Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Oct 3, 2006 13:37:29 GMT -4
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Post by captain swoop on Oct 4, 2006 10:23:24 GMT -4
It doesn't bother me apart from how can you go into someone elses church and baptize members of their congregation?
What benefit is to be gained from a baptism after you are dead? If you are dead surely you have gone to the afterlife if you believe in it?
Why not just baptize the phonebook?
it scares me sometimes to think how close the dark Ages still are!
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Oct 4, 2006 10:44:13 GMT -4
The best place to get information on one's ancestors is usually a church register, where they kept records of births, baptisms, and marriages. Much geneology work is therefore done in churches by looking at registers from earlier centuries. Nobody goes into a church, grabs a list of current members, and then does baptisms for them. That's also why "baptizing the phone book" isn't done - members look for names of their own ancestors and related family members, not for complete strangers.
What benefit is there for baptism after you are dead? Well, in LDS theology the final judgement day is still in the future. Until that time there is still the opportunity to accept the gospel, whether you are alive or dead. If there were no possibility of accpeting the gospel after death than the billions of people who lived without ever even hearing Christ's name (say, the entire population of China during most of its history) would be unjustly damned.
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Post by gwiz on Oct 4, 2006 10:47:52 GMT -4
Just because they're your ancestors, doesn't mean you have the right to baptise them, or do you give your non-Mormon cousins the right to re-baptise them in their original religions, or some third religion the cousins belong to?
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Oct 4, 2006 10:59:43 GMT -4
Yes, if they are our ancestors then we do have the right to offer them the chance to partake in what we've found. We consider the LDS church to offer blessings you can't get anywhere else, and denying our ancestors the opportunity to take part in those blessings would be a violation of the commandment to "Honor they father and they mother" (and, by extension, thy ancestors). As for other faiths re-baptizing them - well, first of all, no other faith I know of does baptisms for the dead, so it's a moot point, but if they did - go right ahead. Since the LDS church dosen't accept the baptisms of other faiths as binding it's no skin off our noses whatever rituals you perform. It's the other side of what I was talking about earlier - if you don't believe the Mormons have any real authority to act in God's name then it doesn't really matter who they've said they baptized, does it?
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Post by gwiz on Oct 4, 2006 11:05:14 GMT -4
Fair enough, if you don't believe. However, if your cousins are believers they may get quite offended, particularly if they are still members of the ancestor's faith.
Personally, as an atheist interested in my family history, I'm grateful to the LDS for it's genealogical work.
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Oct 4, 2006 11:11:42 GMT -4
The Church encourages you to talk to your living cousins/distant relatives before performing baptisms for their direct ancestors. I know of several instances where baptisms for ancestors have not been performed because a living relative objected. The Church generally respects such objections.
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Post by gillianren on Oct 5, 2006 0:06:26 GMT -4
It's not just people's ancestors. How do I know? Because Anne Frank didn't have any descendants.
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Oct 5, 2006 10:38:34 GMT -4
In the past several famous people had their baptisms and temple work done on their behalf. I hadn't heard of Anne Frank in particular, but I know that work was done for all of America's founding fathers (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, etc.). The current policy is to only perform the work for someone you are in some way related to because some people objected.
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Post by gillianren on Oct 5, 2006 17:28:58 GMT -4
Yeah, and George Washington didn't have any descendants, either. It may be current policy, but it hasn't always been the policy, and I find changing people's religions for them to be offensive. (Heck, most of the Founding Fathers only marginally at best believed in any God, much less a religion that didn't exist when they died.)
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Oct 5, 2006 18:02:57 GMT -4
Again, why are you upset? If the Mormon's aren't actually acting in God's name then the baptism is completely meaningless.
If the Mormons are correct and an LDS baptism is required for a person to be saved then they would be unjust if they didn't offer it to everyone, especially those who lived before the church was organized in 1830 and thus had no chance to receive it. In any case the LDS view is that a vicarious baptism doesn't make you a Mormon - the deceased person still has to decide to accept church membership before the final judgement day in order for the baptism to have any efficacy.
And yes, past policy was different. It has changed because the Church was sensitive to past objections. The baptisms of the founding fathers would not be repeated today except at the request of a relative.
Edit: Since I haven't used the term "LDS" much to this point I should probably explain it before someone asks. The full name of what is commonly known as the "Mormon" church is in fact The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, usually abbreviated LDS. The name is in keeping with the LDS position that the current Church is in fact a restoration of the Church of Christ's time rather than a completely new organization. In fact I think I'll use LDS more often in the future, as it is a more technically accurate term than "Mormon", which can be used for the other churches which also have their origin in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.
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Post by gillianren on Oct 6, 2006 0:29:09 GMT -4
Why am I upset? Because it's not respecting people's beliefs, then getting pissy when people don't respect yours. It's hypocrisy.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Oct 6, 2006 10:59:24 GMT -4
Except that the Church does respect the objections of relatives, so we do respect their beliefs.
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Post by gillianren on Oct 6, 2006 15:41:03 GMT -4
Okay, but if all the other relatives are dead, you're not respecting the beliefs of the person being converted. Seriously. Read into the religious beliefs of, say, Thomas Jefferson one of these days. We're talking about a man who published a version of the New Testament removing the "obvious embellishments of Jesus' biographers"--including the Resurrection.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Oct 6, 2006 16:17:09 GMT -4
And Thomas Jefferson is free to believe whatever he wishes. However he now also has the option to become LDS if he so chooses, something he couldn't do in his era.
Isn't it more respectful of a person to offer them more religious options?
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