Baptising a Dead Atheist Pages 1 2 3 4 NEXT | |
thats disrespectful in the extreme. a friend of mine her grandfather was jewish and his rfanatically christian daughter gave him a christian funeral despite his wishes | |
One of my brothers is a mormon and I told him that if he (or his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren ect.) even so much as thinks about having me baptised, I will, out of pure rage, raise up and beat all involved with a two by four. As far as I'm concerned, it has nothing to do with the fact that it would be disrespecting the dead, I would be dead and thus it makes no difference as far as my corpse is concerned. For me its about respecting the choices that the dead made, how they lived their lives, because there is nothing more disrespectful than deciding that you know whats better for someone else better than they do. | |
They've been pulling this kind of shit for years and years. They got in the shit for baptising holocaust victims. Mormons do a lot of genealogical research and end up baptising their dead ancestors. | |
Religious rituals using one's name would be, but I suppose going to the site of someone's grave to do it would be considered grave desecration, which is a criminal offense in pretty much every country. Obviously using the remains themselves would be illegal as well. A third angle is if the relatives disagree with what happens and the religious rituals are public. Most countries find intentionally grieving others to be a criminal offense. Not in the US, because religious privilege includes crude insults towards others, but not vica versa, but for instance here, trying to claim someone belonged to your religion while he didn't and this grieves relatives a lot, it would fall under laws regarding slander. That would be possible because grieving relatives would be considered much more offensive and intrusive than 'normal' insults. Essential is that the insults intrude into the private sphere or damage someone. Convictions are relatively rare, but show a pattern that if someone feels really grieved or is objectively damaged, it will lead to a conviction. The only hurdle one needs to overcome is the idea that painting someone as being religious is a positive thing and therefore never offensive, but if it's the relatives pressing charges, that would be relatively easy to show. | |
Doesn't make any practical difference, but it does show an enormous lack of respect for the deceased's beliefs or opinions. Not really surprised or shocked though. There's lots of people who get so zealous in their faith that they turn on their family members. My uncles included, though they're better now. | |
No worries, he has already been posthumously unbaptised. But anyways, disrespectful to the extreme, and foolish to boot. | |
It was the first I ever heard of anything such as this. | |
its so nice to see killuminati trying to remove the flack from himself by attacking another religion and saying their beliefs are disrespectful. the guy is an atheist no amount of baptism for the dead mean anything to him. its not like the had dug up his actual corpse to "baptize" him so i don't see the problem. Besides from a religious perspective they are trying to prevent an important figure in their life from going to hell. basically romney believes he is doing this for his father EDit: i cant get the embedding to work here is a link instead http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhG-tkQ_Q2w | |
It's disrespectful to his beliefs and Romney's being a selfish zealot. I'm an Atheist, but my mother's a Muslim, and if she ever expressed a desire to give me a Muslim funeral (if I died before her), I'd immediately shoot her down. You can have your own beliefs, as long as you don't try to force them onto others without their permission. | |
sorry but i though atheism was a lack of belief not a belief. what does it matter what your mother does with your corpse? so what your funeral is religious, what significance does it mean? you die and you rot, what they do to your corpse has no baring on you as a person. | |
I agree with Killuminati on this one. (Well that's a perfectly ordinary English sentence) Just because I believe I will be a corpse and nothing more after death does not mean that people can do whatever with it. That thing used to be a person! A person with a mind of his own, and if you can't even respect someone's believes (or lack there of) after death, then you are a horrible person. | |
respect for the dead is a 1 sided joke, you can go and look at multiple threads on this board or even the media. the only time people demand you respect the dead is if it is someone of their belief or views or someone they are related to. we had people attacking a conservative figure after he died, and now im gonna assume some of these will say that this is disrespectful in the ultimate form of irony. | |
Your lack of empathy disturbs me... Just remember: Killuminati showed to be a better person in this thread then you did. | |
You know, as ridiculous as some of his posts are, he really isn't that bad. At least, he seems sincere. | |
yes well you should read some of my post history, its quite misanthropic so i am not surprised in the least. as i will state again, empathy and respect only work 1 sided, the only time i see people demand respect is when it only applies to their side. if you cant see this as true of most if not all humans i am sorry. | |
You are a very dark person and I pity you. I could suggest you seek counselling, but you probably won't. | |
just out of curiosity are you a counselor? you seem like one. | |
Yah, this is pretty awful. When I'm dead, I will indeed not care because I will no longer exist, but it bothers me enormously that people would be so disrespectful of the choices and beliefs people held during their lifetimes. Respect for the dead is not tied to a belief in the afterlife. I don't think that this family member of Romney's is offended by it, obviously, but this is still a very grave insult to his memory, his values, his beliefs etc. (and yes, that pun was intentional). Let's go on a little tangent: When we cut open dead bodies to study anatomy, we try to be respectful in the process. When the bits and pieces are finally buried, we try to be respectful. People donated the most personal thing that they had in life to education, their very bodies. Just because there's nobody home does not mean you can screw around with the shell of a former person. And that's exactly what such a baptism is to me, too. An enormous insult to the memory of people.
May I remind you that Breitbart (whom I think this is a reference to) pissed all over Ted Kennedy's grave? You may call it petty and retaliatory, but it's not quite so one sided when the other guy opens himself up to attack like that. Get me an example where the person in question did not work very hard to lose a privilige like that and maybe you have a point. | |
I am serious, an outlook on life like that can make your life unnecessary frustrating. There are plenty of people that look out for other people, no matter what colour or creed they belong to. | |
How is this any more offensive the the religious praying for your soul while you're still alive? | |
One of these days I'll sit down and write an Atheism 101, because this forum is positively bristling with misconceptions. But for now: Atheists are still human. Just because we favour logic over superstition and worship of the supernatural does not make us robotic, autistic savants devoid of empathy or humanity. Case in point: most atheists do attend funerals (and plan funerals for themselves) even though we know that the deceased isn't watching the procedings and scrutininsing the guest list. A respect for the dead doesn't require religiosity - hell, it doesn't even require humanity, if studies of some social mammals are anything to go by. | |
It's not and I don't understand why atheists of all people get upset over this. If someone were to take a dead body and do something like this, I can see how that is disrespectful and offensive. But their body isn't used, only the person's name. Holy shit, someone baptized someone else in absentia to a concept that we see as completely imaginary. Not a fucking thing has changed. If these kinds of baptizers want to practice their asinine and delusional circle jerking, then let them and take it as seriously as we take their other beliefs. Doesn't affect anyone else in the least. The best response to these kinds of things from atheists should be "Lol". | |
Mormons have been doing this to jews for a long time | |
Thankfully makes no difference to the fellow in question but the people who did it are equatable to necrophiliacs in my opinion. | |
im thinking about starting a thread called reading comprehension 101. i never stated anything in my post that suggest atheist are so. i simply asked why should you care that a person used a name in a religious ceremony you view as bullshit? its no worse then someone praying for your soul while your alive. its not like they dug up the fucking corpse and buried it under water. so i dont see why you and mostly everyone is getting all uppity over a ceremony that you view means nothing. | |
That's a strange coincidence. I actually found out about this today myself through seeing that "unbaptising" video on Youtube! | |
That is very disrespectful, especially since the guy was pretty much anti-religious as well as non-religious. I find this: Just as disrespectful though, for all it does is make Atheists look just as extreme (if not childish), and it will only start flame wars. And this is coming from a Catholic Deist! | |
You might have a point if there was any hint of seriousness in Maher's intentions. But such as it is you're only speaking nonsense, I'm afraid. As for my opinion: meh, I dunno. I definitely wouldn't want that done to me posthumously, but if there was any religion that required rituals some time after death (such as there is in the orthodox church), are we being disrespectful to his last wishes if we don't do them? | |
True. However, I still find it disrespectful. Don't know why, I just do. | |
Who cares what happens to someone after they're dead? They're dead. Their problems are over. I'd like to have my body donated to science, but otherwise, to quote Holden Caulfield: "I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody." | |
I honestly wouldn't care if someone did this to me after my death. It comforts them and I'm too busy not existing to care. | |
I honestly believe that it is disrespectful if you go against the wishes of someone who has passed away. In this case, he is (for lack of a better way to say it) unable to defend himself and prevent this. His beliefs were probably well understood by his family, so doing something which goes against them makes Romney's family seem kind of like a bunch of pricks... in this case. Even if their hearts were in the right place, they went against his established beliefs at a point where he couldn't do anything about it. | |
I hope that when I'm dead, my family has enough common sense (and decency) to respect my wishes and the beliefs I held during life. I'm not a Christian, so I wouldn't want to be buried in a Christian way. If they did hold a Christian funeral, it would be indicative of contempt and disrespectful of my autonomy. | |
my thoughts exactly, when I die I'm going to be a big pile of meat that has no ability to think/act for myself and would no longer care about anything happening with/to it. some might view it as disrespectful but...
I actually had this discussion with a few atheist friends of mine, one of them was working at a nursing home and it became his duty to read the lord's prayer over the intercom (he read announcements for the elderly in the morning). He claimed this was a violation of his beliefs and they couldn't force him to do it/fire him for it. This is where I pointed out that "Lack of beliefs" is not the same as "beliefs". if you don't believe the lord's prayer has any theological effect then why would you have a problem with saying the words? If you view a prayer as just words then they are just words if you baptize an athiest after he's dead, you just said some words and put a corpse in some regular water. If you don't believe that prayers do anything then why do you attach significance to the same prayers? if you don't believe in 'Blessings' why the hell would you attach importance to remaining 'un-blessed' or retroactively having something 'un-baptized' | |
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Baptising a Dead Atheist
Today was the first day I read anything about this some of you may already know about it but wow is all I can say.
Mitt Romney's family baptised his atheist stepfather into the mormon faith after his death. This act was sickening. Now there is a bit of twisted logic to doing genealogical research to "save" your ancestors who never heard of Mormonism, but this guy was a staunch atheist to his dying day. Until that day, but apparently not afterward. And rather than merely pray for his soul, they had a ceremony with a family member standing in for him or rather enduring water torture for him.
I am a Christian but this is the most(insert word here I cant think of any)act I have ever seen or read. Do we no longer respect the dead?
Is this even legal I wonder.
http://ladyatheist.blogspot.com/2012/01/baptising-dead-atheist.html