, at least. But missionary activity here seems to be on a high these last years... I've heard of LDS missionaries basically on every university where I have friends, including my own...

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One of the current Apostles, Dieter Friedrich Uchtdorf, lived in Nazi occupied territory as a child. His family joined the church when he was a child, but I don't know if it was during or after the war.

edited 24th Feb '12 3:06:33 PM by CDRW

I actually chatted with a couple of them (LDS missionaries) on Paisley High Street one afternoon. Very earnest young men, clean cut, presentable. I found them strange, like all other religious type people but they were willing to talk about things outside their comfort zones, which is a damned sight more than most priests of other persuasions I have came across.

{Off-topic. This isn't a Yack Fest thread. —Madrugada

edited 24th Feb '12 7:08:20 PM by Madrugada

We do not intend to upset anybody, we do not intend to force our religion on anybody else.

We are just trying to do what we believe will help those who have so suffered.

What a lot of you have had to put up with is The Theme Park Version of the LDS faith.

If you want any of my avatars, just Pm me I'd truly appreciate any avatar of a reptile sleeping in a Nice Hat Read Elmer Kelton books

Has this just happened? Because I'm getting a really strong sense of de ja vu from this.

I disaprove of this, if only because something that would make me very angry if it were to happen to me.

Am I a good man or a bad man?

This is evidently the ninth time.

"Roll for whores."

Dont worry guys.

Stephen Colbert proxy circumcised all the dead mormons so it balances out.

Ever since I left the Mormon church, the practice of proxy baptism has bothered me for a reason I couldn't quite articulate, and I think I've figured out what it is.

By itself it's harmless, but it speaks to their willingness—their insistence—upon imposing their religion upon everyone, whether or not that person shows any interest. That same attitude is behind things like the Prop 8 fiasco. And now with Mitt Romney running for President, does anyone really doubt that if elected, he would use the office to enshrine Mormon behavioral doctrine into U.S. law? You can't even escape these people when you're dead.