What kind of fuckery is this?

[mountain_hiker]

I actually didn't know they did this. If I found out that these proxy baptisms happened to someone I loved in life, I'd be righteously pissed. Think this will be trouble for Romney in Florida -- which has a high Jewish population?

Mormon Church's Prior Baptism Of Dead Jews Could Raise Concerns For Florida Voters Mitt Romney's problem with

Comments

[leprofessional]

Proxy baptisms happened to someone I loved in life, I'd be righteously pissed.

why though? i can baptize you from afar in my sink. you've been baptized. congratulations. now you're going to my heaven too (jk jk /greedy).

let them spend their time baptizing dead people.

[mariechan]

I just think it's a matter of being disrespectful to the dead, and having the gall to declare them no longer Jewish, when some of them died for having their religion.

I can see why someone would be upset about it. I think I would be offended too if someone told me I am now part of their faith by proxy.

*shrug*

[leprofessional]

Yeah I completely understand what you're saying, but I'm still amused that they're spending time and money on probably the most pointless exercise in all of humanity. On the bright side they own ancestry.com... and I love using that side because they really want to collect everybody's ancestors, which is good for people who don't have the money/resources to do it themselves.

[muppetfromhell]

yeah great except for in Ancestry.com when they list you as Mormon since they baptized you, and now your great great grandkids are like: dude WTF.

[13chapters]

I thought that the Mormon church did this was well-known? I've certainly known about it for years. It is definitely not popular among Jews.

And btw Florida doesn't have anywhere near the most Jews of any state. New York and California both have waayyyyyy more Jews than Florida.

[mountain_hiker]

Ah, noted and edited. I misread that part of the article.

[13chapters]

Anyway, regarding the gist of the article, the baptizing of the dead is, imho, a stupid and somewhat offensive custom, but no worse than plenty of other stupid and offensive customs of the Mormon Church, and a lot less offensive than some of them (the way the LDS church treats everyone who isn't a straight man is super shitty), so I can't get all that worked up. From the POV of someone who might vote in the FL republican primary, I doubt this would be the final straw to have a negative effect on Romney. I mean, my evangelical neighbor once told me that Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers, like I was supposed to be shocked by that (idgaf, I'm an atheist Jew, and I'm pretty sure that is NOT part of LDS theology anyway). I that that if people were going to be turned off my Romney's Mormonism, I'd think it be over something a little more theologically damning than baptizing of the dead.

Plus, Jews tend to vote Democrat anyway.

edited to remove some terrible writing.

[mirhanda]

I don't think it's popular even among Christians. Or really anyone who isn't mormon.

[entropius]

For all the batshittery that Mormons (and many other Christians) engage in, this isn't a big deal.

If someone does a little dance in their church that's supposed to save my great-grandpappy's soul, fine. This doesn't hurt me, and doesn't offend me any more than Christians saying that they'll pray for my soul, or the sermons given in Baptist churches every Sunday where they proudly proclaim that atheists (or whoever) are going to hell. No big. It's just a bunch of words spoken in private, with or without magic underwear or sprinkles of water or whatever Mormons do to baptize people.

I'm far more concerned about the Mormons' involvement in Prop 8. That, to my mind, is enough to lose my vote. That actually hurt somebody -- lots of somebodies.

[screamingintune]

idk, it's pretty fucking offensive that they did it to Jewish Holocaust victims who were murdered and oppressed because of their religion, and then the Mormons go and baptize them and add them to their members rolls.

Like, I'm an apatheist so I wouldn't give a fuck if it was me, but I can see how it could be deeply offensive to people who have any kind of faith that isn't Mormon.

[witherwings]

I'm no fan of the mormons. I got out at 19 and am exceptionally glad I did so for a number of reasons and a huge amount of fuckery

[leprofessional]

It's not even comparable to the atheists go to hell rhetoric, because that can actually be damaging to people's lives, interactions with others, policy/decision-making etc. It's way less harmless, potentially offensive is someone is sensitive or it is not compatible with their own beliefs (that is they believe if someone else declares you to be something, you are that) but harmless. idk idk...

[screamingintune]

I've always thought this practice was creepy ass weird when implemented for people they don't even know. I can see the usefulness of posthumous baptism if, for example, a child dies before it can be baptized, but baptizing strangers? Hella creepy.

Also lol. If I died and in the afterlife some being said to me, "btw, you got Mormon baptized, you now have the choice to go to Mormon heaven" I think I'd pass. DNW afterlife with a bunch of Mormons. Hell, here I come!

[arisma]

I've always said that if I'm wrong and there's some sort of after life I'm cool with heading to the south, that's where all my friends and the other interesting people will be.

[witherwings]

Children who die before the age of 8 don't need to be baptised by proxy because they are seen as innocent in the eyes of god and the church. It's only once they're 8, which is apparently the age at which a kid becomes responsible that they need to be dunked (by proxy or otherwise).

According to mormons anyway.

[mrasaki]

Do they not believe in Original Sin? I'm genuinely curious; I thought Original Sin was the reason children are baptized as babies (at least in the Catholic Church), in case they die before reaching the age where they have free will. Like, they have enough sin on their souls to keep them from going to heaven otherwise. (or something.)

[lux_roark]

I was taking courses to get my Temple Recommend so that I could do proxy baptisms and go to the Temple. I read more about them and the more I read the more I realized that I didn't agree with it. My husband and I left the church in July and we're sure as hell not going back.

[keestone]

You might be the one to ask a completely ignorant question . . .

See, I can't help but wonder if this (way over-)zealous baptism of the dead stems from getting some sort of supernatural brownie points for the amount of people one converts. Does one actually rack up credit for converting people, or is that just my cynicism thinking? I mean, I can't help but think that it would be way easier to add lots of names to the rolls if they're dead and thus not able to argue back or tell a missionary they're not bloody well interested thank you very much. (The wondering may also be influenced by the knowledge that some cultish Christian sects that don't have a hierarchical heaven tell their followers and anyone who will listen that if you're not constantly proselytizing, you're not a good Christian.)

(Signed, someone is not in favor of religious proselytizing in general and absolutely disgusted at the levels of insensitivity in this particular case.)

[lux_roark]

I was never a Mormon for that long and took only 2 Temple recommend classes. I do know that in order to go to the Celestial Kingdom you have to complete ordinances to enter it.

http://www.mormonwiki.com/Baptism_for_the_Dead

[erunamiryene]

I never heard anything like that in the ... about 17 years I went to church. It was just considered more of ... IDK, "here, we're giving you the option!" Because the person you're getting baptized for has the choice to accept or not accept (according to Mormon doctrine).

Of course, we weren't huge on "proselytize ALL THE TIMES". If people came to church, that was cool, but you were supposed to "convert by example", not convert by preaching people to death.