Baptism for the Dead

This is from the Belfast Telegram. It's an interesting argument from an athiest.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/eamon-mccann/article13955402.ece;jsessionid=14550DCB3FA6A06D47E2EE657BEDA8A0?mode=error


Eamonn McCann: What if Mormons are right and Catholics and Protestants wrong?

Why are the Catholic bishops so concerned about Mormons baptising dead parishioners? The Mormons didn’t invent baptism of the dead. The practice has a significant history within mainstream Christianity. The decision to order its abandonment was taken only after heated debate, and was a close-run thing.


What’s the difference, anyway, between baptising the dead and baptising babies? A tiny infant will have as much understanding as a dead person — none at all — of the complex philosophical belief-system it’s being inducted into when baptised, say, a Catholic. Transubstantiation? There’s daily communicants go to their deaths without any clear understanding of the concept. So what chance the mewling tot?

Indeed, given that all Christian Churches believe that the soul lives on after death and retains understanding and consciousness of self, doesn’t it make more sense to baptise dead adults than live babies?

Apart from which, if the Catholic bishops hold that the beliefs of the Mormons are pure baloney (as they must), and their rituals therefore perfectly meaningless, how can it matter to them what mumbo-jumbo Mormons might mutter over Catholic cadavers?

The current controversy has been prompted by Archbishop Dermot Clifford and Bishop Bill Murphy complaining to the National Library in Dublin about records handed over by the Church being made available to all and sundry. The Mormons are believed to have taken advantage of this facility to comb through parish records and baptise the souls enumerated therein, a batch at a time.

The bishops stepped in after the Vatican warned all national churches earlier this year about Mormons misusing diocesan records. I have heard it suggested that the alarm of the Holy See had escalated after reports that Mormon multiple baptisms were regularly breaking the official record set by General Liu Kung Lee who, in one afternoon, baptised seven regiments of Chinese soldiers into Christianity with a fire-hose.

Let’s look at the facts as understood by the early followers of Christ. For more than 300 years after the Crucifixion, baptism of the dead was widely accepted, its biblical basis located in 1 Corinthians 15, 29: “Otherwise, what shall they do who are baptised for the dead if the dead rise not again at all? Why are they then baptised for them.” In other words, a deceased person could be baptised by proxy: otherwise, how could such a person be included in the Ressurection? A good question.

The radical Cerinthians and the Marcionites were especially energetic baptisers of the dead. It was to wrong-foot these sects, seen as competitors with the official Church at a time when it was consolidating its position as the State religion of the Roman Empire, that the Synods of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) voted, after bitter debate, to condemn the practice.

Interestingly, a clear trace of baptism of the dead has lingered in official practice to the present day, in the form of prayers for divine intercession on behalf of the unbaptised souls. Prayers for intervention were encouraged in Catholic schools in the 1950s. For all I know, this remains the case.

Baptising the dead might be seen as analogous, too, to the Jewish prayer of intercession. Which serves as a reminder that US Jews put a halt to galloping post-mortem Mormonism a couple of years ago by arguing that deJudaising those who’d perished in the concentration camps constituted a profound insult to Holocaust victims. Following talks in New York between leaders of the two religions, the Mormons backed off.

The key point is, surely, that all religions believe that the soul, after death, at last knows what’s what — whether Hinduism, Free Presbyterianism, Jainism, Judaism, Islam, Catholicism or whatever is the true religion. What if it’s Mormonism? What if it’s an everyday occurrence on the other side that Catholics and Protestants are left standing dumbstruck at the Gates, gasping: “Mormons! Who’d have believed it?” And maybe a wife berating her husband: “There! I told you it would be the Mormons! But would you listen?! Now it’s eternal hellfire for the two of us, I hope you’re satisfied.”

In that scenario, shouldn’t all members of all other religions be literally eternally grateful to the Mormons for sharing their saving grace even unto and after death?

If, on the other hand, it isn’t the Mormons at all, those who turn out to have been right can wave a merry farewell to the crestfallen followers of Brigham Young as they trundle downwards to their eternal comeuppance.

What’s the problem?

Kiddo Video

We haven't posted kiddo videos in a while.

Wifey says this one is so sweet you'll have to brush your teeth afterwards:




In our next installment of "smartest baby ever" our daughter takes on shapes:



WoooHooo!!!

Dixie Speedway

"Come to the demolition derby!" he said. "I think they're going to race some cars beforehand, it'll be fun!"

We got there just after 7, they didn't start smashing anything on purpose until around 11. What a culture shock it was! Jared took me to Dixie Speedway with some of his coworkers (yes, "dixie") and we got hip-deep in local culture.

The racing was NUTS! The track was dirt, and short, so it seemed like most of the racing was turning., and the trick with turning was to not go spinning out of control what with the ground being nothing but red clay.

Thank heavens Jared remembered ear plugs! Although some noseplugs would have helped too - the smell of gas and dirt was intense... WHEWEE!

I actually got really into it. The loud and the shaking when a race started was pretty exhilarating, although a co-worker and I agreed that the whole driving-slow-because-they-need-to-clear-an-accident-but-the-guys-in-the-back-now-have-a-chance-to catch-up-to-the-guy-in-front-who-WAS-half-a-track-ahead-and-now-they're-right-behind-him-trying-to-over-take-him-all-sneaky-like seemed pretty unfair. But what do we know?

Oh, and the guy waving the flag was fabulous. Really splendid technique.

I do have to say my favorite moment of the night was when Jared got up and announced "I'm going to buy something fried."

Predictablly, he came back wanting to change careers because the idea of charging $3 for $.15 of batter and powdered sugar sounded awesome. And it was numnummy!

Oh - and no pics of this - but did you know there's cars that race that have 2 drivers - one with the wheel and one in charge of the gas and brakes?!? And the nuttiest thing was - those cars had NO accidents in their race, unlike all the others with one driver! We should get that done to our van. Solei could steer!

Then at the end came the demolition derby. It was too dark to get decent pictures or video, but it was not at all what I expected. The junkers drove up, the flag came down and they just started ramming into each other. I thought there'd be some kind of pagentry or something, but nope, just smashing. And yes, there was fire. Very gratifying. And very awesome.

I learned back when I lived in Texas to just set aside my comfort zone and enjoy what the world around me had to offer, even if it did seem pretty nutty. I wish I'd learned it sooner, but I am having a ball experiencing this southern thing! This is right up there with the monster truck rally we went to on our first anniversary:)

Can't take any more...

Everytime I open our page I see that silly grin and it's driving me nuts.

Life has been crazy the last few weeks. Our home was host to a music camp for a week. It drove wife to the edge. She apparently doesn't like screaming 6 year old girls all day long. She's also working on a new album with her band "The Border Collies" as well as one with her treo "Tres de Solei." In preparation for a huge month of September where they are playing 7 different show in just one month.

Work has been insane for me. It's "crunch time" in the toy business and my brain is at full capacity. I created this massive spreadsheet to track all of the forecasts we have from our customers and all the orders I've placed to my factories. If you don't count sleep, I spend more time with this spreadsheet than I do with my wife and child.

Our ward (Church) has begun a focus on "Missionary Work" and being the Assistant Ward Mission Leader (assistant mission leader for my congregation) I'm kind of in the middle of everything. It's an interesting place to be.

We had visits from my sister and brother and thier spouses and families. Nana was in grandma heaven with so many kids. They had SO much fun spending time together. Our Daughter LOVES her cousins and every day would ask for "PAPA-NANA house" to go play with them. We can't wait for them to come back!

From the cute child file:

Daughter is learning how to pray. She is really really good at it and prays basically on her own. On Thursday evening she was praying over dinner and she asked to "Bless Spongebob". I think we need to cut down her TV time.