Dumbass Award!
The Dumbass Award is given whenever person or persons commit any action that flies directly against the face of conventional logic, reason, or general sanity. Especially if they keep repeating said action, long after they've been asked not too or its gone beyond its logical conclusion.
Today's Dumbass Award is directly related to the following article from the Huffington Post:
Proxy Baptism Seekers Eyed Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel For Posthumous Mormon Rite (clicky-clicky)
Despite your opinions or religious affiliation, its a interesting snapshot into the practice of 'baptism by proxy'. Though I doubt they are the only ones to do it, the Mormons seem to have the practice down to a science. If you are too lazy to read the article, the short version is as follows:
The Mormon Church as been in the practice of baptizing by proxy certain people, posthumlously, for decades. They have been asked repeated by the Jewish Community to stop baptizing holocaust victims, but it doesn't seem to take. Case in point when it recently came out (see above article link, lazybones) they tried to baptize famous author and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Only, it turns out he isn't dead yet.
Oops!
But hold on!
Before anyone gets their magic underwear in a bunch, this award is not exclusively for the LDS church. This is for organized religion in general. When I read that article, I wasn't thinking, "Damn Mormons!" I was actually thinking about religious attitudes as a whole. Whether mandated by God or just basic human behavior, we tend to feel strong about our beliefs and get awfully defensive about them when challenged. Or we think they might be challenged. Or its just Tuesday and we're stuck in traffic. Whatever. Point is we think what we believe is right, or at least we want what we believe to be right. And because of that we tend to do dumbass things. Proxy rituals of an individual of another faith being only one of them.
The Dumbass Award goes to organized religions because they think they are more righterer than anybody else. They aren't. None of them are. And, none of them are wrong either. Confused? Dont' be, it's easy. Our spiritual beliefs, no matter how many people you share it with and how much of your own independent thought you put in it, are uniquely our own. They are as tailored to us as our own soul or, say, how we eat soup. Therefore it really doesn't matter if the Pope tells a catholic something, because that particular catholic isn't the Pope and therefore won't believe the exact same way the Pope does. Therefore they are both right and both wrong at the same time.
"So is there an absolute correct answer, smartypants?"
Damned if I know. That's the point. If there is one actual, definitive answer, if there is someone roaming around that actually has it the way it really is, how would we know? The only way we know what is true for ourselves is faith and faith is different and personal to each individual.
Aaaaaand we're back where we started..
So to summarize: Organized religion is all dumbassy because they have the attitude that they are more right than the other religions when in fact they are and are not at the same time.
Special section for Atheist and Pagans:
Quit your snickering and pointing. This applies to you too.
-Mick (it would be so much easier if you'd all just worship me) Collins
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