LDS Baptizes and Seals St. Damien to a "wife"

[ParkerD]

You haven’t change your designation to Catholic.

Kalt,
Since now we’re in a joking mood, I have half a joke for Catholics who have an interest in this subject.

Consider that those who are “baptized for the dead” are youth, ages 12 to 19 generally, and they have had to be “worthy” meaning absolutely morally clean, honest in their dealings, attending church meetings, have faith in God, live the Ten Commandments, and then they go to a temple as a group often or as individuals and act as a “proxy” for being baptized.

Think about having a whole group of Catholics petitioning the powers that be in your church to consider letting your youth have some kind of opportunity like this to participate in to give them an incentive to stay morally clean, honest, worthy, and loving toward the deceased including their own deceased ancestors. Wouldn’t that be a blessing? You could suggest they take all the Mormon names they could come up with and do the baptism work for them. It would be nice to do it by immersion since that is the way baptism is really done as taught by Christ and the apostles. It would also be nice to have the font sit on the backs of twelve oxen as the laver (font) was in Solomon’s temple, so the youth could understand that the ordinance represents a covenant relationship with God and gathers the twelve tribes of Israel.

You think I’m joking, but if I knew that Catholic youth were going to have that kind of a teaching among them to keep them desiring to stay morally clean, then I would sincerely be delighted and say, “hat’s off to you, Catholics.”

 

[zerinus]

No, actually he doesn’t. Like I’ve already written, only me and my brother.

First of all how do you know that the work has been done for him? Just because you searched somewhere and a name came up, it does not mean that it refers to him; or if it does, that the work has been done for him. Second, assuming that you are right, and the work has been done for him, somebody would have had to submit his name. Do you know who that person was? Whoever had done it would have had a personal interest in him, such as a surviving wife or a relative. Perhaps he has relatives that you don’t know about. Until you discover who had submitted his name, and find out their reasons for doing it, you have no way of knowing.

 

[amontoya]

Amontoya,
If you’ll please be a little patient as you work through the answer to your question about your father. FamilySearch has several databases that use a common system that you can use to research a name with a date and place they lived. If you enter that name, you will see some possible “hits” that match the criteria you entered. One or more may be from the “IGI”, one or more from the “Personal Ancestral File”, and others from other files. So the fact that his name came up on “FamilySearch” means that his name (or someone who lived about the same time with the same name) comes up in one of the databases. But if not the IGI, then I doubt that his “temple ordinance work” was done by anyone. It simply means that somehow there is data in one or more of the systems that is fed by several databases for people doing research (not just LDS), that matches the criteria you entered. So I suggest you enter the name as a search, and see which database comes up as the matching database.

ParkerD,
Thank you for your concern, and for your attempts to answer my questions. Based on your explanation, I don’t think any “temple ordinance work” has been done for him. I apologize for being impatient, but its frustrating to not know why my father’s information would show up on an LDS website.

 

[amontoya]

First of all how do you know that the work has been done for him?

I don’t. That’s why I asked the question in the first place.

Just because you searched somewhere and a name came up, it does not mean that it refers to him; or if it does, that the work has been done for him.

Well, I know it refers to him because its his name, birthdate, deathdate, social security number, and places of residence. I really don’t think it could be anybody else.

Second, assuming that you are right, and the work has been done for him, somebody would have had to submit his name. Do you know who that person was? Whoever had done it would have had a personal interest in him, such as a surviving wife or a relative. Perhaps he has relatives that you don’t know about. Until you discover who had submitted his name, and find out their reasons for doing it, you have no way of knowing.

Based on ParkerD’s explanation, I don’t think anybody did submit his name.

 

[zerinus]

Based on ParkerD’s explanation, I don’t think anybody did submit his name.

Then no work could have been done for him. Somebody has to submit his name for the work to be done.

 

[dianaiad]

I don’t think your analogy holds here. The girl scouts bring cookies. They don’t try to convince my parents that their religion is an abomination.

It holds.

She’s offering Thin Mints, they can say no.

We offer baptism, they can say no.

Both are offers. Both are answers. Analogy holds.

 

[mjf001]

They don’t respect your decision to be Catholic (or any non-LDS religion). They think they know better. They think they’re helping you by bringing you, by a rite of initiation (Baptism), into their group.

This isn’t about love. It’s about disprespect for other people. Disrespect for their memory - what they were is what they want to be known as in death–and disrespect for the intelligence of those who’ve chosen to be Catholic is all I see in this practice.

None of us believes that this “baptism” has any effect. That’s not the point. Leave our names alone! Is that so hard to understand?

It’s really creepy to think that these people (feels more like predators now) will hunt us down in death. If they can’t get us, they will get one of our descendants and us (for the list) through them. So, you see, no convert is ever really lost. Creepy.

Yeah, I know. Notice how the LDS have had nothing to say to my two last posts, which I admit have said pretty much the same thing… interesting. Thanks for responding.

 

[dianaiad]

Putting feelers out there for the LDS who’ve defended listing non-Mormons as baptized by the LDS church. Would the following actions be OK with you?

The CC doesn’t baptize the dead, but it does baptize the living. I used asome plants as a proxy (they needed watering anyway) and have baptized the following people in the Catholic faith. They’ve also been assigned spouses.

ParkerD - Anna Nicole Smith
Dianaiad - Mike Tyson
thecourt - Paris Hilton
Murdock - Mel Gibson
Zerinus - Michael Vick

If you’re a male and have been assigned a male spouse, I’m sorry. It’s just a list anyway.

This proxy baptism video and the list of names may be worked on to make it slick looking and may be put on Youtube. Unfortunately, unlike the LDS church, I don’t have your real names. If any of you listed above would be so kind as submit your real names for inclusion, it would be appreciated. Since the Mormons have other people’s real names, I’m sure that you, who have defended the LDS’s use of the real names of other people, will man up and give your own names for our new proxy baptism list.

If your spouses or SOs take offense at our listing you in public as being married to someone else, I’m sure as LDS members they will understand that the list and video don’t change the truth of your faith and situation. Your kids will probably wonder if you really do still believe in plural marriage, but you can explain that the Youtube video and the list here, though true, is not true. You really are baptized by proxy and you are “sealed” to other spouses, but it’s not really real and the list, though public, means nothing.

Would it be OK with you if I go ahead with the video? If you don’t want your real names listed here, just send it to me via PM.

As long as your video and offer is on the same terms as the one we make. First, I have to have been dead for at least a year. Second, so does Tyson. Third, I can tell both of you to take a hike.

Given those parameters (including the dates that show the weddings to have taken place at least a year post mortem for all parties)

Go ahead.

…and my name isn’t that difficult to find. You will have to do the work, however, just as genealogists do.

 

[dianaiad]

If this was actually what was being done, then there would be no disrespect. If the missionaries were speaking to my father, then he would have the opportunity to say “no thank you.”

Ok, then you should have no problem, because that is PRECISELY what we believe is happening.

When he was living down the street he rejected the missionaries, was a dedicated Christian, and made sure that his children knew what he believed. In this analogy, let’s say he even went so far as to post signs in his yard stating what he religion he was.

However, he isn’t living in the house down the street anymore. He can’t speak to the missionaries to say “no thanks.” So the responsibility falls to me to honor him, and tell the missionaries “no” for him.

That’s where your analogy falls. You have just said that 'he can’t speak to the missionaries to say ‘no thanks.’" …and that’s where the communication gap is. WE, who are doing the work, ***absolutely believe *that he can, and will, ‘speak to the missionaries,’ and can, and will, speak for himself one last time.

In other words, you believe in these proxy baptisms more strongly than we do. You seem to think that they force him into something; that he would be, as a result of them and whether he wants it or not, LDS after the work is done.

WE don’t believe that. Never have, don’t know, never will. WE believe that the choice is always, and completely, his.

NOT yours.

If I see the missionaries going toward his house, I’m going to ask them to leave that house alone, because my father has passed away, but he made very clear to me while he was alive that he didn’t want what they were offering. I could even direct them to read the yard signs that tell of his decisions.

Why are you suddenly the conservator of his religious thoughts? Would you have done this before he passed on, or would you trust him to say no for himself? Have you lost so much faith in his faith, that you have to take over gaurdianship of it?

His body no longer functions, but his spirit does. WE believe that. I’m beginning to think that those Christians and others who object to this so much don’t believe that. Or else they suddenly believe that their dead loved ones are no longer capable of thought, feelings, faith or the ability to make up their own minds.

It would be very offensive to me, but flat out disrepectful of him, if the missionaries ignored me and his own declarations, and went to his house anyway.

Why in the world would they do that, if he’s not there? We want to talk to HIM, not his house…and therein lies the communication gap. I am beginning to think that you think that’s all there is to those who pass on…the empty house.

This is what is happening. My father was a Christian. Everyone in the family knew it. His birth, baptism, marriage, and death records attest to it. It is disrespectful to ignore his family’s witness and the choices he made in this life, and perform religious ceremonies in his name for a religion he didn’t believe.

If none of your family is LDS, then he probably won’t be offered the proxy baptism. Someday, perhaps, one of your family–one of his grandchildren or great grandchildren, perhaps, may want to do that work for him, but until that day comes, you shouldn’t be in such a swivet. …and if that day does come, and you truely believe that we are wrong and you are correct, have a little faith in his faith.

 

[dianaiad]

But why bug him at all?

People in Heaven don’t need that irritating fly buzzing around them all the time now do they?

Well, now…here’s the thing; if he becomes aware of that ‘irritating fly,’ it would be because we are right, don’t you think?

 

[dianaiad]

We don’t think your proxy baptism does anything–not even what you think it does.
It’s disrespectful because the people you are targeting are other people’s dead family members. If you don’t understand that that is a hands off area, there’s likely nothing any of us can say to make you understand. Common decency says to leave other people’s dead relatives alone, even if they (the other people) know that what you’re doing is really nothing.

The fact is that you are writing their names down in your lists. You have no right to do that. This was not the dead person’s religion, and you have no right to trample on a dead person.

If baptism after death were possible, I’m sure God would handle it himself and wouldn’t need you to make the offer.

If I ever find one of my relatives on your list, you won’t want to be there when I visit Mormon country.

If I do work for someone on ‘my list,’ it will be because he or she is MY relative…and I have more respect for their judgment than to decide for them what they do, or do not, want in the afterlife.

Now THAT, I think, is disrespect.

 

[dianaiad]

Babies are baptized by the people who are responsible for them. They are speaking for the child and then raise the child in the faith. At the appropriate age the person then confirms his baptism for himself. A Catholic who hasn’t confirmed his baptism may not be married in the CC and he can’t be a god parent to a Catholic child.

Compare that to baptizing the dead and giving them wives and husbands - by proxy.

Sounds rather similar, actually. Someone baptizes the kid and makes promises for him or her, but the kid has to accept (or confirm) it before it becomes fully 'operational?"

In fact, what you are talking about is even more intrusive than what we do. After all, the baby has no say; if he is never ‘confirmed,’ he is still a 'baptised Catholic," and that still does something for (or to) him in this life and the next, doesn’t it?

What WE do has NO effect whatsoever unless the person for whom it is done accepts it.

 

[dianaiad]

They don’t respect your decision to be Catholic (or any non-LDS religion). They think they know better. They think they’re helping you by bringing you, by a rite of initiation (Baptism), into their group.

Nope. that’s what the Catholics do when they baptise infants, but that’s not what WE do. What we do is of no effect whatsoever without the willing consent of the person for whom it is done. Can you say the same about a Catholic infant baptism?

 

[dianaiad]

I’m sorry, but what is so difficult to understand that he has two descendants: me and my brother. We aren’t mormon. We didn’t do those ordinances or submit his name for them to be done.

So, again, NO his descendants did not perform these ordinances on his behalf. “The mormons” did! And no, they don’t have every right to do so.

…and are you all that certain that this work has been done?

 

[dianaiad]

ParkerD,
Thank you for your concern, and for your attempts to answer my questions. Based on your explanation, I don’t think any “temple ordinance work” has been done for him. I apologize for being impatient, but its frustrating to not know why my father’s information would show up on an LDS website.

It showed up because the LDS genealogical websites are very popular with genealogists of all faiths and non-faiths. It showed up because he is related to someone; he is the son of someone, or the cousin, uncle…something…and for the sake of genealogical accuracy, his birth and death are recorded. Because of this, someday your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will know who he was. They will know who you are…and because of that, they will have a better idea of who THEY are. "Roots,’ and all that.

Genealogy is a hobby shared by a great many people, not just Mormons. If you think we are obsessed, just try joining the Daughters of the American Revolution. In fact, thanks to we evil Mormons, if you DID want to join the DAR, or any of the other organizations that require a certain ancestral heritage, or apply for a scholarship that requires a specific ethnic ancestry, you could do all that tiresome research and documentation with the click or two of a mouse.

It’s astounding how many people take advantage of all the work and the research, (which, by the way, we share freely) but are then offended when we actually use it for the purpose for which we did all the work.

…and again, have a little faith in his faith. You are behaving as if being offered a proxy baptism is akin to being thrown to lions. It’s not. One word from him makes the whole thing useless. Don’t you believe he would say that word?

Don’t you trust him to say ‘no?’

 

[kimmielittle]

So all this is done in the name of genealogy?

An innocent sounding project…BUT

Doesn’t the real reason go to;… the teachings of LDS to "bind’ and ‘gather’ the 12 Tribes?

 

[amontoya]

That’s where your analogy falls. You have just said that 'he can’t speak to the missionaries to say ‘no thanks.’" …and that’s where the communication gap is. WE, who are doing the work, ***absolutely believe *that he can, and will, ‘speak to the missionaries,’ and can, and will, speak for himself one last time.

No, he can’t. He can’t tell the little twelve year old boy in the Salt Lake City temple standing in the water that he doesn’t want him to be “baptised” on his behalf. He is no longer in this world. He can’t speak directly to the person who is making this “offer” to him.

In other words, you believe in these proxy baptisms more strongly than we do. You seem to think that they force him into something; that he would be, as a result of them and whether he wants it or not, LDS after the work is done.

No, I don’t believe in them at all. The choice has already been made, he has been judged, and his eternal destiny is sealed. I do not in any way think that these “proxy baptisms” could ever have any effect.

WE don’t believe that. Never have, don’t know, never will. WE believe that the choice is always, and completely, his.

NOT yours.

You’re right, it’s not my choice, and it never was. It’s his choice and he made it. All I’m asking is that LDS respect that choice.

Why are you suddenly the conservator of his religious thoughts? Would you have done this before he passed on, or would you trust him to say no for himself? Have you lost so much faith in his faith, that you have to take over gaurdianship of it?

He did say “no” for himself! Why would LDS not respect that “no?”

It’s not his faith that concerns me. He was a Christian and he is in God’s hands now. What concerns me is that mormons could potentially take his name and perform religious ceremonies in his name and he can’t stop them. When someone can no longer speak for themselves, then it falls to that person’s family to step in and say, “don’t use his name that way.”

His body no longer functions, but his spirit does. WE believe that. I’m beginning to think that those Christians and others who object to this so much don’t believe that. Or else they suddenly believe that their dead loved ones are no longer capable of thought, feelings, faith or the ability to make up their own minds.

It’s actually that we believe they have already made up their minds, but the LDS aren’t interested in what they decided.

Why in the world would they do that, if he’s not there? We want to talk to HIM, not his house…and therein lies the communication gap. I am beginning to think that you think that’s all there is to those who pass on…the empty house.

The empty house is all that is left on this earth! You’re right that this is where the communication gap lies. I believe the only opportunity the “missionaries” had to speak to him was on this earth. They don’t have access to him now. The only thing they can get at is his name (the “house” he left behind).

If none of your family is LDS, then he probably won’t be offered the proxy baptism. Someday, perhaps, one of your family–one of his grandchildren or great grandchildren, perhaps, may want to do that work for him, but until that day comes, you shouldn’t be in such a swivet. …and if that day does come, and you truely believe that we are wrong and you are correct, have a little faith in his faith.

I have faith that my father is with God, and no “ordinances” done in his name can have any effect on his eternal life.

 

[amontoya]

It holds.

She’s offering Thin Mints, they can say no.

We offer baptism, they can say no.

Both are offers. Both are answers. Analogy holds.

I used to be a girl scout, and I don’t remember trying to sell cookies in cemetaries.

 

[amontoya]

It showed up because the LDS genealogical websites are very popular with genealogists of all faiths and non-faiths. It showed up because he is related to someone; he is the son of someone, or the cousin, uncle…something…and for the sake of genealogical accuracy, his birth and death are recorded. Because of this, someday your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will know who he was. They will know who you are…and because of that, they will have a better idea of who THEY are. "Roots,’ and all that.

The point of this research doesn’t seem to be to get a better understanding of who the deceased were, but to try and give them your understanding of what they should be.

Genealogy is a hobby shared by a great many people, not just Mormons. If you think we are obsessed, just try joining the Daughters of the American Revolution. In fact, thanks to we evil Mormons, if you DID want to join the DAR, or any of the other organizations that require a certain ancestral heritage, or apply for a scholarship that requires a specific ethnic ancestry, you could do all that tiresome research and documentation with the click or two of a mouse.

It’s astounding how many people take advantage of all the work and the research, (which, by the way, we share freely) but are then offended when we actually use it for the purpose for which we did all the work.

…and again, have a little faith in his faith. You are behaving as if being offered a proxy baptism is akin to being thrown to lions. It’s not. One word from him makes the whole thing useless. Don’t you believe he would say that word?

Don’t you trust him to say ‘no?’

I don’t think he needs to say anything to make it useless.

I just can’t fathom why the LDS would take the name of someone who has rejected their religion and use that name in their “ordinances.”

 

[kalt]

Kalt,
Since now we’re in a joking mood, I have half a joke for Catholics who have an interest in this subject.

Consider that those who are “baptized for the dead” are youth, ages 12 to 19 generally, and they have had to be “worthy” meaning absolutely morally clean, honest in their dealings, attending church meetings, have faith in God, live the Ten Commandments, and then they go to a temple as a group often or as individuals and act as a “proxy” for being baptized.

Think about having a whole group of Catholics petitioning the powers that be in your church to consider letting your youth have some kind of opportunity like this to participate in to give them an incentive to stay morally clean, honest, worthy, and loving toward the deceased including their own deceased ancestors. Wouldn’t that be a blessing? You could suggest they take all the Mormon names they could come up with and do the baptism work for them. It would be nice to do it by immersion since that is the way baptism is really done as taught by Christ and the apostles. It would also be nice to have the font sit on the backs of twelve oxen as the laver (font) was in Solomon’s temple, so the youth could understand that the ordinance represents a covenant relationship with God and gathers the twelve tribes of Israel.

You think I’m joking, but if I knew that Catholic youth were going to have that kind of a teaching among them to keep them desiring to stay morally clean, then I would sincerely be delighted and say, “hat’s off to you, Catholics.”

A blessing? No. Flawed theology. You bet.

You really do need to change your religion designation to Catholic, if you expect us to accept the premise that having dead people’s names listed as baptized in your faith (by proxy) is supposed to mean nothing. Why aren’t you changing it to Catholic?