Why does baptism for the dead bother you?

[Blindinglight]

I realize what your desire is. I just want to know if there is a difference. If I pray for you and record it in my journal, would you sue me?

A prayer book is not an official documentation, so no.

Also, what legal rights does a dead person have? Who would get what when someone files a lawsuit in behalf of you? Keep in mind that it is likely your family who would submit your name to the church in the first place for the purpose of having this work done.

Like I said, I'm still working on it. I have it planned that any monetary fines will go to various organizations, but it is my hope that any priest/pastor (I'm not sure what the LDS's have) will have my name on a no go list, and it wont get any further than that.

 

[Katzpur]

A prayer book is not an official documentation, so no.

And just what do you think a proxy baptism "officially" does? You still haven't explained the effect you believe it's going to have on you (provided it is even performed at some time two or three hundred years from now). I'm just having a hard time understanding what you believe is going to be accomplished by such a baptism.

 

[Booko]

No, I dont think many denominations accept other denominations baptisms - as far as methodists are concerned (thats what I was initially christened as an infant as) - I am still methodist.

Actually, they do. I was baptized in the Reformed Church, but the Methodists and the RCC and the Episcopalians would all accept that baptism, and vice versa.

It's the sacraments that usually come after baptism where the differences begin.

 

[Booko]

But, it annoys me to the greatest lenghts that someone can say "Oh, great grandpa Eric didn't have a religion, and was a self proclaimed Anti-Christ. We must have him Baptised." And then fully against my wishes, my name is associated with that church as being baptised.
I want it to stay at a non-religious anti-christ, for both public and private records.

So it's just that records are kept that bothers you? Or is it something more than that?

I'm curious, mostly because in my most rabidly atheistic days, I still wouldn't have cared if LDS did proxy baptisms for me or any of my ancestors. So I'm trying to figure out why anyone would care.

 

[Buttercup]

I'm curious, mostly because in my most rabidly atheistic days, I still wouldn't have cared if LDS did proxy baptisms for me or any of my ancestors. So I'm trying to figure out why anyone would care.

Not that I feel this way but I'm thinking if someone where of another religion and was proxy baptized, it pretty much says your religion wasn't good enough. I can see why it would bother people.

 

[Booko]

Not that I feel this way but I'm thinking if someone where of another religion and was proxy baptized, it pretty much says your religion wasn't good enough. I can see why it would bother people.

I suppose it would imply that, Buttercup, but honestly, any day of the week other religions impliy that my religion isn't good enough, so I'm still not getting what's so special about proxy baptisms that I would spend any energy being bothered by it.

As the LDS members have explained, it's more like giving you an "option" -- you have as much right to use the option or not in the next life as you did in this one.

To some extent, I can understand Jewish objections to the practice, mostly because I understand Jewish objections to proselytizing in all its forms. But as I don't believe proxy baptism is gonna call the soul back to earth so it has to sit through it, it doesn't seem like it would actually be interfering with the dead.

Honestly, if one doesn't believe as the LDS do anyway, why believe there is any actual interference?

If the LDS want their private database so they don't duplicate efforts, to my mind that's a heck of a lot less intrusive than all the bloody marketing databases my name is on. I wouldn't even know about the LDS records. But I sure as heck do get enough junk mail. :149:

 

[Buttercup]

Honestly, if one doesn't believe as the LDS do anyway, why believe there is any actual interference?

I hear ya and agree. But, I'm just stepping inside someone else's shoes. Not everyone is as open minded as us. And there are some who held their faith very near and dear to them while alive. I can see how their relatives would be ticked off. It's kind of intrusive. But, if the LDS ask permission and the relatives agree....no harm, no foul.

Can you imagine the uproar if the Baha'i performed after death baptizms?

 

[Booko]

I hear ya and agree. But, I'm just stepping inside someone else's shoes. Not everyone is as open minded as us. And there are some who held their faith very near and dear to them while alive. I can see how their relatives would be ticked off. It's kind of intrusive. But, if the LDS ask permission and the relatives agree....no harm, no foul.

Can you imagine the uproar if the Baha'i performed after death baptizms?

I can imagine a lot more Baha'is in Iran getting killed if we did. Other than that, no I can't really imagine it. I'm not sure if we get less notice than Mormons, as we don't have missionaries. I've really no idea -- perceptions change from one country and culture to another.

Um...fortunately we don't have any sacraments, unless you'd call voting a sacrament. Lucky us.

I don't know that it's so much being open-minded as, at least for me, being kinda lazy in a way. It seems like a lot of energy to get exercised over it. I can find a lot of other things to get exercised over that have a more direct effect on me and mine.

I mean, the Reformed Church has my name on their records of baptisms too, and I had no more say in that than anyone does over LDS doing a proxy baptism after they're dead. Technically I'm sure the RCC still thinks my husband is Catholic.

But we know what we are -- isn't that what's important? No one is rewriting history here or anything like that.

But it may be that the reason I'm laid back about it is just that I'm not understanding something or seeing something like those who are upset by it.

I would say that maybe I should be upset, but as my blood pressure has dropped in a big way recently, I'm thinking I should not shoot that particular gift horse and keep my cool.

 

[Quiddity]

Not that I feel this way but I'm thinking if someone where of another religion and was proxy baptized, it pretty much says your religion wasn't good enough. I can see why it would bother people.

But isn't this already implied by the mere fact they are not Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, etc.? I mean, most all faiths have been touched, here and there, by the spirit of ecumenicalism and many of them will tell you that other religions/faiths have some truth in them. But......a central tenet of most religious tradition is that essentially all others are mere repositories of error or, at best incomplete.

So it's never bothered me that others think I'm in error or that my religion is incomplete. If anything, I respect this much more then someone telling me two contradictory beliefs can live side by side. Of course tolerance should be the goal, but intolerance is almost intrinsic to every faith/religion. Unless of course you have a religion/faith that teaches "everything goes"...:cover:

 

[Buttercup]

So it's never bothered me that others think I'm in error or that my religion is incomplete.

I think that's great, Victor. But, I'm not sure that's the norm. In fact, I can't imagine too many Baptists or Evangelical Christians who would be happy about being baptized after death.

 

[Booko]

I think that's great, Victor. But, I'm not sure that's the norm. In fact, I can't imagine too many Baptists or Evangelical Christians who would be happy about being baptized after death.

But that's exactly the thing, Buttercup. The very people who are so convinced that LDS is "false" logically speaking should be the last people in the world upset about proxy baptisms. In their minds, it's a useless practice with no spiritual effect so...who cares?

 

[Buttercup]

But that's exactly the thing, Buttercup. The very people who are so convinced that LDS is "false" logically speaking should be the last people in the world upset about proxy baptisms. In their minds, it's a useless practice with no spiritual effect so...who cares?

Because they'd see it as intrusive and a slap in the face. I'm not saying I feel this way, but believe me I can picture it......I was a Baptist for 20 years. If an LDS member called up a relative of a conservative Christian and asked if they could baptize dead Aunt so and so into the Mormon faith, there very well could be some heated words.

Just because we wouldn't act that way doesn't mean others wouldn't.

 

[Booko]

Because they'd see it as intrusive and a slap in the face. I'm not saying I feel this way, but believe me I can picture it......I was a Baptist for 20 years. If an LDS member called up a relative of a conservative Christian and asked if they could baptize dead Aunt so and so into the Mormon faith, there very well could be some heated words.

It may be that I will just have to accept, without understanding, that other people do see it as intrusive.

I wouldn't be upset if an LDS member did a proxy baptism for any of my ancestors, but I would be upset if anyone called me on the telephone and interrupted my nap.

Then there might be some heated words. :149:

Just not over the baptism part of it.

 

[Buttercup]

I wouldn't be upset if an LDS member did a proxy baptism for any of my ancestors, but I would be upset if anyone called me on the telephone and interrupted my nap.

Then there might be some heated words. :149:

Just not over the baptism part of it.

I agree entirely!

 

[fantome profane]

You obviously must see a proxy baptism as having some validity.

Or perhaps he just sees it as an insult. It is possible for someone to see this as an insult without believing that this insult has some kind of “power”.

Why on earth would you believe the Church holds the power to make you a Mormon? The Church of Jesus Christ currently has about 13 million members. If we counted everyone for whom we had performed a proxy baptism as having his "name... associated with [the] church," believe me, we'd be claiming a lot more than 13 million members.

This is the same strawman fallacy you have used before. He never said the church had had the power to make someone a Mormon, all he said was it would associate his name with the Mormon Church.

 

[Blindinglight]

I'm starting to wonder. People are confused over me not wanting my name wrote down in a book, pdf, text file, or whatever the LDS keep the names of post-mortum baptisms on, but no one has asked why the Jews have thrown some very large fits over it.

Simply put, I DO NOT want my name associated with any religion, now or when I'm dead. I don't see that as a very complicated final request.

 

[Katzpur]

This is the same strawman fallacy you have used before. He never said the church had had the power to make someone a Mormon, all he said was it would associate his name with the Mormon Church.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand why you consider my reply a strawman fallacy. Would you mind explaining? Maybe it's just that I don't understand what you mean by your use of the word "associate."

 

[Katzpur]

Simply put, I DO NOT want my name associated with any religion, now or when I'm dead. I don't see that as a very complicated final request.

It's not complicated at all. I understand exactly what it is you want. I guess I just don't get why it's such a big deal. I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just trying to understand.

According to The LDS Church's Family History Library's Website, our genealogical collection contains over 2 billion names in data bases, 2.4 million rolls of microfilmed records, 742,000 microfiche, 310,000 books and serials, 4,500 periodicals and 700 electronic resources.

The Ancestral File database contains more than 36 million names that are linked into families. The International Genealogical Index database contains approximately 600 million names of deceased individuals. An addendum to the International Genealogical Index contains an additional 125 million names. These names have been patron submitted or extracted from thousands of original birth, christening and marriage records. The Pedigree Resource File database contains over 80 million names that are linked into families. Records available are from the United States, Canada, the British Isles, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

Millions and millions of individuals who are not LDS and who do not want to become LDS -- during their lifetimes or after their deaths -- both benefit from and contribute to this database every year. These records are "associated with" the Church in that the Church owns and operates the website and family history libraries which these individuals can access free of charge.

What does it mean to you to be "associated with" a religion? Think of the millions of individuals who were baptized into the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches when they were merely days old, but who want absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Church now. How many of them do you suppose have filed lawsuits over the Church baptizing them without their permission? It just seems to me that this crusade of yours is a huge waste of energy over nothing. Life is too short to spend fixating on whether your name appears on some list after you die.

Incidentally, this is the third post I've directed to you personally. Did you intend to ignore all of them? I'm just curious because all of my questions to you have been entirely respectful. Is there some reason why you've chosen to ignore them?

 

[roli]

We believe that baptism by someone with the proper authority is a necessary ordinance for salvation. We believe that people can continue to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ in the next life, but that they still need baptism. In order to give them the opportunity to partake in full salvation we perform temple work, which includes baptism for the dead (along with other ordinances, which people don't really care about as much I guess). We then believe that the person has the ability to either accept or reject this ordinance. If they reject it, it is as if it was never done. If they accept it, it is as if they we baptised while on earth. We don't know who has and has not accepted the gospel, so we just do everyone's temple work for them and give them the choice.

You do this even though it is contrary to what Jesus and the scriptures say on the matter.
I mean it's understandable if you were raised in this belief and have only known this by what others say or teach,but have you read the scriptures on this issue,I mean in depth.

 

[rojse]

I think, by the word "association", that Blindlight means he does not want any religous rites of passage, rituals, or any other associated ideas, to be done to him, when he explicitly stated that he did not wish for these to occur to him when he was alive.