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Rights of the Dead
Sal
Damnedest Little FellowRegistered User regular
Damnedest Little FellowRegistered User regular
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BAPTIZING_THE_DEAD?SITE=KOIN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-11-10-18-41-36
I was originally only going to ask about this specific case, but I think it would be more productive for us to discuss a broader topic. What kind of rights (if any) should the dead have? Can they be inducted into a religion? Used to market products? Should their wills always be respected? Etc.
Article wrote:Jewish group wants Mormons to stop proxy baptisms
By DEEPTI HAJELA and JENNIFER DOBNER
Associated Press Writers
NEW YORK (AP) -- Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.
Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say they are making changes to their massive genealogical database that will make it more difficult for names of Holocaust victims to be entered for posthumous baptism by proxy, a rite that has been a common Mormon practice for more than a century.
But Ernest Michel, honorary chairman of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, said that is not enough. At a news conference in New York City on Monday, he said the church also must "implement a mechanism to undo what you have done."
"Baptism of a Jewish Holocaust victim and then merely removing that name from the database is just not acceptable," said Michel, whose parents died at Auschwitz. He spoke on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots against Jews.
"We ask you to respect us and our Judaism just as we respect your religion," Michel said in a statement released ahead of the news conference. "We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone, they suffered enough."
Michel said talks with Mormon leaders, held as recently as last week, have ended. He said his group will not sue, and that "the only thing left, therefore, is to turn to the court of public opinion."
In 1995, Mormons and Jews inked an agreement to limit the circumstances that allow for the proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims. Ending the practice outright was not part of the agreement and would essentially be asking Mormons to alter their beliefs, church Elder Lance B. Wickman said Monday in an interview with reporters in Salt Lake City.
"We don't think any faith group has the right to ask another to change its doctrines," Wickman said. "If our work for the dead is properly understood ... it should not be a source of friction to anyone. It's merely a freewill offering."
Michel's decision to unilaterally end discussion of the issue through a news conference leaves the church uncertain about how to proceed, Wickman said.
Baptism by proxy allows faithful Mormons to have their ancestors baptized into the 178-year-old church, which they believe reunites families in the afterlife.
Using genealogy records, the church also baptizes people who have died from all over the world and from different religions. Mormons stand in as proxies for the person being baptized and immerse themselves in a baptismal pool.
Only the Jews have an agreement with the church limiting who can be baptized, though the agreement covers only Holocaust victims, not all Jewish people. Jews are particularly offended by baptisms of Holocaust victims because they were murdered specifically because of their religion.
Michel suggested that posthumous baptisms of Holocaust victims play into the hands of Holocaust deniers.
"They tell me, that my parents' Jewishness has not been altered but ... 100 years from now, how will they be able to guarantee that my mother and father of blessed memory who lived as Jews and were slaughtered by Hitler for no other reason than they were Jews, will someday not be identified as Mormon victims of the Holocaust?" Michel said Monday.
Wickman said the practice in no way impinges upon a person's "Jewishness, or their ethnicity, or their background."
Under the agreement with the Holocaust group, Mormons could enter the names of only those Holocaust victims to whom they were directly related. The church also agreed to remove the names of Holocaust victims already entered into its massive genealogical database.
Church spokesman Otterson said the church kept its part of the agreement by removing more than 260,000 names from the genealogical index.
But since 2005, ongoing monitoring of the database by an independent Salt Lake City-based researcher shows both resubmissions and new entries of names of Dutch, Greek, Polish and Italian Jews.
The researcher, Helen Radkey, who has done contract work for the Holocaust group, said her research suggests that lists of Holocaust victims obtained from camp and government records are being dumped into the database. She said she has seen and recorded a sampling of several thousand entries that indicate baptisms had been conducted for Holocaust victims as recently as July.
Wickman said lists of names have been entered into the database by a small number of well-meaning members who were acting "outside of policy." He said that church monitors have identified and removed 42,000 names from the database on their own, and that the church welcomes research from others.
Church officials say a new version of the database - called New Family Search - is being tested overseas and should reduce the problems. In the works for six years, the new database will discourage the submission of large lists of unrelated individuals. It will also separate names intended for temple rites from those submitted purely for genealogical purposes, the church states in a letter sent to Michel on Nov. 6.
"The names of any Holocaust victims we can identify in the database are to be flagged with a special designation - not available for temple ordinances," the letter states.
The church also proposes jump-starting a monitoring committee formed in 2005 to review database entries. The committee has met just once since 2005.
In May, the Vatican ordered Catholic dioceses worldwide to withhold member registries from Mormons so that Catholics could not be baptized.
I was originally only going to ask about this specific case, but I think it would be more productive for us to discuss a broader topic. What kind of rights (if any) should the dead have? Can they be inducted into a religion? Used to market products? Should their wills always be respected? Etc.
Sal on
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And this specific case is ludicrous. The Mormons can do whatever they want, say whatever they want, so long as it doesn't amount to slander affecting the reputation of living descendants of the people they posthumously baptize by proxy. (which is a fucking ludicrous practice to engage in to begin with)
It doesn't slander anyone, it doesn't change the way they are remembered in the minds of their descendants (except the crazy Mormon ones). If they do start saying they were "Mormon victims of the holocaust," it's up to people who know better to set the record straight. That's how free speech works. The Mormons get to engage in their insane ceremony, and the Jewish descendants get to ignore them and correct them if they ever start calling them "Mormons."
If they don't believe in the practice, why should its implementation thousands of miles away from the actual "victim" bother them?
You know what? I'm going to perform a ritual right now that baptizes every person ever to have lived into the religion I just now made up.
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There! Ha! You're all members of my church, now!
Is he serious? Does he really think they'll be known as Mormon martyrs? o_O
If the Mormons are the only people with viable records left, then that's entirely possible.
Last time we did this was the "Organ donation, Opt-in or Opt-out?" thread. I seem to remember getting flamed horribly for suggesting that it didn't matter what happened to the body of a deceased person.
I'm on the side of "None." This particular incident is silly beyond all reason.
If you, japan, don't care what happens to your body, you're free to express that in your will.
This would not be the most nonsensical aspect of the Mormon faith.
I'm not really trying to make a value judgment, just trying to understand the logic. I like to know things.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Well, we do it because as Jesus says "everyone needs to be baptized." Everyone is everyone.
The mormon belief is that when you die, you are sent to the spirit world, spirit prison or paradise depending on the manner of life you lived here. This state would remain until judgememnt day upon which time every single being who ever lived would be ressurected. These people would then be sent to one of four kingdoms. The celestial kingdom with god, the terrestial kingdom, and the telestial kingdom, and the outer darkness (Hell) Again depending on their lives and what grace is provided them. (Mormons believe that both grace and works are required to attain the highest levels of heaven)
They believe that performing these acts (Not just baptism, but marriage, and the endowment ceremony) will be able to be accepted by the deceased in the spirit world. Those that do accept would now be able to obtain the highest levels of heaven (Possibly godhood according to mormon beliefs).
And yes I'm saying that people get married in proxy, for those who are dead. If you're not married by one who's of "authority" in the mormon temple, as far as they're concerned it really doesn't count in the long run as your marriage only lasts till you die, while they believe they will be married for time and all eternity. They also will sit through the several hour endowment ceremony in proxy for those who have died. I personally only got dead-dunked myself before leaving the church though. Never stayed long enough to participate in such acts
Blood oath's and secret handshakes are probably up there in the top ten though.
The Pipe Vault|Twitter|Steam|Backloggery|3DS:1332-7703-1083
Do you baptize people who have already been baptized into another church? Like, say, I was baptized as a Catholic, so would you baptize me as a Mormon or is that good enough?
Also, I think the question is actually moot. If the Mormon god is the true god, then they are doing the right thing. If the Jewish god is the true god, then no matter what the Mormons do, it won't have any effect.
As someone else said, this is only a problem for the living, not for the dead.
If have difficulty attaching much in the way of significance to earthly remains, as it were, but I do realise that it bothers other people. I mentally file it away as "odd things that really upset people for no good reason".
That said, it is somewhat distinct from the question of whether Mormons can carry out proxy baptisms. I think ultimately it seems even sillier because it isn't even internally consistent. If Judaism has things right and the Mormons are wrong, then it shouldn't matter even if you take it all seriously.
Just to answer your questions:
Yes, we do baptize those that have been baptized in other sects because we believe that it's by the proper authority as well as the act itself (baptism and other ordinances) that it is valid. A simple way of seeing it is that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist because he was ordained to perform the ordinance.
that's how we see it, and I agree with you that the question is moot, in regards to the thread
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
You would probably need to add something like no changies and no backsies to that or some asshole mormon might just try to soul-poach among your new acquisitions :P
It doesn't. These baptisms happen in proxy. I probably got baptized for 100+ people while I was still a member. I even remember the prayer.
"Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you for and in behalf of ____________, who is dead, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
The Pipe Vault|Twitter|Steam|Backloggery|3DS:1332-7703-1083
Problem solv'd.
it's also important to note that it's not a baptism where the dead person is instantly saved. We don't really know how it works exactly in the spirit world, but a person that has their baptism done by proxy learns about the gospel and can choose to accept it or not there.
but that's another discussion entirely
Any religion that punishes people for things done to them against their will after they're dead is stupid and its followers deserve to burn in imaginary hell for all eternity.
Was noted in my previous posts.
The Pipe Vault|Twitter|Steam|Backloggery|3DS:1332-7703-1083
As much as I stand by the belief that the dead have no rights, the church of Latter-Day Saints are being utter dicks by baptising the dead of other religions. The belief that those not of your religion go to either Hell or Heaven (But Not As Good As The Proper One [For People Like Me]) is widely held, and advertising that you are posthumously converting members of other religions is unnecessarily antagonistic towards those who believe in that horseshit.
This article suggests that there is some variability between states (and countries) but there is a good chance relatives of the deceased could sue on behalf of the dead if they wanted to (especially if they could prove the defamation of the dead is reducing the value of the inheritance significantly).
http://injury-law.freeadvice.com/libel_and_slander/dead_person_slander.htm
At the end of the day, once your dead your dead, so there has to be someone alive to be "harmed" who can speak in your defense. That being said, if you have no will and no surviving relatives, the government gets your estate (by default), so the government could represent you if they so chose.
So yeah...it's a bad idea to desecrate the dead.
This particular arguement is a pile of politically correct shit. If living descendants want to slander their ancestors, unless there is another living descendant to contest it, there is nothing anyone can do. The Jews should just keep their own data base clearly showing those people as Jewish and ignore the Mormons and their stupid rituals.
I think he's he means that somehow if Judaism is correct and Mormonism isn't, that the Mormons still have some strange Hoodoo power to jinx you into a Hell that doesn't even exist according to Jews.
Personally I'm not a big fan of even wills. I think once you're dead, everything ends, and your property isn't yours to give away anymore.
But when I first read this, I was thinking exhumously, like they were digging up bodies and baptizing them. I was about to freak out.
Right. And if that's the case, then Judaism is fucking retarded.
Consider wills, then, as a way of giving away all of your stuff with your dying breath. The will is executed at ([time of death] - epsilon).
Wills can certainly be contested by the living, I know in Canada we have laws such that if a husband/wife dies, the survivor gets at least 50% of the money + the house(current dwelling) regardless of what is in the will.
I think wills are kind of necessary. Otherwise when someone is on their death bed they will feel compelled to give away all their worldly possessions as they feel they should be distributed. Then what happens if they make a sudden recovery, leave the hospital, and don't have a house to go home to? Wills are a practical necessity.
Within like 5 sentences this is immediately what I started thinking.
This is full of whats, thes, and fucks.
Then some politically correct histiorians start representing the fact that all those people are now Mormons. Because, technically they are now Mormons.
Next, people shorten the history to just reflect the fact that the victims of the Holocaust were Mormons, omitting for sake of brevity or just laziness and ignorance, that the victims were ever Jewish at all.
After that, the Holocaust was the worst crime ever committed against the LDS Church.
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And the idea that you have to explicitly layout every conceivable desecration in your Last Will & Testament, instead of relying on other peoples common courtesy is abhorent.
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Maybe we should start up a group to Drink, Smoke, Masturbate, and have casual sex and orgies in proxy for all the uptight Mormon assholes.
MWO: Adamski
If Jeffe has a website with "all these people are adherents of my religion" and then lists a load of names, I could see him getting into some trouble.
I like your style, lets find Mormon saints otherwise important people to the Mormons who have no living descendants and live life to the fullest in proxy for them. We could make videos -Mormon's gone Wild! in proxy