if the parents were from some african country and requested that a spiritual leader be allowed to mutilate their baby's corpse would it be looked at the same way?
― gr8080, Monday, 24 January 2011 20:37 (thirteen years ago) link
You mean like female genital mutilation, I assume?
― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Monday, 24 January 2011 20:38 (thirteen years ago) link
in what way? grief is grief wherever it is. do you mean people would be more freaked out about it or less? xp
― Mordy, Monday, 24 January 2011 20:38 (thirteen years ago) link
heard a brief interview on NPR recently with a photographer who gets called in to take pictures of parents with their stillborn/deceased infants. she struck a similar tone of reverent stillness in the face of something both tragic and potentially ghoulish. was a bit grossed out at first, but came to see how such a service might be valuable to those who'd like to memorialize the loss, to locate something beautiful and tender within it, rather than simply walk away.
― normal_fantasy-unicorns (contenderizer), Monday, 24 January 2011 20:40 (thirteen years ago) link
This is really really common among ppl who have stillborns or babies "born sleeping" as they're often called online. My friend's sister had a sitllborn girl and they dressed her up and the whole family held her and they took pictures and then they had a proper funeral and everything. I don't really see why the bris is all that diff if it helps the parents process the loss somehow.
― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Monday, 24 January 2011 20:42 (thirteen years ago) link
By "this" I meant what contenderizer was describing btw.
― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Monday, 24 January 2011 20:44 (thirteen years ago) link
i wouldn't have a problem with this. it'd just be gross. everything at all relevant to why any of this stuff is even problematic, let alone obviously horrible, has to do with the future life.
that said, if it were in a big long elegiac article in the new york times, i'd probably be kind of ooked out, yeah
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 24 January 2011 20:46 (thirteen years ago) link
(also i guess you probably meant this but judgement aside "requested that a spiritual leader be allowed to mutilate their baby's corpse" is the literal act taken by the parents in this article
i do find something beautiful and sad about it, like contenderizer said, just in the sense that this ritual that has accrued the character of a celebration of new life is being performed mournfully as the precise opposite)
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 24 January 2011 20:49 (thirteen years ago) link
bris is an important part of the jewish covenant and parents wanting to have their deceased child fulfill that covenant is understandable imo
― quincie, Monday, 24 January 2011 20:49 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah like i think this is actually way more defensible than circumcising a live baby.
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 24 January 2011 20:50 (thirteen years ago) link
so do I tbh but I wasn't going to go there
― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Monday, 24 January 2011 20:52 (thirteen years ago) link
I still want to know exactly what Grady meant by "requested that a spiritual leader be allowed to mutilate their baby's corpse" because I agree with DLH and don't see how that's any different than what's happening here.
― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Monday, 24 January 2011 20:53 (thirteen years ago) link
(i mean i'm not trying to start The Circumcision Fight, i am pretty much apathetic and i don't mean that circumcising a live baby is indefensible, just that if one of these things were bad, it would be that one)
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 24 January 2011 20:53 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah no same. I wasn't going to go there because I didn't want to start that fight in this thread. I just really don't see how the baby being dead makes this any stranger than if it were alive.
― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Monday, 24 January 2011 20:54 (thirteen years ago) link
postmortem baptisms are not a ticket out of purgatory, are they?
― mookieproof, Monday, 24 January 2011 20:55 (thirteen years ago) link
i think they are, tbh?
― Achillean Heel (darraghmac), Monday, 24 January 2011 20:55 (thirteen years ago) link
"if the parents were from some african country and requested that a spiritual leader be allowed to mutilate their baby's corpse would it be looked at the same way?"
Assuming that some creepy witchdoktor decided to write an essay for the Times about it then, yes, I believe it would be.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Monday, 24 January 2011 20:56 (thirteen years ago) link
ok, cool
― mookieproof, Monday, 24 January 2011 20:56 (thirteen years ago) link
last rites etc, not sure if the priest stops giving them if the subject expires halfway through? xp
― Achillean Heel (darraghmac), Monday, 24 January 2011 20:56 (thirteen years ago) link
i don't think purgatory's a real place post-JP2.
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 24 January 2011 20:58 (thirteen years ago) link
more like just a... thing. that you do. i dunno how long it takes.
i mean i realize that we're talking about judaism here so ignore me.
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 24 January 2011 20:59 (thirteen years ago) link
human beings are all so weird!!
― max, Monday, 24 January 2011 21:01 (thirteen years ago) link
circumcised dicks are so weird!!
― plax (ico), Monday, 24 January 2011 21:03 (thirteen years ago) link
somehow thought it would be a good and potentially board-laffs-fruitful idea here to google image search "circumcised ducks"
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 24 January 2011 21:04 (thirteen years ago) link
no joke first time i used(?) one i was like "i really have no idea what i'm doing with this"
― plax (ico), Monday, 24 January 2011 21:08 (thirteen years ago) link
circumcision has nothing to do with the afterlife and circumcising a dead baby (or even a live baby younger than 8 days old) has no purpose acc to Jewish law. i'm sure it meant a lot to the parents tho.
― Mordy, Monday, 24 January 2011 21:10 (thirteen years ago) link
If it would be morally acceptable to cut up a dead child to donate organs then this ceremony, whatever one might think of it personally, if desired by the grieving parents and affording them some solace is surely no worse.
― Le mépris vient de la tête, la haine vient du cœur (Michael White), Monday, 24 January 2011 21:14 (thirteen years ago) link
otm
― iatee, Monday, 24 January 2011 21:16 (thirteen years ago) link
has ILX done The Circumcision Fight before
― dayo, Tuesday, 25 January 2011 00:19 (thirteen years ago) link
yes i believe we argued over whether to leave a tip or not
― gr8080, Tuesday, 25 January 2011 01:41 (thirteen years ago) link
what if the parents also want to have the metzitzah b'peh performed on the corpse baby
― big baller eating steaks every day (jeff), Tuesday, 25 January 2011 01:57 (thirteen years ago) link
does that count as necrophilia?
― Mordy, Tuesday, 25 January 2011 04:02 (thirteen years ago) link
Don't get me started.
― Ukranian crocodile that swallowed a mobile phone (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 25 January 2011 07:21 (thirteen years ago) link