No offense but what if their religious beliefs are wrong and a baptism sends someone to hell or keeps us from entering the afterlife as we see it? Wouldn't that just piss you off a tad? I don't force my beliefs on other people and they shoul not be doing rituals on me. It is a violation of my dead rights.

However, I guess if you're lying there dead, you wouldn't care what happens to your body cause there is no point in getting upset. Give my regards to all the necrophilias that may violate your rotting corpse...:p

I suppose if she was upset that would mean she believed the teaching of necrophiliacs and it wouldn't make sense to give them credence. I think they can do as they wish now. She can be upset but some might not see the point in it.

-Rudey

By "seeing this from a non-religious perspective," I meant that I am not a religious person.

The Mormons are NOT actually converting these people. In order to convert to Mormonism, there are two steps: you need to actively make a choice to accept it, and you need to be baptized. Mormons believe that the first step -- choosing to become Mormon -- can be done after death, when a person is in heaven. They believe that baptism can only occur on earth, either by real baptism or by proxy. Thus conversion is not the issue here -- Mormons just feel that, by baptizing this people, they are preparing them for the act of conversion. Baptism itself is not conversion, however.

In response to ASUADPi -- Mormons believe that their view of heaven is the only correct one. They assume that, even if you were another religious faith on earth and you were devoted enough to die for that faith -- if you get to heaven and you were wrong and God really is Mormon, you'd convert.


Proxy baptisms are recorded as proxy baptisms, not as actual baptisms.

RUGreek -- did you even read this thread? Baptism is different from conversion. There's no way this practice could send anybody to hell (or heaven) by itself. Conversion cannot take place without the person (or whatever they are after death) does not accept Mormonism as truth. Which, uh, if they're Jewish, they probably won't. Thus why this is a non-issue to me.

What RUGreek wrote still stands.

You say Jews don't "accept Mormonism as truth...thus why this is a non-issue to [you]."

He says You don't accept necrophiliacs thus a necrophiliac having sex with your dead body is a non-issue to others.

-Rudey
--By the way this is an issue for Jews regarding Mormon acts...not about you.

To be honest, that's a non-issue to me as well. (In more ways than one, since I plan to be cremated and my body's not going to lying around waiting to be violated by freaks.) I don't really care what happens to my body after my death. I'm not going to be conscious of it, I'm not going to be experiencing it, why do I care?


For the record, if Mormons want to baptize me by proxy, they can go ahead. ;)

Again good for you. This thread was about what Mormons were doing to Jews and how Jews felt about it.

-Rudey

So wait, non Jews aren't supposed to comment on this thread?

Let me break things down for you since you took me off ignore to tell me you want people on Greekchat to kill me and make off comments like this:

1) This is an article regarding those of the Jewish faith that have lodged a complaint against Mormons. This was not an article on Sugarandspice and how she feels about Mormons baptizing her after death.

2) There is no moderator saying sugarandspice can't comment. Heck nobody said anything about other non-Jews that commented.

3) You are making assumptions about what I said. Too bad the assumptions are wrong. Perhaps you should use your time more wisely.

-Rudey

As I said before, they can get upset about whatever they want. However, nobody's come up with any valid reasons for being upset. I think the problem here is a misunderstanding of the Mormon religion, not the actual act being done. Many equate baptism with conversion, but that isn't the case here.

Mormons are not converting anyone.
They aren't actually digging people up and using their bodies for the baptism . . . thus why the necrophilia analogy isn't really applicable here.
They aren't violating anyone's belief system because they're not forcing people to become Mormons. (Their door-to-door sermonizing is much more intrusive than baptism by proxy.)

All that they're doing is invoking someone's name when they baptize someone else. Who cares? It doesn't affect the person being "baptized" in any way, shape or form. Chances are that even their descendents will never know about it -- for everyone that's posted in this thread, your ancestors probably HAVE been baptized Mormon.


There are plenty of things about Mormons that bother me far more than this. Their institutionalized racism, their mistreatment of women, the amount of money spent on building their (insanely gaudy) temples that could go towards more worthwhile goals, the hypocracy of Joseph Smith . . . but this is nothing, really.

"Who cares?" Jews obviously.

Why? For many reasons mentioned in this thread.

-Rudey

Sometimes, perspective and context make a world of difference.

While as a general proposition, I might agree with you, the context in which this thread arose is proxy baptism of Jews. I imagine (which is all I can do, since I am not Jewish) that the history of forced conversions (which included forced baptisms) or might-as-well-as-have-been-forced conversions that often came along with Anti-Semitism is powerfully at play here -- and as Madeleine Albright can attest, we're not necesarily talking about ancient or medieval history. Given that history, to learn that Jews who died in the Holocaust were being baptised by proxy would, I would think, be quite distressing.

We've looked at the idea of proxy baptism from a Mormon perspective, but for the purpose of this issue, we would also have to look at the Jewish perspective here. It is my understanding that from that Jewish perspective, the way in which the memory of the deceased is honored, both by family and the community at large, is of great importance, and that at least part of the understanding of life after death (which in Judaism is not an issue that receives too much definition) is tied into the way that the deceased's memory lives on. (Someone please correct me if I'm getting this wrong). From this perspective, it could be extremely offensive to the memory of the deceased to learn that he or she had been baptized by proxy.

That is just wrong.


You don't mess with dead people even if you are "helping" them.


:mad:

MysticCat -- I understand that. However, from a historical context, the part that was upsetting was that they were forced to deny their religion and practice another. That's not going on here -- no one is being forced to deny their religion. Even after the baptism, Jews are still Jews until they choose to be Mormons. No one is forcing them to make that choice. The baptism does not affect their faith at all.

I think this is largely an issue of semantics -- what the word "baptism" means to different people. It's a different thing in the Mormon religion than it is in many other divisions of Christianity, and to treat it like it's the same is what's causing the problem here. If proxy baptism was referred to by another word than "baptism," I doubt people would even blink twice at the act.

I really don't think the problem can be made that simple. As I said earlier, I think that from a Jewish perspective, it would be seen as an afront to the deceased's memory, regardless of what it was called.

It's you that wouldn't blink twice.

Others would and have.

Given that so much thought goes into the after-life, the body, funerals for Jews, a history of attempts by other religions to interfere, etc. it's understood that we care and given how quite a few other non-Jews sympathize, it seems they understand as well.

But OK we got the fact that you, who aren't Jewish, don't care.

-Rudey

With everything that the Jewish population has had to put up with in the last hundreds if not thousands of years, can you blame them?

Judiasm has always been a persecuted religion because people don't understand it and some don't want to understand it. Thousands of Jews died in holy wars (and this is not to say that Catholics and other religious people didn't die either). 6 MILLION were SLAUGHTERED during the Holocaust!!!!!!

Take a step back and see if you can blame these people for being upset?

To this day they arestill being persecuted!!!!!

If I were Jewish I would find it a slap in my face what the Mormans are doing to the people who died in the Holocaust.

I'm not even Jewish and I still find it extremely offensive and tactless.

Like I said before, just because the Mormans believe that their view of heaven is the only "correct one", doesn't give them the right to "force" baptisms on dead people.

Are there any Mormons on GC who can explain this practice in a way that makes it seem even remotely well, not totally crazy and arrogant?

The better question is why people have so much access to other peoples' records. Why is this allowed?

-Rudye

that argument really doesn't hold weight. if it doesn't make your ancestor a tibetan (mormon) and doesn't affect your ancestor at all, they wouldn't be doing it! but they are so it obviously means something to them.

i am completely disgusted by what mormons are doing. i am neither mormon nor jewish, but i find this atrocious. without your permission, no one should have any right to do anything to you, your soul, or whatever.

jews continue to be persecuted. it's disgusting. this practice needs to stop because it is not their RIGHT to violate MY rights.

Okay, after reading the article, I think it is clear that whatever Mormons are doing this post-mortem baptism thing are crazy. I mean, did you see who's on their list? They did the practice for Ghengis Khan, Adolf Hitler, and Josef Stalin! Who knows what other mass-murdering psychos they're inviting to their heaven. What kind of person actually wants to spend an eternity with Hitler? Or thinks that he should go to heaven? I think the fact that they want him up there and think that he can go should assuade the worries of people whose ancestors are being proxy-baptised (because I really don't think it works).:rolleyes:

If I believe it's a sin to have a baptism, who are you to tell me I'm wrong? What you are saying is that my belief I could be sent to Mormon hell (heh, sorry I'm really just having fun with this now:) ) is incorrect because they are doing something they believe is good for me. Well, my belief is that they are doing something bad or wrong in my religion's eyes and therefore I don't know the consequences of this ritual. Maybe all mormons actually go to hell and they are bringing me with them. Nobody knows, but if I didn't decide to convert or become baptized when I'm alive, other people should not be making those faith decisions upon my death. So my reasoning is just as plausible as yours, yes?

For someone who thinks this is a non-issue you certainly have a lot to say about the procedure involved.

About people not wanting their records "out there": they already are. Anybody who wants to know anything about you can do so with a minimum amount of time, and if you're not using a shredder with great regularity, you're just making it easier for anyone to find out information on you.

As for your ancestors, there's a lot of information out there, but never as much as you'd like. There are THOUSANDS of different types of forms you can use to do genealogy, but I was only able to find one with the proper LDS terminology - after a lot of searching, this form was found at www.familysearch.org (the LDS site).

While I know that, at one time, I found ONE of my ancestors' marriages "sealed", I am unable to find it now. That's how "easy" it is to find.

While I use their records, I do NOT share my belief system with Mormons. Just read any one book by a former Mormon to understand why - and why I think this is all a tempest in a teapot. Anyone who even tries to call me an anti-Semite is seriously barking up the wrong tree, as I attended a Messianic Jewish congregation for years. Any real Christian prays for the peace of Jerusalem, and has a heart for His people.

If someone wants to get hopping mad about this, go ahead. You're not going to change anything. For heaven's sake, I've had more than one Mormon tell me with a straight face that they have traced their genealogy back to Jesus and Mary Magdalene and further! How can you even take someone like that seriously?!

ps - Sugarandspice - this may be one of the only threads on which we totally agree!

Nobody called you an anti-semite. We don't lop that term around because then it means nothing.

As for not changing anything, everything in the world changes. At one point the Mormons agreed to not baptize certain groups after protests. Sometimes it's not even about change...it's about expressing your feelings and/or standing up for yourself.

-Rudey

Do you seriously believe that you could go to hell because of something someone totally unrelated to you did without your knowledge?

Most religions are not just about one individual who lives in a bubble.

-Rudey

Well, I was just forestalling that label. When I told my Jewish cousins that someone referred to me as an anti-semite once, they got a good laugh out of that!

As for the rest, I can agree to that.

So you know how there's a head of the Mormon church? When there's an agreement signed, who signs for the Jewish community?

There isn't one head. As a result of the diaspora and the destruction of the temples, you have all sorts of groups and sects.

-Rudey

Just because someone pissing on my grave isn't going to change my after-life destination, doesn't mean I want to be buried in a urinal.

Since I don't believe in hell, that would be highly unlikely. However, I think the point is being lost in all these posts. It matters to me if another religion tries to baptize and "save" me from what they believe is eternal damnation. Respect my religious beliefs and don't insult it by doing something like this.

I guess those of you who don't care are the agnostic or atheists of the board. And also, since most people on here are not completely dead, I have no clue if I'll have knowledge of this after-death ritual, so I guess I just want my body to be left alone when I pass on.

From a conservative Christian perspective: Christians are warned to disallow non-Christians from praying over us (especially laying hands on us) because of the potential doors we will be opening. However, if someone is praying over our dead bodies - since bodies left on earth are basically just sacks of flesh - it really doesn't matter.

On the other hand, we would need to consider the impact on the living. I would NOT want a future member of my family coming across my name and believing that I was LDS. If that family member were seeking God (meaning, a non-Christian trying to find truth) seeing my name on any LDS paperwork could cause her/him to begin looking into Mormonism. What would be even worse is if the enemy (yes, Satan) already had a stronghold in that person's life.

Conclusion: Because it has a possible negative spiritual outcome, I would be very unhappy if I found it had happened to me.

So a bunch of people sign for the Jewish community? I'm just confused about how that works. I know it has nothing to do with the topic at hand, I was just interested.

There are a hundred communities. There is a big split between European and Spanish/Middle Eastern/African. Some belong to umbrella organizations and there are many organizations for different things...sorta like NIC and FIPG and all that good stuff.

-Rudey

I was thinking the same thing about Hitler. First, Hitler does not deserve to go to any heaven, second it is even worse if a jew is baptized and let's say they accept the gospel while dead and Hitler can technically accept it also then the Jew is sharing heaven with Hitler. I can maybe get over the whole proxy baptizing thing but baptizing a horrible person like Hitler I really can't get.

Not to try and get too many angels dancing on the head of a pin, but, at least according to traditional Christian theology, no one deserves to go to heaven. That's what grace is all about.

That said, the LDS church would not agree, so . . . .

:) Thanks for mentioning that!

Coming from a large Morman family, its always good (sarcasm) to see how much hate there is towards the "other major religion". A little FYI, religion is always a bad topic because everyone is 100% convinced that only their religion is correct.

Every religion has its well intentions but also its "strange to an outsider" side. To me, its weird for any member of the local church to be paid and not just volunteer their time to the church. It's also weird to me to think that if there is a heaven, that just because you didn't pick the correct religious in your 0-100 years on each you are banished to hell. So I find it strand that other religions don't have some similar type of belief. Hell if the Mormans are wrong then the baptisms don't matter anyway. I won't mind a few extra chances :).

If you get the interest to be religious, research and pick one that makes you happy. Don't hate other people for not being identical to you (they call that ignorance and they call those people bigots).

Mormonism is a major religion?

1) It is MormOn, as BetaRose already pointed out, how could you repeatedly spell it wrong if you are one? The people I know have always preferred LDS (shortened form of Latter Day Saints)
2) Since there is a belief in Jesus, LDS members are classified as Christians, so Mormonism isn't so much a religion, but a sect or a denomination. A different religion that is major would be, for example: Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and so on. Believing in Christ makes one a Christian, and it is further broken down by Catholic, Protestant, LDS, etc, but the common tie is CHRIST.
3) My church has people that volunteer and a paid employee. We have a nonmember as a secretary for various reasons. Much of it is to cut down on conflicts of interest. Many of the Protestant groups in town have nonmembers as secretaries. However that is the only paid position other than sometimes paying teenagers to babysit at events, but that is rare. It obviously varies from church to church, but almost everything is on a donation or volunteer basis. It isn't just the LDS that do this.
4) Where I live the LDS Institute, the Protestant Center, and the Catholic ministries for students all work together. We leave all the hate and high pressure conversions to the fundamentalist, damn near cultish groups. obviously we don't think that we're 100% correct. We see our common bonds and work together. We're such nice people the Muslim students even kick it with us, and find our events and building a safe welcoming place.