Comments on: Outrage I Don’t Understand

By: Detcord

Detcord — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 08:36:41 +0000

I haven’t participated in this thread because I though Cidu Bill’s opening remarks said it all. However, I acknowledge that the number of subsequent interesting comments in this thread suggest otherwise. As far as I’m concerned, if the LDS crowd want to “save my soul” in absentia, then I say, “knock yourselves out”, and “no skin off my nose”. If it turns out they’re wrong, no big deal. If they’re right, then “Wa-HEY and thanks for all the fish )

I did like Irene’s description of Purgatory and Limbo (major points of contention when I attended a convent school). As a likely location for either (or both) I humbly suggest, Earth as the most likely location, given that the main driver for life on this planet seems to be pain. (Think about it.)

By: El Cucui

El Cucui — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 03:51:43 +0000

El Cucui #40: … though I recently read an article … in an Irish newspaper that suggests that the Catholic Church still has a sacrament of posthumous baptism …

Here’s the article:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/eamon-mccann/eamonn-mccann-what-if-mormons-are-right-and-catholics-and-protestants-wrong-13955402.html

… and it looks like I remembered it wrong.

Better late than never?…. of course that might be the motto for the whole baptism for the dead thing too.

By: Igelino

Igelino — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 13:22:40 +0000

Depends, James, on whether you consider Child Abuse to be part of Catholicism. If Torture and Murder were also part of Catholicism, I would consider them as worser.

By: James Pollock

James Pollock — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 05:06:50 +0000

Wouldn’t most everybody pick the child abuse as the worst thing?

By: El Cucui

El Cucui — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 03:41:41 +0000

Irene @89
Thank you very much for that. In truth the explanation for those who haven’t heard of Christ is remarkably similar to LDS teachings… but I suppose, as always, the devil’s in the details.

In retrospect I think I should have asked you what’s your most favorite and least favorite aspect of Catholicism.

By: Lola

Lola — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 21:53:29 +0000

I would guess, if it existed, that the spammers and all the spam would be in hell. Now that would be karma.

By: James Pollock

James Pollock — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:52:08 +0000

I also like to think that there will be no spammers in heaven… but I’m not aware of any Scripture that is definitive either way.

By: Winter Wallaby

Winter Wallaby — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 04:16:32 +0000

James, I guess I’m confident enough that I’m not going to get the spam that I don’t care. I’m perfectly happy if company X tries to send me 10,000 spam messages that never get into my inbox.

By: James Pollock

James Pollock — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 00:18:41 +0000

I finally figured out myself why this bugged me. It’s too much like spam (and not the delicious canned meat product from Hormel, either). There you are, decades or even centuries into the afterlife you have chosen/ that you deserve, and poof, there’s a message in your afterlife inbox from the Mormons, inviting you to try something different.

The missionaries come through my neighborhood every summer, asking every year if I haven’t changed my mind about changing my religious views. They’re respectful and very polite, even as I inform them that I am, in fact, happy with my choice of a non-LDS religious option. But now I find that even after I’ve gone to the afterlife, they’re (potentially) going to keep trying to convert me?

By: Dave in Boston

Dave in Boston — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:10:10 +0000

The ham sandwich thing isn’t a good comparison because it isn’t directed at a specific person. Consider instead a ritual for eating a ham sandwich on behalf of some other person. To the believer in Hamway a ham sandwich is a blessing and providing one to someone who may have lacked the opportunity to sample one before they died, or was buried without suitable grave goods and is thus starving in the afterlife, or whatever, is obviously a mitzvah. But a lot of people believe otherwise, so directing such a ritual at them would be offensive.

That is, you have to consider the belief system of the person to be affected as well as the person(s) acting. This is why people find this practice problematic.

(I have no idea to what extent any mainstream belief system may have or might have had a problem with proxy baptism; I’m just trying to explain what I think James was trying to get at in #67.)