I never did. Feeling it might be the litmus test for being a truly believing Mormon. Lots of Mormons I know talk about going to their temples for themselves. I can't remember anyone other than my parents and their generation (pre-baby boomer) talking about working for the dead instead of themselves.

I really can't remember ever feeling "The Spirit" or being touched in anyway by the salvation of the dead.

Did you?

being creeped out by stories of spooks loitering around the font and endowment rooms impatiently waiting for live Mormons to set off ghostly howls and cheering whenever some murky soul is moved onward in their codependent eternal journey.

Can ghosts cheer and howl in the The House of The Lord?

I remember a few stories of people "feeling" their dead relatives were happy for their efforts. There were actually quite a few of these recountings.

I should have qualified my post like this:

"Did you ever feel a duty or responsibility for the dead that weren't your own?"

Perhaps ghosts are allowed more latitude after having to wait for eons to be proxy dunked. The rest of us only had to wait eight years.

Not even when I was a believer.

My thinking now is that the dead no longer exist except as memories among the living. Some people deserve to be remembered, some don't.

the BoM tells us that people 'don't change' when/after they die; therefore, what happened before that will govern any 'afterlife'.

If 'God/Heavenly Father' can rescue those who died without Any Records (most of humanity?) ... even tho they're Never 'tized...that's good enough for any/all, isn't it?

I used to feel that I was responsible to keep my mother's memorabilia, a record of her life. In fact, some of the pieces brought back painful memories instead of good ones.

I visited madalice and she help me see that keeping objects which cause pain out of misplaced duty is not helpful to me. I have thrown away my mother's golf trophy-- I paid for it with my childhood, so why have that on my bookcase?

That act began a purge which included getting rid of Mormonalia, and all the scrapbooking supplies I have been hoarding for the scrapbooks I bought to make each of my children their own. To hell with it! They never want to talk about their childhood and consider it a liability, so why would I dwell on it?

I am going to just make my own scrapbook and that's that. I'll leave them boxes of leftover pictures if they want them.

Anagrammy

Go ANA!

Doesn't it feel good to get rid of those chains? I got rid of the scrap book stuff too. I asked my kids if they wanted it, nope. That's when I realized they could care less. I scanned all the family pictures and put them on a zip drive for each child. Scrapbooking done.

The dead relatives I knew didn't care about me while I was living. Why would I care about them after they're dead?

Just before/during the time I started my research into the church...... I was playing with the idea of doing a session once a week. Im a stay at home mom, and it would have been doable. But I have always had nagging doubts about the temple. Like most people, I've never felt the spirit there. And I've always felt like temple work made no sense. So on one hand, I wanted to develop my spirituality, feel closer to God, and the bonus of being able to say, everybody look how great I am. On the other hand the nagging doubt that temple work was just an empty waste of time. I figured I just needed to gain a testimony of it. So I started to pray about it and fast about it. I had total faith that I would have some sort of experience that assured me that dead people really did need this done for them. Then bam.....I came across something about the BoA issue, and got the shock of my life. That started my research.....and my prayers about whether or not the temple is worthwhile, were answered.

59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Luke 9

Dead people are beyond our help no matter how you look at it, aren't they? Either they are in oblivion, extinguished forever or else they are in God's care. In either situation it would seem ridiculous to think we could do anything for them. I think the purpose of these works is to keep Mormons busy by providing a false sense of purpose. They are just doing busy work to keep them engaged in TSCC.

I felt great when I would do work for my family (both parents were converts). I thought I was doing a great service for them.

I still feel a duty for the dead currently. Honoring the memory of the dead, holds some weight to me personally still.

David Jason Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I still feel a duty for the dead currently.
> Honoring the memory of the dead, holds some weight
> to me personally still.

So how do you honor them?

Live a good life, tell stories about them, remember patriotism, think positively of those who died for a cause and if it's a cause I support remember them when defending the cause.

Nothing ritual or much external. More of an internal remembrance and motivation.

N O!

To remember them....yes.
To teach my children about them...yes.
To learn from them.....yes.

Everything else.....no.

No....and why should I?

Ron Burr

Lethbridge Reprobate Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No....and why should I?

Exactly. The question TBMs should ask themselves and then maybe they would see that the ostensible reason for their attending their temple is ridiculous and so not very rewarding to them personally.

No. As a kid I thought the dead were hanging out with Jesus and were getting looked after better than we were on Earth.

I sort of did feel like I owed my dead relatives something.......

but not enough to bust my butt and do it. It was just one more

reason to torture myself with guilt over what a rotten person I

was.... Yay, its good to be out.

Exactly. I'd feel plenty of guilt, but my live kids always got my time and attention over some dead relative! Now I'm so happy I had my head on straight and didn't even know it. I hated it when my mom left us to do temple "work". She admitted later that we kids were pretty neglected. She was just too busy.

And all the easy work had been done. I kept wondering why God wanted to scoop up my short time on earth with stuff HE could do if he wanted to.

I did. Now the whole 'save the dead' thing makes me really angry. The dead? Seriously? Take care of the living and let the dead take care of themshelves.

Take care of the dead when you have your much-anticipated so-called Millenium.

I totally lost any respect I may have had left for the Church when I realized how many millions of dollars go into saving their dead, when there are so many homeless and hungry people in the world.

Think of what they could do with the amount of money that they bring in.

Greyfort Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Think of what they could do with the amount of
> money that they bring in.

while continuing their dead saving program and apparently with just the interest alone on "the amount of money that they bring in" they were able to spend over a billion dollars developing an expensive real estate cocoon around their most holy of holy temples.

Just sayin'

I used to try to remember the names when I did baptisms and confirmations. But that doesn't really work when you get dunked 60+ times in a row. I never felt any emotional connection or responsibility - and I felt guilty about that.

Nope.

THEY are the ones who know if there's life after life. THEY have a responsibility to us living folks.

So far, no messages.

PapaKen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So far, no messages.

What about the Holy Ghost? No messages from him either?

Not even a hint of a prompting.

(Is it just me?)

No. I kept waiting for the inspiration or desire. Never happened.

I finally started actively praying to have the desire the attend the temple. Self motivation/beating was not working. I'd never felt the tiniest desire/responsibility to help the dead. I wasn't too thrilled with church in my own life, so why foist it off on some dead person? I got my answer...nothing. YESSS! Not the answer my bishop and best friend at the time had promised, but I knew I had done the best I could, if God couldn't be troubled to give me a smidge of anything, I was free from the temple and then the church and then God.

Yes. I think they deserve a decent burial or cremation. Anything less is just disrespectful.

Unsurprisingly, when I was a believing mormon I did feel that 'responsibility' in a way that meant nothing much about respect but far more about converting and making right others' (obviously even the dead's!) beliefs. It's one of the supreme examples of cognitive dissonance of my youth, and has been instructive to those who were never mormon in trying to understand why the mormons build temples. I consider that a good thing - because of my firm belief that mormon temples are wasteful and corrupt distractions.

I was baptized for dozens of deceased individuals when I was a teen. I have no way of knowing if or how many times those same individals' names had been used for other proxy baptisms. As it stands now, I think none of it meant anything while at the same time I believe it was disrespectful to their memories.

Today, my duty or responsibility toward or for the dead is to always seek the truth of human history, as hard and vastly complicated as that is, with humility in being open to what can't be known for certainty, but what can be mostly trusted as fact, and to accept the majority view of learned and dedicated scholars, however much it conflicts with what I believe or want, and honor it. In doing so, hopefully I honor the humanity of those whose lives preceded mine.

Hopefully, I won't lose sight of the truism that "History is written by the victors." Whoever really said it, it's wisdom we'd be unwise to discard.

You can sign them up for Obamacare in Kentucky!

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/04/dead-people-can-sign-up-for-health-care-in-kentucky/

What an enlightened state! It adds a new dimension to "state of being." Methinks this is a wonderful way to show the dead how much you care.

Thomas S Monson - I hereby baptize you in the name of the father, the son and the holy ghost for and behalf of all males who have or will live on this earth without the opportunity to be baptized by one who has the true priesthood. That being done now quite wasting my holy tithing donations on gaudy and spacious buildings and instead go forth with all members of my church and spend your time and my money to help the less fortunate of my children in the world.