MERGED Posthumous Mormon Baptisms

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Can we just agree that forced conversions, savings, baptisms, and related sacraments and sacramental are just always wrong?
 
sallybutler said:
It’s bad enough when any religion imposes their initiation process on someone, dead or alive. However, the LDS church is renowned for their record keeping. You’d think that once Anne Frank was ‘baptized’, they wouldn’t allow it 9 (yes nine) more times. Wasn’t the first time good enough? Or are they saying that they don’t even trust their own baptisms?

Next time a Mormon tells me I have to be baptized in their church for it to be valid, I’m going to ask how many are required before it is considered valid.
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Maybe they run out of names to use in their temple ceremonies, so they just use names they already have.
 
yes…I would agree they run out of names…or they don’t bother to communicate with other temples to see who has been baptized or not.

So it also makes me wonder if they are now baptizing us, the living.
 
To me, it’s not much different than me praying for the soul of a non-Catholic. Their non-Catholic relatives might appreciate the thought, but they’d never be offended by the act. I believe that it has a beneficial effect for the dead person and it’s an act of care for a dead friend.

It seems to me that an LDS posthumous baptism is the same thing. I personally don’t believe it has any spiritual benefit, but it’s a nice gesture. If someone did that for an ancestor of mine, I appreciate that a person cared enough about a family member to do that. It doesn’t change my religion and it certainly doesn’t change the religion of the dead person but I’d be grateful that someone did the gesture.

It reminds me of Christopher Hitchens’ thought about people praying for him while he was sick. He didn’t believe it did anything* (who’s sorry now?)* but he said, if praying for him makes you feel good, then that’s good for you and he appreciates the gesture.
 
I think because they’ve been asked not to do it…said they wouldn’t… been sued over it… and then continue to do it and lie about it. 🙂

Steph
 
It cannot hurt anything. I agree with the OP. It is intended, based upon their beliefs, as something people need.
And if THEY are right…it certainly cannot hurt anything:)🤷
 
I can tell you why it’s offensive to me.

I have grandparents and step-family (father’s step-family) who are all active LDS members. My father was forced to become part of the “church” as a teen, though he never embraced the belief system. He has also never removed his name from the rolls, because he refuses to acknowledge that the “church” has any authority over him. He and my mother have been married for almost 30 years, and to this day he has missionaries/home teachers show up and try to convince him that it would be all right for him to divorce her and marry a good Mormon woman. It’s unspoken that some of this has been done with my grandparent’s knowledge and consent (my grandfather is a “bishop.”)

The false teachings of the LDS have caused nothing but strife in my family. Don’t get me wrong - I love my grandparents and step-family. I simply cannot, in any way, get on board with their belief system. To baptize the dead is unscriptural and only one of the many teachings that fly in the face of historic, orthodox Christianity. I do not want my name associated with it.’

At the core of it, however, is a sense of heartbreak. I know that these people engage in this practice because they believe it to be part of the salvation process for those who did not acknowledge Christ in this life. (Again, unscriptural). It makes me so sad to know that millions have been swayed with a little bit of truth and a whole lotta lies.
 
To the OP - Would you be offended if a pagan tried to contact your dead relative?
 
PazzoGrande said:
To me, it’s not much different than me praying for the soul of a non-Catholic. Their non-Catholic relatives might appreciate the thought, but they’d never be offended by the act. I believe that it has a beneficial effect for the dead person and it’s an act of care for a dead friend.

It seems to me that an LDS posthumous baptism is the same thing. I personally don’t believe it has any spiritual benefit, but it’s a nice gesture. If someone did that for an ancestor of mine, I appreciate that a person cared enough about a family member to do that. It doesn’t change my religion and it certainly doesn’t change the religion of the dead person but I’d be grateful that someone did the gesture.

It reminds me of Christopher Hitchens’ thought about people praying for him while he was sick. He didn’t believe it did anything* (who’s sorry now?)* but he said, if praying for him makes you feel good, then that’s good for you and he appreciates the gesture.
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well, actually many non-Catholics are offended if you pray for one of their dead relatives. The reason is because they are certain that person is in Heaven because he/she “believed in Jesus” and you suggesting otherwise offends them.
 
LemonAndLime said:
To the OP - Would you be offended if a pagan tried to contact your dead relative?
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That’s a fair point, but I think that is quite different. If a pagan tried to contact a dead relative, it could be offensive because it’s as if they are playing with the deceased disrespectfully, using my relative for a ouija board game or to figure out what tomorrow’s lottery ticket numbers will be. It’s very different from praying or posthumously baptising, because those are acts of care. If the deceased weren’t cared about or respected, they wouldn’t be prayed for or posthumously baptised. Contacting the deceased for fun is disrespectful.

But aside from that, even then, it still doesn’t matter to me.

#1, I studied exorcists’ opinions on demons; they don’t all agree on whether or not the dead really can have contact with the world (except in cases where they need prayer or are giving an apparition, but always with God’s assent); some exorcists believe that when the dead is supposedly conjured, it really is a demon trying to deceive. So, they aren’t really talking to my dead relative, and it’s their problem that they’re summoning up demons, not mine.

#2, Even if they really did summon up my relative, then it is a private matter between the pagan and my relative. My relative can choose to talk back to the person or can refuse (presumably the relative would have the choice to reject it – it’s not as if God would force him to converse with some pagan in the afterlife, right?). If it pleases my dead relative to do so, then it isn’t really my business.

#3, I try to communicate with dead people all the time – I pray to Mary and to the saints and I consider my day a failure if I’ve neglected my Rosary, and they answer back by helping me with what I pray for. Jesus doesn’t mind that I talk to His mom, Saint Theresa’s sister’s won’t mind that I talk to their sister, the Passionists don’t mind that I talk to their founder – in fact, they’d encourage it 😃
 
PazzoGrande said:
To me, it’s not much different than me praying for the soul of a non-Catholic. Their non-Catholic relatives might appreciate the thought, but they’d never be offended by the act. I believe that it has a beneficial effect for the dead person and it’s an act of care for a dead friend.

It seems to me that an LDS posthumous baptism is the same thing. I personally don’t believe it has any spiritual benefit, but it’s a nice gesture. If someone did that for an ancestor of mine, I appreciate that a person cared enough about a family member to do that. It doesn’t change my religion and it certainly doesn’t change the religion of the dead person but I’d be grateful that someone did the gesture.

It reminds me of Christopher Hitchens’ thought about people praying for him while he was sick. He didn’t believe it did anything* (who’s sorry now?)* but he said, if praying for him makes you feel good, then that’s good for you and he appreciates the gesture.
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Whether or not they mean well or the ritual has spiritual benefit is completely besides the point. At the very least there’s privacy issues here that aren’t being respected.
 
Mitex…

The Jews and Vatican already told the LDS administration not to do this but they still do.
 
PazzoGrande said:
That’s a fair point, but I think that is quite different. If a pagan tried to contact a dead relative, it could be offensive because it’s as if they are playing with the deceased disrespectfully, using my relative for a ouija board game or to figure out what tomorrow’s lottery ticket numbers will be. It’s very different from praying or posthumously baptising, because those are acts of care. If the deceased weren’t cared about or respected, they wouldn’t be prayed for or posthumously baptised. Contacting the deceased for fun is disrespectful.
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And baptising someone into a faith when they did not choose to, give permission, or tell the family isn’t disrespectful?
 
As long as no record considered “official” marks the dead as LDS I have no probelm with what the LDS are doing. It’s as effective (or ineffective) as me looking at a list of English commoners and declaring them to be the King and Queen of New York.
 
I don’t know what the big deal is either. If someone is dead and therefore made it to the presence of God, he or she isn’t going to do a
Micheal J Fox back to the future style photograph fading disappearance.
Cheers! 👍
 
LemonAndLime said:
And baptising someone into a faith when they did not choose to, give permission, or tell the family isn’t disrespectful?
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I wouldn’t care. They’re not baptizing them. They are dead. They baptize themselves “on behalf of” the dead person. It’s meaningless nonsense.

If a pagan tried to contact my dead relative, I wouldn’t care. I would say the same thing to them as I do to the Mormon dead “baptizers”-Have fun wasting your time!
 
anp1215 said:
I wouldn’t care. They’re not baptizing them. They are dead. They baptize themselves “on behalf of” the dead person. It’s meaningless nonsense.

If a pagan tried to contact my dead relative, I wouldn’t care. I would say the same thing to them as I do to the Mormon dead “baptizers”-Have fun wasting your time!
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Well, that’s you.

Other people feel differently and I think they have a right in doing so.
 
I do think it is a big deal, and disrespecful to the deceased and the family. If the person wanted to be Mormon they would have became Mormon during their lifetime.

It’s like the Mormons thumb their noses at others and imply, “now that she/he is dead they know better”.
 
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