h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/15/mormons-apologise-baptise-simon-wiesenthal

First of all, let's set clear that I believe people of Jewish descent are human, and therefore have all the normal human rights - freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to subscribe in private to whatever ludicrous wacky superstition they're indoctrinated into as children. Similarly, Mormons.

But... guess what? The Jews are offended, and require an abject apology. The Mormons have, apparently, done something reprehensible, and caused a severe PR "gaffe".

What have they done, you ask? Have they daubed swastikas on Jewish graves? Turned up at Jewish funerals in Nazi uniforms and shouted "Sieg Heil"? Have they, Bod forbid, actually caused any physical damage to an actual living Jewish person? Because that would, in all seriousness, be terrible.

But don't be silly. Nothing so *REAL* has to happen to make these Jews take offence and start bleating. No Mormon even needs to be in the presence of a Jewish person for the Jews to start taking offence.

What the Mormons have done is baptise the parents of famous Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal.

That's right. Over sixteen years after he died, over SEVENTY years after his mum died, and over NINETY years after the death of his father (in WW1), some Mormons in Utah, Arizona and Idaho did a little dance and sang a little song and incanted a magic spell (or something - whatever it is those people do), and pretended that doing so somehow made a difference to something.

And the incredible, unbelieveable thing is - the Jews AGREED WITH THEM. They took this hilarious, stupid ritual seriously, seriously enough that they've whined so loud the Mormon church have been forced publicly to apologise.

It's a shame no organisation exists with the ability to take these two groups of people to one side and shout in their faces that none of this stuff is real. Souls DON'T EXIST.

Seriously, if Jewish people have the spare time and mental space to be worried about what a bunch of Mormons they've never met are saying about a dead man's long dead parents in a magic spell happening in the middle of a desert, can we officially declare anti-Semitism no longer a problem?

According to that report, the Mormons have behaved exceedingly distastefully and the Jews have every right to feel offended.

But
I note that you are taking umbrage, on your own behalf, over a squabble between them about someone over 16 years dead, someone seventy+ years dead and someone ninety+ years dead.

Of course, you're right to cast ordure at religious people - after all, they're something less than human, aren't they? They offend against all civilised behaviour by revering their dead, don't they?

You sound like an applicant for the post of High Priest of Religionism (the new Racism?).

I speak as an atheist - and if you want a quarrel, you'll have to wait about ten days - so let it ferment.

I think the Jews should retaliate by holding posthumous Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs for all the dead Mormons

Let me repeat that I have no problem with people being personally, privately religious. If they feel better for talking to someone who isn't there, better for them. Seeking comfort in personal fantasy is a very human urge and if it improves your mental health and makes you less likely to kill, or steal, or fiddle with little kids, then by all means get on with it.

I have two problems with this story, and neither of them are to do with religion, per se:

1. this is a non-story. Some people said a magic spell, and some other people believed that saying the magic spell was a nasty thing to do, even though none of those second group of people were there when it was said. Nothing REAL happened. So my objection here is to the news media for covering it at all, and not simply ignoring it. The fact that it involves Jews, and famous Jews at that, is presumably the reason they felt they couldn't. Which brings me onto:

2. Anti-Semitism is, or was, a serious issue. There are racists about who discriminate against, abuse and even physically attack Jews, simply because of their racial/religious identity. Other than in Israel, New York City and LA, the number of Jews anywhere is really amazingly tiny. In the UK they're outnumbered three to two by Jedi (my favourite statistic ever). Organisations like the Simon Wiesenthal centre exist to publicise such attacks, to make a loud noise out of all proportion to their numbers in the population, and garner public support for their prevention. This is an important job, and normally they're quite good at it. Their work is, I think, undermined when they bleat about nonsense like this. Presumably REAL attacks against Jews are now so rare, so trivial, that they can afford to spend their time worrying about what Mormons are saying in private behind their backs about their dead ancestors.

There's nothing wrong with showing due respect for the memory of the dead. But getting huffy because you think someone *saying* something, something you didn't even hear directly, about your dead makes a *difference*? That's not offending against civilised behaviour - it's just idiocy.

Yes, I've seen plenty more pointless stories, mostly the ones involving celebrities.

While it doesn't make much sense to me, there's people who it does matter to and that makes it newsworthy. It's not hurting anyone and it's not like you've wasted money on reading about it, so I don't get why you care.

You don't understand, that's fair enough: why broadcast your lack of understanding so vehemently?

The Mormons have put a huge amount of money into cataloguing and baptising into the Mormon religion every person who ever lived.

But it's OK, because I've put out a blank edict confirming that all the people who have died are atheists, thereby cancelling out the Mormon's evil work.

This is also a 'non-story' because Mormons have been doing this for years. I understand that it is their intention to 'baptise' every person who has ever lived into the Mormon faith, regardless of the person's beliefs in life. They do this for the good of the souls of the departed, to ensure that everybody gets to heaven.

This is just my understanding of what goes on. If I've got it totally wrong and upset somebody, I apologise for giving offence. If the Mormons wish to waste time and effort baptising me when I'm no longer around, that's their choice - I'll be beyond caring. Personally, I think it's all nonsense.

I've just rescinded your blank edict, Gnomon, and whereby announce that everyone who ever lived worshipped cake.

I immediately stop paying attention to anything, the second I read, hear or otherwise notice the word 'Mormon'.

The poor, credulous pillocks.

As long as it's bakewell tart (no glace cherries on top)... sign me up.

I think that's a pudding, not a cake.

Unbeliever! Persecute, kill the heretic!

"You don't understand, that's fair enough: why broadcast your lack of understanding so vehemently?"

I understand perfectly well - some people are stupid.

It's not a lack of understanding - it's annoyance that

(a) this trivial spat is somehow regarded as "news" and
(b) that an organisation with a serious purpose - combatting anti-semitism - can waste its time and undermine itself so badly by paying any attention to this nonsense.

If the charity Cancer Research UK spent money and time putting out a press release demanding an apology from a Christian group who'd, say, announced that cancer was a judgement from god, I would cancel my standing order to them that day. Until nobody is dying of cancer, I expect them to concentrate on doing cancer research. Similarly, until anti-semitism - REAL anti-semitism - is no longer an issue, any group like the Simon Wiesenthal centre that wastes its time and money responding to garbage like this has lost any respect I might once have had for it.

Apparently this has been a PR gaffe for the Mormons. To me, it's been a much worse gaffe for the Wiesenthal centre, dignifying the Mormon nonsense with a response.

No, you don't understand. You don't get how the actions of the Mormons could be upsetting to Jewish people, which is what makes it newsworthy (though, as CD says, it's not a new thing).

To a degree, that's fair enough, you don't believe the ritual does anything and so you can't understand why people are up in arms about it. However, to a practising Jew, these rituals do have a meaning and the remains of the deceased are important: witness the Jewish commandment to bury a body whole (well, almost) and the prohibition on tattoos as they defile a body. To them, the actions of the Mormons matter and cause distress.

There's also the general societal taboo about people interfering with the dead and this goes against that.

To some people, not just Jews and Mormons, this story matters. You don't understand why, just leave it there.

"to a practising Jew, these rituals do have a meaning "

It must be terribly inconvenient, being a practicing Jew, having to keep up with, understand, and most importantly BELIEVE IN the rituals of every single other sect of every single other religion in the world, just in case they decide to talk about you or your during one of their chanting sessions.

If, as you suggest, to them the Mormon rituals have a meaning, doesn't that make them, er... Mormons? I mean - isn't what religion you are pretty much defined by what you believe?

Are you therefore suggesting that, basically, ALL religious people believe ALL religions are true? Because, well, that's a big, big claim, and one I think the vast majority of the tragically superstitious would disagree with you over.

Do Jews have to be up on the tenets of Scientology, and Buddhism, and believe fervently in their power, just in case Tom Cruise or Richard Gere say something about some dead Jewish guy?

"the remains of the deceased are important"

What *possible* relevance does that have? The deceased in question died seventy and ninety years ago - one of them in world war one, one of them in a concentration camp. I'd bet a hundred of my own English pounds that nobody - not the Mormons, not the Jews, *nobody* - can even point to where the remains of either of these people are, much less actively defile them.

"the general societal taboo about people interfering with the dead and this goes against that"

No it doesn't .

Let's be clear, as you seem to be labouring under the impression that these Mormons have gone and physically dug up a corpse and dipped it in a font or something.

What they've done, in practical terms, is TALKED ABOUT someone who has died. And. That's. All.

They may have done so in verse, or to music. They may have done so in a particular building, all at once. But talking is all they did, and, crucially, all they planned to do. They weren't talking about going and digging up a corpse. They weren't planning a racist attack, or a picket, or the desecration of a grave.

One might, if one wished to take this stupid, stupid story even more seriously, suggest that the right to freedom of speech would seem to apply. Can't I say whatever I like about someone nearly a century in the ground? And if not - why not?

>>Seriously, if Jewish people have the spare time and mental space to be worried about what a bunch of Mormons they've never met are saying about a dead man's long dead parents in a magic spell happening in the middle of a desert, can we officially declare anti-Semitism no longer a problem?

When people cease to lump Jewish people together as an amorphous whole...maybe then.

If you're so upset about the news covering this non-story, why have you spilled about three times as much cyber-ink on as the Guardian did?


Aren't Holocaust deniers just "talking about the dead"? Should Jews just suck it up about that kind of dead-person-talk?


Why so bitter about everything?

You don't get it. These people have a religion and are therefore STOOPID!!! and the sooner Darwinism runs its course the better so that all the Clever People can get back to their SciFi in peace. Or something.

Correct?

I don't know, Ed. I think there's something more to the buttery richness of this bitterness than just wanting to get back to SciFi. I don't think that Jews, Mormons and the Guardian are the root of hoo's anger.

But I'm just guessing.

"Aren't Holocaust deniers just "talking about the dead"? "

No, they're not. They're talking about Jews who are alive - survivors, and the relatives of survivors. And they are calling those Jews liars. *Big* difference.

"When people cease to lump Jewish people together as an amorphous whole...maybe then."

We might be waiting a while before Jewish people stop lumping *themselves* together and calling themselves Jewish people... four thousand years and counting, so far.