Mormon Church Apologizes for Baptizing Dead Jews

[LAGC]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Mormon church apologized on Tuesday for the posthumous baptism by its members of the parents of famed Nazi hunter and Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal.

The posthumous baptisms were performed in Mormon churches in Utah, Arizona, and Idaho, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization named after the man who hunted down more than 1,000 Nazi war criminals including Adolf Eichmann in the years following the Holocaust.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, in its written apology, suggested that the action was the work of one member who they said has since been disciplined.

"We sincerely regret that the actions of an individual member of the Church led to the inappropriate submission of these names," Michael Purdy, a spokesman for the Church, said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters.
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The apology by the Mormon church came on the same day that Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel called on Republican presidential candidate and prominent Mormon Mitt Romney to address the issue after Wiesel's own Holocaust victim parents were similarly baptized by the Mormon church.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/...l.html?_r=1&hp

Meanwhile... Bill Maher un-baptizes Mitt Romney's dead father-in-law:

[was_peacemaker]

Bill Maher's movie religulous had some pretty bad historical inaccuracies.

[LAGC]

Bill Maher's movie religulous had some pretty bad historical inaccuracies.

Really? Like what? I thought it was pretty dang good. He is an equal-opportunity basher of religion -- plays no favorites. I owned a copy of it until I gifted it to a friend last year. He's definitely one of the most eloquent outspoken atheists out there right now, second only to the late, great Christopher Hitchens.

[was_peacemaker]

Really? Like what? I thought it was pretty dang good. He is an equal-opportunity basher of religion -- plays no favorites. I owned a copy of it until I gifted it to a friend last year. He's definitely one of the most eloquent outspoken atheists out there right now, second only to the late, great Christopher Hitchens.

Most of the stuff about Mithra, Krishna, that he says parallels to Jesus were mainly adopted way after the fact. Problem with the Mithra cult is that most of what was written about them was not even written by them. Also some historians have noted that his parallels to Jesus and Egyptian myths is a bit of a stretch.

If he knew what he was doing from a historical point of view, he would have used Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism, maintains that the Messiah would have to come to this world from above. The duelist nature of Zoroastrianism is closer to Christianity in some ways, and their priest were known as Magi.

Notice Matthew is the only Gospel to mention the Magi? It is said by Eusebius, that Matthew preached to the Persians and wrote his Gospel in Hebrew. I can believe this since Matthew is the only Gospel to mention any Zoroastrian activity in it.

Also remember this. Zoroastrianism was the religion of the Persians. It is a Persian King named Cyrus in Isaiah 45 that is referred to as God's anointed one. Even though it says he didn't know God. Whats interesting here is that Cyrus is the only Gentile in the Bible to receive such a title. The Persians are also the ones that helped the Jews rebuild their Temple after exile and they were the first in the ancient world to allow freedom of religion.

Now....there are some things in Zoroastrianism about their prophet being born unto a virgin, and teaching about the blood of the lamb. Those are later doctrines which were adopted about 350+ years after Christ.

There are other differences though.

he would have had a better argument with that, than he would have with the examples he used. Its not really just Maher either. I see a lot of stuff on the history channel about religious history that makes me cringe. Maher's movie is up there with the other religious based entertainment. It should be labeled entertainment...not history or documentary.

[N/A]

I read another news story about this yesterday. It stated that the LDS and Jews (I wonder who represents the Jews world wide) had an agreement that this would not be done. So as usuall, the little marxist blames the church for what an individual does. Kinda like blaming the marxist for what Obama does.
As for Maher, what comes out of his mouth is worse than what comes out of his ass. His ass has a normal function, but like our little marxist, their mouth moves just so they can hear the sound of their own voice and think to be pleased with theirself.
And lastly, ..churches have to make agreements on how they serve God?

[LAGC]

Most of the stuff about Mithra, Krishna, that he says parallels to Jesus were mainly adopted way after the fact. Problem with the Mithra cult is that most of what was written about them was not even written by them. Also some historians have noted that his parallels to Jesus and Egyptian myths is a bit of a stretch.

If he knew what he was doing from a historical point of view, he would have used Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism, maintains that the Messiah would have to come to this world from above. The duelist nature of Zoroastrianism is closer to Christianity in some ways, and their priest were known as Magi.

Notice Matthew is the only Gospel to mention the Magi? It is said by Eusebius, that Matthew preached to the Persians and wrote his Gospel in Hebrew. I can believe this since Matthew is the only Gospel to mention any Zoroastrian activity in it.

Also remember this. Zoroastrianism was the religion of the Persians. It is a Persian King named Cyrus in Isaiah 45 that is referred to as God's anointed one. Even though it says he didn't know God. Whats interesting here is that Cyrus is the only Gentile in the Bible to receive such a title. The Persians are also the ones that helped the Jews rebuild their Temple after exile and they were the first in the ancient world to allow freedom of religion.

Now....there are some things in Zoroastrianism about their prophet being born unto a virgin, and teaching about the blood of the lamb. Those are later doctrines which were adopted about 350+ years after Christ.

There are other differences though.

Hmm... that's interesting. I'll have to look into all that.

Every so often my liberal Christian (Mennonite) uncle and I talk shop. He puts a lot more stock in ancient history than I do. The problem with history is that the further back you go, the harder it is to really verify and know what really happened. Stories get passed down from generation to generation, they get changed slightly in the process, over and over again, so that after centuries and millenia, the story we end up with in the present day is likely quite a bit different from what originally transpired.

My biggest hang-up with Christianity is that for approximately 1000 years (the Dark Ages), the Catholic Church pretty much had full monopoly and control over the annals of Western history -- the only people who could even read or write were clergy, the only libraries were owned by the church -- so it wouldn't have been hard for them to fudge a little bit and manufacture what little evidence we have (outside of the Bible) that Jesus even really existed, let alone performed all these supposed miracles.

"Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence" as the saying goes.

he would have had a better argument with that, than he would have with the examples he used. Its not really just Maher either. I see a lot of stuff on the history channel about religious history that makes me cringe. Maher's movie is up there with the other religious based entertainment. It should be labeled entertainment...not history or documentary.

Yeah, keep in mind he's a comedian first and foremost, so his primary purpose is to make people laugh, not necessarily impart any sort of profound wisdom. He is pretty funny though, and I do enjoy his sense of humor.

[was_peacemaker]

Hmm... that's interesting. I'll have to look into all that.

Every so often my liberal Christian (Mennonite) uncle and I talk shop. He puts a lot more stock in ancient history than I do. The problem with history is that the further back you go, the harder it is to really verify and know what really happened. Stories get passed down from generation to generation, they get changed slightly in the process, over and over again, so that after centuries and millenia, the story we end up with in the present day is likely quite a bit different from what originally transpired.

My biggest hang-up with Christianity is that for approximately 1000 years (the Dark Ages), the Catholic Church pretty much had full monopoly and control over the annals of Western history -- the only people who could even read or write were clergy, the only libraries were owned by the church -- so it wouldn't have been hard for them to fudge a little bit and manufacture what little evidence we have (outside of the Bible) that Jesus even really existed, let alone performed all these supposed miracles.

"Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence" as the saying goes.

There is a professor at Cambridge (I forget his name) that has stated that most written records from the reign of Julius Caesar through Tiberius are a bit sketchy and hard to find. Not a lot of strong written records about those time periods. Most of what we know about those periods was written a few decades after the events.

Some of the things about early Christianity from 100 AD-954 AD are not only preserved by the Catholic Church but the Greek Orthodox who splintered from the Catholic Church. So a historian can cross reference early pre-Nicean writings from the Catholics with the records of the Eastern Church also.


One thing that shows some early differences in early Christianity is comparing and contrasting Justin Martyr to Origen . Justin predates Origen by a few decades but believes according to the Gospel of Mark (I believe), that Jesus was a carpenter.

Origen a few decades later is kind of baffeled by this idea...because even as late as the mid-second century he had not been exposed to Mark.

The funny thing is this....the Greek word there in the Gospel that mentions him as a carpenter..actually means tradesman. In a mid-rash that predates Jesus, it is said those who are experts with the Torah..are somewhat like tradesman.

So really it is a case of maybe folks early on reading metaphoric language a bit to literal. ANyway that is one example...food for thought.