The Mormon Church has the power to bring Apple to the next level …. Godhood for Steve Jobs. The suggestion is not as incredulous as some might think. After they die, Mormons can progress to being Gods of their own worlds. The only problem is that Steve Jobs died an atheistic Buddhist. BUT there is still hope ….
Remember the famous Apple ad in 1984? LDS mission president Mike Murray worked on this as and describes the ad’s influence in this interview for CNBC. Murray noted that “There could never have been a Mac without Steve Jobs. There never could have been an Apple without Steve Jobs. Steve had the vision and tenacity and willpower to take this idea and turn it into a product and make the market believe in it.” One wonders why Mr. Murray would not honor Mr. Jobs with a baptism?
Gary Mokotoff, a prominent Jewish genealogist who took part in the negotiations to halt Mormon baptisms of dead Jews with the Church in 1995, explained the Mormon policy:
‘ Posthumous baptism of all dead people is not one of the original beliefs of Mormonism. At the start it was limited to ancestors and perhaps close relatives and friends. In 1918, the President of the Church had a revelation that it should be extended to the entire human race.” … Eli Wiesel, on being told about the Mormon ritual and that it included Holocaust victims, had a puzzled look on his fa
ce and then uttered something to the effect that there was a simple solution to the problem: ‘Let them change their religion.'”
St. Steven of Jobs image from You AUGHT To Remember.
Jobs may be an ideal candidate! Unlike Wiesel, Jobs is dead .. and only dead people are el;eligible for posthumous baptism. Moreover, many aspects of Jobs’ life have an aura that would seem to call for such an act. Back in 2009, even as the living CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs communicated with a mere mortal to show divine compassion:
“The mortal in question, Jon Devor, wrote a polite letter to The Chosen One asking if Apple would mind not suing the pants off his company, The Little App Factory, for making a product called iPodRip that lets you backup and transfer your iTunes collection. He ended it with:
It is quite obvious that we mean Apple no harm with the use of the name iPodRip, or of the inclusion of trademarked items in our icons, and in fact I believe that we have been providing an excellent secondary service to Apple customers that has potentially caused you many repeat clients. ….
With this in mind, we are in desperate need of some assistance and we beseech you to help us to protect our product and our shareware company, both of which we have put thousands upon thousands of hours of work into. Our company goal is to create Mac software of the highest quality with the best user experience possible. I myself dropped out of school recently to pursue a path in the Mac software industry, and you yourself have been a consistent inspiration for me.
Billboard Outside Apple’s New Factory in North Korea
The Steve’s response, in its entirety:
Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal.
Steve
Naturally, Devor did as commanded and changed the app’s name to iRip. So far, he has not been turned into a pillar of salt.
Such words are worthy of an oracle, but even more important the marketing potential of a resurrected Jobs is immense. There are even rumors that the North Koreans may join in the baptismal project as part of Dear New Leader Kim Jung-Un’s efforts to create ties to Cupertino as a response to Apple’s embarrassing problems with FoxCon.