SobekPundit

Still Pissed Off About the Hawley-Smoot Tariff

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Get Ready to Be Offended

I want you to go to heaven. Yes, you. Does that offend you?

It would if you were Jay Tea.

He thinks it's offensive that Mormons want people to be saved. I don't really follow that logic; maybe you can make more sense of his argument than I can. Incidentally, he states, "they have taken to baptizing dead people," implying this is something of a new development, instead of a part of the religion that's been around for coming up on 200 years. As the comments to that post show, as well as Rusty Shackleford's response, Jay gets a lot of his facts wrong.

But you know, don't let facts get in the way of you getting offended.

Two gems from Rusty:

"I'm flattered. I'm glad I have neighbors with such concern. Much more worrisome is a society which produces religious faith that not only condemns non-believers to hell, but which is willing to help them on their way."

And:

"Just remember that South Park claims only Mormons go to heaven. Who are we to argue with that?"

Update: INFDL has some more information, especially as regards the Jewish part of the story. In case you didn't follow the links, part of the Wizbang story is that Mormons are baptizing Jews who died in the Holocaust, thus "stealing them of their identity." But at the INFDL link you find this cogent point:

"Plus, is it just assumed that mormon church members are stealing the names of jews, with no relation to themselves? Right down the street from my folks' house there lives a jewish convert to the mormon church. Yup, him and his whole side of the family were jews who converted to the mormon faith. They're very devout, and like most devout mormons they will do their own geneology and perform this particular practice for them. So if ancestor rights are presumably owned by descendants, then the whole argument concerning 'leave my ancestors alone' becomes much more complicated."

More:

Dan has a good line: "this is little more than expressing outrage because you heard the crazy guy down the street said a bad thing about you to his family in his living room."
Illuminaria sets out some helpful ground rules.
The Colossus thinks the practice harms no one.
Sortapundit backs up Jay Tea.
Bogus Gold agrees with Rusty, but in the comments, Kathy takes it a little more personally.
Dean Esmay doesn't see the harm.
Aaron's cc has an interesting angle. Is turnabout fair play?