1. They are hung up on the idea of that there is "one true" way to see this issue, just as they think there can be only "one true church on the face of the earth."

My nevermo husband doesn't care what happens to his name or memory when he's dead. But he isn't so naive as to think that his opinion is the only correct one and everyone else just needs to be educated to make them agree.

2. Mormons and exmos have had their thought process stunted by a cult mind stopper, "We give spirits a choice to accept or reject baptisms." The mindstopper continues, "So that ends the discussion as there can be no other objection."

To many people, the idea of mormons thinking their church can give choices to the dead is distastful in itself. And some imagined lack of post death choice is not what offends most people.

Living people want to have choices while they're still living.

3. Mormons and possibly exmos think that anyone who objects must have some kind of respect or belief that the practice is valid.

No. That's just crazy.

4. Mormons and exmos believe that living people don't have a right to think about what will happen to their names and memories after death since they won't be around as witnesses.

In fact living people routinely write memoirs, make funeral plans, buy burial plots, and write wills. They usually do these things because they care about the footprint they leave behind when they're gone. Some of them see dead dunking as a besmirchment of their legacy.

5. Mormons give only lip service to the idea that nomos might care about what happens to the names and memories of their dead loved ones. The mormons do see that this could be a problem but they're so sure they're right that they see this offense as a minor stumbling block. They think any good reasonable person would change their mind and want to be a mormon once they have a fuller picture of the issue in the afterlife.

6. Mormons and possibly some exmos have a highly developed need to feel special and better than other people. They feel entitled to using their resources to tell others their beliefs are wrong and need to change. They also feel persecuted when they don't get their way. The missionary program and the dead dunking effort are outgrowths of this elitism.

It's mormons who need to be educated: Some people don't mind dead rituals. Some might think it's a touching gesture. But many will always be outraged by it.

Mormon excuses and admonitions, all of their whining and lamenting, the endless explaining and justification only make the problem worse for those who don't like the idea.

It is very simple to me Cheryl. No religion, other than my own, has any right to even mention me in a religious way-living or dead. EVER!!!!

They like to think *their* most special religious rights trump the religious and freedom of speech rights of nonmormons.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/2012 10:19AM by Cheryl.

Excellent comments, Cheryl. The rights of the living are not being respected.

You have to laugh that the Church had to open it's hallowed yap and deny that Mormons were desecrating remains. Serves them right.

This is nothing to the parading of weirdness that will occur in cyberspace as the election nears.


Anagrammy

It was heated for the other person anyway. I thought it was silly, and it made me laugh to see this other person become so upset at other people having a point of view different from hers.

Everyone has the right to spit on another person's grave, which is how many people see Mormon proxy baptisms for dead people. I have the right to consider that act ignorant and ill-mannered, because that's how I feel. That's the issue, in my mind. This other person thought that my view of people who perform such acts should not be affected, because people should not be judged for their religious beliefs. I feel that religion should not get a pass or justify bad manners. Ironically, we were both saying that religion should not matter.

There is probably a deeper issue here, but I haven't figured out what it is.

I don't think that Mormons fully comprehend just how disrespectful this is to other people and their families, to other religions, and to other beliefs (or lack thereof.)

But of course, Mormons are right and everyone else is wrong. What a bunch of asshats!

For the benefit of new members -- my great-grandmother, a New England protestant, was dead dunked. She was never a Mormon in her lifetime and had no Mormon descendants. All of her children were baptised into the Episcopal church. I find the concept that she was dead-dunked into the Mormon church highly insulting and infuriating. To add further insult to injury, she was dead-dunked on three separate occasions and each time, the dates of her birth and death were just slightly off. The Mormon(s) who did this did not care about her beliefs, how she lived her life, or even the mundane details of her life. They only cared about themselves and their own wants.

My father has had many of our very devout Roman Catholic ancestors baptized for the dead, and he has not been careful about how the data is input so there are many errors. Those errors are permanently set within Mormon family history databases so that future descendants interested in their genealogy will have conflicting data. It reflects an uncaring attitude about these people, who they were, and why they were who they were.

My great great grandparents had their own stained glass window in their local Catholic church with their names on it, and they raised nine children in that faith. Luckily, my father has given them the opportunity to see how wrong they were and become Mormons in the eternities. Maybe they'd like to stop being German too.

It shows his disregard for me as his least favored child. The guy was hugely proud of his "geneology work" and thought he was building the mormon kingdom, but he didn't care enough about his own child or grandchildren to properly edit the dates and other facts.

This will probably mean that we'll all be double or triple dunked when the morg gets varying info from different relatives.

It's appalling!!

Some idiotic relatives on my grandmother's side had mom's father, as well as his parents dead dunked. The problem? They were all BIC, married in the temple, endowed etc. My mom was very perplexed & angry. Even clueless mos do it to dead mos. Asshattery to the nth degree.

How does one know if a relative or ancestor has been dead-dunked in the temple? I'm just wondering if this information is made public and in what manner, is there a way to look up whose names have been used in the temple "ordinances"?

At this point it's pretty safe to assume that they've done dunkings on every easily accessable name for white roughly middle class people in the US in the last few generations.

Also most well know historical or easily found names for big events like the Titanic, the Holocaust, and publicised lists of victims of floods, earthquakes, and other disasters.

So then really only members have access to the names that have had temple work done? I'm just curious, there's no one I wanted to look up. A couple posters mentioned being offended that a relative they knew had been dead dunked so I just wondered how they would know this information.

Non-mormons would go to the mormon site and become enraged. A Jewish advocacy group put extreme pressure on the mormons to stop baptizing Jews without family permission. The mormon church has learned to keep as much of this secret as possible and now you have to know someone or be better at using a computer than I am.

I suggest you start a new thread and ask for help or find a computer friend or mormon to help you.

Cheryl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> At this point it's pretty safe to assume that
> they've done dunkings on every easily accessable
> name for white roughly middle class people in the
> US in the last few generations.
>
> Also most well know historical or easily found
> names for big events like the Titanic, the
> Holocaust, and publicised lists of victims of
> floods, earthquakes, and other disasters.

White? Really? Middle class? "Pretty safe." LMAO. That's absurd. Equally absurd is claiming EVERY name that you think is easily accessed has been done. First, that would be a monumental extraction program, and LD$, and others (as in nonmembers who helped) have struggled to index lesser projects that still took years (like the 1880 U.S. Census), and they had a lot of volunteers. Second, records from the last few generations are off limits unless legal agreements allow their use.

Please cite a source other than your own imagination for baptism for disaster victims, and white middle class America. I am a genealogist, and you don't know what the hell you are talking about. Really I am beginning to find your obsession disturbing. If you care so much about what happens to your name after you die, why don't you write a memoir, and place it in the Library of Congress? You don't seem to have an interest in solving your problem. Don't you think it would be productive to actually DO something? It appears you find more joy in claiming you are helpless against the all-powerful LD$, while saying you are an atheist, and do not accept their authority. Which is it? Permanent victimhood or taking control of the situation? Why is that narrative so satisfying to you, and not the narrative of being someone who took the legacy of her good name into her own hands?

You forgot the main reason people don't care, and why LD$, exmo, and nonmembers are not offended: it's imaginary. Most people do not choose to have fits over imaginary things.

We go to great pains to respect the wishes of the dying and dead. Someone wants to be cremated and have their ashes spread over the Columbia River Gorge, we make it happen. Someone wants a donation to the local animal shelter, we do it. Why, then, should we presume to think that a dead person would want his or her religion changed after he or she dies when we can also know for a fact that he or she would not approve of it asked? It's a stupid and simultaneously provocative question.

I think your reason number 6. ("Mormons and possibly some exmos have a highly developed need to feel special and better than other people. They feel entitled to using their resources to tell others their beliefs are wrong and need to change. They also feel persecuted when they don't get their way...") is the operational force in the whole "Baptism for the Dead" doctrine. Mormons are special, therefore the world can take a hike. In the end, it shouldn't matter--Mormon stuff has no more validity than any other belief, and the so-called "power of the priesthood" is only what we allow it to be. Still... It's galling. Mostly it's just arrogant.

I think the whole thing is disrespectful.

The idea that they believe Elohimn created the entire universe and mankind and yet can't find a way to get his "children who he loves" back, except through that ridiculous dead dunking system just boggles the mind. What an idiot!

It's as bad as believing that the same God was incapable of establishing his own church on his own earth until finally a lying whoring con artist named Joseph Smith came on the scene.

Dead dunking is offensive to any intelligent person's sensibilities.

Beyond that, how would the mormons feel if the Scientologists started baptizing the mormon dead? Or actually I guess they would force the dead to pay for lessons.

Mormons and sometimes exmos can't understand that different people have differing opinions and feelings about certain subjects. So they cause a fuss and tell them how they *should* feel and *should* think.

Mormons and exmos need to consider that there are 100s of kinds of cereal for sale in the grocery store. There are dozens of kinds of canned chicken soup. There are many kinds and colors of socks and underwear.

Why? Because different people like choice and have their own way of reasoning what they like and how they experience cereal, chicken soup, socks, and underwear. There is no one true kind of any of those things.

Neither is there one true way to think or feel about the mormon missionary program, the decision to resign or not, the office of bishop, the mormon hymn book, or the dead dunking rituals.

Some people will always like the idea. Others will hate it and there will be opinions of every kind from one end of the scare to the other.

The only opinion which is not valid is to assume everyone must, shoule, or will ever agree on this dead dunking issue.

Mormons dead dunk because they realize that most of us have to be dead before we'll consider their religion.

;)

A few more musings...

Dead-dunkings are like someone going back and rewriting another author's novel. Let people have authorship of their own lives. Let them have ownership of their own lives. Don't go back and rewrite that person's life because in your mind, your version is more pleasing.

Dead-dunking is symptomatic of the church's driving need to control, control, control. That control must extend even back to the grave, even into other people's families, cultures, beliefs, and traditions. Everything and everyone must fall under the church's control.

.. is how the misshies and the normal mormons are always keen to get preemptively offended at the thought that in my online research I might run into Mormon temple rituals posted by apostates. They find the disclosure of those rituals very offensive (even though I never mentioned them. I actually have enough 'anti' material just reading their own scriptures). But when it comes to respecting non-mo's wishes regarding things like proxy baptism, they always think they know better!

So to hell with them, so to speak. They say "it's sacred, not secret." I say no, it's stupid, not sacred.

#2 always cracks me up. "we give spirits the choice"... is that why you baptized them (by proxy) BEFORE giving them the choice? If they were giving them the choice, it would be some other ceremony, like some invitational prayer said, and then it would be left to the worker spirits to be baptize respondents in god's waiting room.

It seems to me that my mother (89 years old) can hardly wait to "get someone's temple work done" after their death. It is like such a satisfying accomplishment for her.
(family LDS history goes back to time of JS,Jr.) She is so proud of it, I think it shows that we come from a long line of gullible people.
She has even had people from her x-husband's (my father) side name sent in. Mom is a control freak--so I think this is her way of having the last control of someone.

They can't have total control over the living, but in their minds they have complete control when they're dead.

If you don't think anyone can know the mind of another, how can you get angry over a perceived totalitarian regime in the minds of morgbots?

Unfortunately, mormons do their "mindreading" of nonmos in the isolation among mormons in wardhouses.

I think most people I talk with it find it one of the strangest things that have ever heard. It is offensive to some, it is strange to others, it is just wrong to others, and then others could care the least. I will say it has led to some funny moments (Bill Maher and others) lately. I think this is another example of how Mormons have no idea how they are perceived--weird as hell.

Provide for those who request that they will never be dead dunked.

Mormons say they offer choice? Then offer this choice to the living. If someone writes a letter stating that they don't want this mormon intrusion on their corpse and they their memory, then listen. Choices after death mean little or nothing to most of humanity.

Also, mormons could keep promises. If they say they won't dunk Jewish dead without a specific family request, they need to implement a way of keeping their word.

They also need to publicize and follow their dead dunking policies for all to see and not change them or make exceptions will-nilly.

If you wouldn't do it to living people without their consent (because it may not reflect their beliefs, or because they might find it offensive,) then why would you do it to dead people who can no longer speak up for themselves? Because they and their families don't matter anymore?

My nevermo great grandmother can no longer speak for herself, but as her nevermo descendant I can speak on her behalf. No, it's not okay. It's not okay for some disinteresed stranger to dead-dunk her into the Mormon faith or to completely mess up her geneological record because they don't give a $%!#. If you want to mess with your own family, be my guest. Keep your hands off of my family. We are not Mormon and we do not want our names associated with the Mormon church in any way, shape, or form.

Telling me won’t accomplish a thing.

You know perfectly well LD$ theology of choice, how they consider it a gift, and that they also do it, because they care. People don’t do religious ordinances out of spite.

I have previously said that researching families is an act of caring, because when I research a family (remember I am an atheist), I bring them back from obscurity. No one remembers them until I retrieve them from history. When LD$ do research for their families it is no different. They love their ancestors, and you can be offended at them, because that’s what religion is all about. US vs. THEM.

You don’t own your ancestors. You don’t speak for them. They were individuals, and no one knows what they were thinking when they died. People were born into their religions, and hated them just the same. They put up false fronts just like many nonbelievers trapped in the morg today. I am bewildered by people who think their ancestors are theirs, and none of the other descendants count.

The IGI is an index of births/christenings, and marriages with attached ordinance dates. It is not a membership roll, and no researcher thinks of it as that. It is a database for research.

Also, as one who claims to care, I don’t think you have spent much time searching out your ancestors. I have easily spent 10,000+ hours doing original research in difficult records. I studied 2-8 years in three languages, learned history, and took research classes. I have surveyed surnames in entire towns to make sure I find everyone. I have learned their stories, and about their struggles. I know who fled persecution, their occupations, their causes of death, who had a difficult life, who had their children survive childhood, who was massacred by armies in the name of religion or shot by Stalin. I know who fought for their country, and if, and how they died. I know who died young, and left children, who lived to be 80, and older. I know this back at least 200 years to 500 average at the most. What do you know about your family? I am certainly not disinterested now, and when I was a member I was not disinterested.

So, as a nonmember, why are you here? Personally I have found some of your comments destructive to my recovery.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2012 09:36AM by atheist&happy:-).

atheist&happy:-) Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So, as a nonmember, why are you here? Personally I have found some of your comments destructive to my recovery.

Short version of why I'm here -- a very good friend of mine converted during high school. I have spent a lifetime asking why. I have had other Mormons in my life as well (as friends, boyfriends, and roommates,) both active and inactive. There's more to it of course, and at some point I'll write about it in detail.

I am also here to give a nevermo point of view. Granted, it's just one person's point of view, but there you have it. I have more than thirty years of experience in the working world; most of that in a professional capacity. I have a tremendous amount of experience in standing up for myself, particularly with difficult people -- a handy skill for a new exmo to have. If you don't find my posts helpful or interesting, feel free to skip them.

In an above post, you were saying that people should not be offended by dead-dunkings. I am simply stating why many nevermos and their families do find it highly offensive.

You are stating that I cannot speak for my deceased great-grandmother, but here's the thing. I know every single one of her decendants, because we are not a huge family on my father's side. And I think I can say with authority -- we do object. Every last one of us.

I agree with you that geneology work is fascinating and instructive.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> atheist&happy:-) Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > So, as a nonmember, why are you here?
> Personally I have found some of your comments
> destructive to my recovery.
>
> Short version of why I'm here -- a very good
> friend of mine converted during high school. I
> have spent a lifetime asking why. I have had other
> Mormons in my life as well (as friends,
> boyfriends, and roommates,) both active and
> inactive. There's more to it of course, and at
> some point I'll write about it in detail.
>
> I am also here to give a nevermo point of view.
> Granted, it's just one person's point of view, but
> there you have it. I have more than thirty years
> of experience in the working world; most of that
> in a professional capacity. I have a tremendous
> amount of experience in standing up for myself,
> particularly with difficult people -- a handy
> skill for a new exmo to have. If you don't find my
> posts helpful or interesting, feel free to skip
> them.
>
> In an above post, you were saying that people
> should not be offended by dead-dunkings. I am
> simply stating why many nevermos and their
> families do find it highly offensive.
>
> You are stating that I cannot speak for my
> deceased great-grandmother, but here's the thing.
> I know every single one of her decendants, because
> we are not a huge family on my father's side. And
> I think I can say with authority -- we do object.
> Every last one of us.
>
> I agree with you that geneology work is
> fascinating and instructive.



I find it amusing that you even care. I mean, SO WHAT? It's a bunch of people believing imaginary things that really have ABSOLUTELY NO IMPACT ON YOUR FAMILY other than that you personally get upset over it. Solution: Don't get upset. Nothing to see here, move along.

You say you grew-up among non-members and no one cares. Then you say you asked non-member relatives of the non-member deceased if you could baptize the non-member deceased by proxy so they (non-member deceased) could become mormons in the afterlife. Then you say these non-member relatives of the non-member deceased were not only okay with it, but thought it was a kind and thoughtful gesture.

I find that very difficult to believe.

I grew-up among non-members. They knew I was mormon, but didn't have a clue about anything mormon (other than polygamy) because I never said much about it. Thirty-five years later at a high-school reunion, I was asked why I was no longer mormon. When I said it was a cult and why, folks were somewhat skeptical. When I told them about dead-dunking and what-not, there wasn't a doubter in the house.

Don't know where you grew-up among non-members, but in my neck 'o' the woods dead-dunking, embryo godding and such doesn't sit well with folks.

Timothy



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2012 09:20AM by Timothy.

My aunts were from Council Bluffs, and I have family in Omaha neighborhoods. They would visit Winter Quarters, knew about TSCC, and had RLDS neighbors. Another uncle was very kind, and grew up Quaker. They are fairly open-minded, and gracious about other people's religions. I never heard them ridicule or gossip about anyone. They were always respectful of our religion even though we really did not practice it, and we had civil discussions about each others beliefs when I would visit. A cousin is a minister who believes in prophecy, but does not care about the LD$ priesthood claim to truth.

Too bad you live around so much intolerance.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2012 09:49AM by atheist&happy:-).

... performed any proxy dead-dunkings as reported in your earlier post:

"I grew up around nonmembers. No one cares (except fundies, and none of them ever said a thing to me). I did work, and asked permission from relatives. No one cared, and some considered it thoughtful that I remembered relatives, because they are people we loved."

Just wanted to make sure.

Timothy



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2012 10:07AM by Timothy.

Because YOU demand citing of sources from other posters...

To borrow some of your wording, please cite a source other than your own imagination that NO ONE cares.

For a person who laments how others (your family and other posters on this board) disrespect you, you seem to have no problem minimizing concerns about the disrespect some feel dead dunking conveys.

Do you care what happens to your body after you die? Would you care if, for instance, a mortician took photos of your naked body and put them on the Internet? It shouldn't matter because you're dead at that point, and the dead don't care, right? There are laws prohibiting defiling a corpse and laws regulating disinterment of a body, to name a few. How a person's legacy is treated is just as important (maybe moreso) as how their remains are treated.

There are plenty of comments on the Huffington Post article that reflect what I say. Go read away. Take a survey.

People have freedom to practice religion or not. Because they have that freedom, as an atheist, they have to allow me freedom. There is no state church. I would be hypocritical to want a say in how others practice their religion, because they have no business in my irreligion. Many atheists here have condemned religious intolerance. For example, many have condemned intolerance toward building a mosque in NYC, but these same posters will condemn non-binding ordinance work for people in an imaginary afterlife they do not believe in. How much can you minimize hyperbole? People who are intolerant are offended. I just accept that religions do stupid things with their freedom. Many here have defended the right of Westboro Baptist church to have their free speech, but try to rally nonmembers against another religion's ordinance. That's actual rude, and obnoxious people at funerals vs. pretend ordinances.

Once again: bodies are real; proxy ordinances: NOT REAL.

You have control over your legacy. Why abdicate it?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2012 09:31AM by atheist&happy:-).

While it is true that folks have the freedom to practice religion WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES OF THE LAW (see First Amendment), there is no provision that insures said practices must be accepted or go unchallenged by others. (see First Amendment).

You might think its no big deal, but other folks think it is a big deal and, like yourself, have every right to say so.

No one argues that religion has the right to do stupid s**t WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES OF THE LAW (see First Amendment), but you're arguing that folks have no right to say anything negative about the stupid s**t in which religion often engages.

That ain't right (see First Amendment), that's just WRONG!

Timothy



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2012 10:08AM by Timothy.

You said:
I grew up around nonmembers. No one cares...
>>>>>>>

"Plenty" equals "no one," eh? Is this an example of your superior research skills you love to tout here?

If online comments count as research, you have comments on this thread that prove your "no one cares" claim is--what was the word you used...oh, yes--ABSURD!

"Once again: bodies are real; proxy ordinances: NOT REAL."

Proxy ordinances are VERY real. REAL people go into a REAL structure (temple) and put on REAL special clothing and get REAL wet when they are submerged in the very REAL baptismal font. The legitimacy of the results of the proxy ordinances is NOT real, but the proxy ordinance is very real.

The negative (and sometimes long-lasting) impact dead dunking has on those who feel disrespected by having their beliefs (or the beliefs of their loved ones) disregarded is very real.

Do you think physical abuse is more real than emotional abuse?

Also, if you don't think people have a right to complain about things that aren't real, why are you an atheist? God is not real, so there's no need to complain that some people have a silly belief in some fakey-fake, not-real God. Why make a big deal of it? You seem to have a case of if-it-doesn't-matter-to-atheist&happy,-it-doesn't-matter.