Mormons violating proxy baptism deal

[Saya]

Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.

Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say they are making changes to their massive genealogical database to make it more difficult for names of Holocaust victims to be entered for posthumous baptism by proxy, a rite that has been a common Mormon practice for more than a century.

But Ernest Michel, honorary chairman of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, said that is not enough. At a news conference in New York City on Monday, he said the church also must "implement a mechanism to undo what you have done."

"Baptism of a Jewish Holocaust victim and then merely removing that name from the database is just not acceptable," said Michel, whose parents died at Auschwitz. He spoke on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots against Jews.

"We ask you to respect us and our Judaism just as we respect your religion," Michel said in a statement released ahead of the news conference. "We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone, they suffered enough."

'Court of public opinion'
Michel said talks with Mormon leaders, held as recently as last week, are over. He said his group will not sue, and that "the only thing left, therefore, is to turn to the court of public opinion."

In 1995, the church agreed not to perform baptisms or other rites for Holocaust victims, except in the very rare instances when they have living descendants who are Mormon.

Church spokesman Mike Otterson said Michel's decision to publicly denounce the church seems like a unilateral termination of the discussion.

"Those steps by Mr. Michel on behalf of the American Gathering were both unnecessary and unfortunate and belie the long and valued mutual respect that we have had in past years," Otterson said in an e-mail.

Posthumous baptism by proxy allows faithful Mormons to have their ancestors baptized into the 178-year-old church, which they believe reunites families in the afterlife.

Using genealogy records, the church also baptizes people who have died from all over the world and from different religions. Mormons stand in as proxies for the person being baptized and immerse themselves in a baptismal pool.

Only the Jews have an agreement with the church limiting who can be baptized, though the agreement covers only Holocaust victims, not all Jewish people. Jews are particularly offended by baptisms of Holocaust victims because they were murdered specifically because of their religion.

Michel suggested that posthumous baptisms of Holocaust victims play into the hands of Holocaust deniers.

"They tell me, that my parents' Jewishness has not been altered but ... 100 years from now, how will they be able to guarantee that my mother and father of blessed memory who lived as Jews and were slaughtered by Hitler for no other reason than they were Jews, will someday not be identified as Mormon victims of the Holocaust?" Michel said Monday.

Under the agreement with the Holocaust group, Mormons could enter the names of only those Holocaust victims to whom they were directly related. The church also agreed to remove the names of Holocaust victims already entered into its massive genealogical database.

Otterson said the church has kept its part of the agreement by removing more than 200,000 names from the genealogical index.

But since 2005, ongoing monitoring of the database by an independent Salt Lake City-based researcher shows both resubmissions and new entries of names of Dutch, Greek, Polish and Italian Jews.

The researcher Helen Radkey, who has done contract work for the Holocaust group, said her research suggests that lists of Holocaust victims obtained from camp and government records are being dumped into the database.

She said she has seen and recorded a sampling of several thousand entries that indicate Mormon religious rites, including baptisms, had been conducted for these Holocaust victims, some as recently as July.

"I've seen a steady procession of Jewish Holocaust names, especially names with camps linked to them, going to the International Genealogical Index," said Radkey, who acknowledges that she has limited access to the records. "There's no possible way of knowing exactly how many names, but it's substantial."

Church officials say a new version of the database — called New Family Search — will fix the problems. In the works for six years, the new database will discourage the submission of large lists of unrelated individuals. It will also separate names intended for temple rites from those submitted purely for genealogical purposes, the church states in a letter sent to Michel on Nov. 6.

"The names of any Holocaust victims we can identify in the database are to be flagged with a special designation — not available for temple ordinances," the letter states.

The church also proposes jump-starting a monitoring committee formed in 2005 to review database entries. The committee has met just once since 2005.

In May, the Vatican ordered Catholic dioceses worldwide to withhold member registries from Mormons so that Catholics could not be baptized.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27647809/page/2/

[Albert Mond]

Lol. Those silly Mormons!

[Joker_in_the_Pack]

Originally Posted by Saya

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27647809/page/2/

OK, who let the Mormons out of Utah? I thought I told you all, REINFORCED ELECTRIFIED FENCE!

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Joker_in_the_Pack

OK, who let the Mormons out of Utah? I thought I told you all, REINFORCED ELECTRIFIED FENCE!

They're EVERYWHERE. A year ago I had these two very smexy girls stop me in the middle of the road and they asked if they could come to my house sometime so they can talk to me about Jesus, and handed me a card about the Church. They're learning to use sex appeal I think.

I just hate the idea of proxy baptism though. I'll have to leave it in my will and have it on my gravestone a warning that if any of my descendants are to baptize me, I'll come back and haunt them.

[Godslayer Jillian]

I don't understand. Short version?

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

I don't understand. Short version?

The Mormon church has this database they use to baptize dead people into their church. Lets say your grandson converts to Mormonism, and after you die, he'll have you baptized, so then you're a Mormon!

Holocaust survivors however have a deal with the Mormons: that they will not do this to Holocaust victims unless the people who submit the names are directly related to the dead. But after they deleted the names of those who died in the Holocaust, a lot of them got resubmitted, a lot of them quite recently, and the Mormons aren't doing anything about that. The concern is that its very very disrespectful to the Jews who died, now they aren't considered Jewish anymore but Mormons.

[Albert Mond]

Even when they're dead, sane people don't want to be associated with Mormons.

[Solumina]

...wow I'm kind of at a loss for words.

[Albert Mond]

Originally Posted by Solumina

...wow I'm kind of at a loss for words.

You think this is weird, check out "Marriage by Proxy".

[CptSternn]

Mormons are a cult. Their beliefs are about the same as scientologists - pretty feckin wacky.

[viscus]

Originally Posted by Saya

...and they asked if they could come to my house sometime so they can talk to me about Jesus...

This is the moment when you're supposed to invite them to the wicked awesome BDSM party that you're having on Friday.

[HumanePain]

Originally Posted by Albert Mond

Even when they're dead, sane people don't want to be associated with Mormons.

It's like Chicago voting in the old days: not only vote twice for your corrupt candidate but stuff the ballot box with the votes of dead people so he wins.

By enlisting the dead they can swell the statistics of their "membership".

The funny thing is that there are some family lines that can be traced back before John Smith (he invented the Mormon Church) who are baptized by proxy, so you end up with family ancestors who are recognized as Mormon before Mormonism came into being!

[Malice In Wonderland]

How is that sort of thing legal in the slightest?

[Apathy's_Child]

Posthumous baptism would be baptism in name only thought, right? I mean, does the act of entering them on the database count as baptism?

If so, who gives a fuck?

[Drake Dun]

There's nothing more wacky about mainstream Mormonism (as opposed to the Warren Jeffs type) than there is about other forms of Christianity. If you actually believe that people survive their own deaths, and that they have to be inducted into your club in order to get the free toaster oven, this sort of thing is necessary. Actually, it's a clear reason why Mormonism is less offensive than garden variety Christianity - at least these people don't say you're going to burn eternally for failing to pay your dues.

I can't understand why people find this more offensive, unless, of course, they know perfectly well (in spite of what they claim to believe) that there's nothing to all of this hokum, and are conscious that it's the way people think and act here in the real world that actually matters.

[Saya]

I just have a funny picture about it, like someone who's up in Hindu heaven gets proxy baptism and BAM! He's sucked out of Hindu heaven in the middle of a talk with Krishna and he finds himself surrounded by creepy Mormons.

But honestly, its just very disrespectful, especially when they agreed not to do to it, and the wishes of the Holocaust survivors should be respected.

[Despanan]

Wait...so they Baptize DEAD PEOPLE?

I don't think it works that way. What the hell makes someone think you could posthumously baptize someone?

There's nothing more wacky about mainstream Mormonism (as opposed to the Warren Jeffs type) than there is about other forms of Christianity.

Other forms of mainstream Christianity weren't formed by people convicted of fraud. Joseph Smith was a con-man and the story of how he met the angel and wrote the book of Mormon is ridiculous, even by religious standards.

That being said, Mormons aren't particularly bad/cultish like say, Scientology, but they are annoying.

[Beneath the Shadows]

What's the point? Do they really think that posthumous baptism will change anything for the dead person?

[CptSternn]

There is a group of Buddhist Monks in Tibet that pray daily for everyone on the planet. They pray every hour on the hour their whole lives, each prayer is for a different person. They don't name the people, they just pray for everyone, one person at a time.

I wonder how long before someone sues them.

[Albert Mond]

Originally Posted by CptSternn

There is a group of Buddhist Monks in Tibet that pray daily for everyone on the planet. They pray every hour on the hour their whole lives, each prayer is for a different person. They don't name the people, they just pray for everyone, one person at a time.

I wonder how long before someone sues them.

Converting the dead, and praying for the well-being of living people are different things.

[Saya]

Yeah I don't think that baptizing the Holocaust victims so that they won't go to hell for their heathen ways and praying that everyone finds happiness is quite the same thing.

Anyways they aren't suing, just taking it to "the court of public opinion." Making a fuss about it.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by CptSternn

There is a group of Buddhist Monks in Tibet that pray daily for everyone on the planet. They pray every hour on the hour their whole lives, each prayer is for a different person. They don't name the people, they just pray for everyone, one person at a time.

I wonder how long before someone sues them.

Let's also add that Buddhism is a non-exclusive religion, so Buddhist prayers don't have the 'Join our church so you don't go to hell' tinge to them that other religions do.

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by Despanan

Wait...so they Baptize DEAD PEOPLE?

Oh yes, and you can take it from me. I've been one of the proxies.

I don't think it works that way. What the hell makes someone think you could posthumously baptize someone?

It makes perfect sense. If you actually believe the crap that religion teaches, death is no big deal. It's like taking your first drink or breaking your cherry or something. Even though the person in question has long since been disassociated into his constituent molecules, he is supposed to actually exist somewhere, maybe "outside of space and time", whatever that means. And since the Mormon religion, like every other religion on the planet, is the One True Religion, naturally that person is waiting eagerly for someone to fill out the right spiritual paperwork or whatever for him to be officially invited to the party.

The only way it doesn't make sense is, again, if you actually know the whole narrative is a load of crap.

Other forms of mainstream Christianity weren't formed by people convicted of fraud. Joseph Smith was a con-man and the story of how he met the angel and wrote the book of Mormon is ridiculous, even by religious standards.

Joseph Smith was never convicted of fraud either, and rather like the Nazarene he was persecuted and murdered for all the wrong reasons. Unlike said desert prophet, Smith never claimed that he was the son of a magical being that created the entire universe, that his mother was a virgin when he was born, or that consuming his transmogrified flesh and blood in a ritualized act of cannibalism could save you from a sin committed by distant mythical ancestors at the behest of a talking snake with legs. Of the two, Smith was clearly the less insane.

Though to be fair, I don't know how much of that actually came from Jesus himself, and how much was just slopped nonchalantly on by Christians in the following centuries.

That being said, Mormons aren't particularly bad/cultish like say, Scientology, but they are annoying.

Well... yes. Lol.

[Drake Dun]

BTW, Mormons have repudiated the whole hell thing, even for the worst of the worst. Another mark in their favor in comparison to mainstream Christianity.

[Brendan K]

I got a little sick of them doing this.

So I decided, that I'll unbaptise the dead. I'm an ordained minister (thank you ULC!), so it's legit -- well, as legit as their practice at any rate.

They can't be sued for it, they're doing nothing illegal. In comes me, the "fight fire with fire" guy. So I unbaptise a few Mormons by accident. Ooops. I'll just tell them I'll stop. Oh and years later? Oh, sorry about that, we thought we did.

unbaptisethedead.info