"Henry Eyring told a worldwide audience during a twice-yearly Mormon conference in Salt Lake City that God wants all his children "home again, in families and in glory." He encouraged listeners to use the religion's massive genealogical database to trace their roots, reports the AP."

Eyring goes on to say that "The practice is becoming more common because young church members have embraced it." I call total hooey to that statement! Young people may have an interest in family history out of a need to explore their roots. I question his assertion it's for doing temple work. I find that dubious as it's the younger members who are leaving faster than their elders are.

How many times are the dead actually baptized, since for most generational Mormons this has already been performed on their ancestors?

It's just more "busy work" for the lay members to keep the temples running on schedule. It isn't only family members the church does proxy baptisms for. It's whatever names are submitted, regardless of familial relation to members.

http://www.newser.com/story/240698/mormon-leaders-push-for-more-baptisms-for-the-dead.html

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/04/01/latest-mormon-leader-encourages-baptisms-for-dead.html

Anything that reminds you of your ancestors is a good thing. The Mormon way could be worse.

You just send in a name with a guesstimation of the year or century. lol

ex. Pedro [1500s]


Yes, that was all that was written on my slip of paper when I went to the big curtain.

That's too funny, lol.

I had no idea it's that stupefied.

I think they've pretty much done the dead-dunking for the vast majority of people from the last 200-300 years that are "well-documented," especially if they have American-European roots. I know one of my TBM aunts (the one who sent me the records letting me know I'd been ex'd in absentia years ago) told me that she kept submitting names only to find out the dead-dunking had already been done by some other descendant.

Considering the vast majority of humans that have ever lived never had ANY records kept about them, they're running out of verifiable dead people to pretend to save. So making them up is going to get more and more common.

I grew up 8 hours from the nearest temple, so I never did baptisms for the dead. However, I know there are a good number of 12-13 year olds around Utah that go do baptisms regularly. I wouldn't say Eyring's statement is a lie. Of course, most of these kids are probably doing baptisms for ancestors that have already been dead-dunked a dozen times.

More recycling of names maybe!???

Great grandma wrote in her diary in the 1880s that all templework that could be done for the family was done and she didn't need to go to the temple anymore.

Your great grandmother was a pragmatist. :)

John Doe was the son of John and Jane Doe. Their parents John and Jane Doe, were children of the Doe family--John and Jane--of Doeshire, England. We'll now move on to the Smith and the Williams families...

Yes, it's a "thing". I can't tell you how much I cringe when I read Facebook post after Facebook post from friends and family having morgasms over their "service project" --- what is it you say?

Oh, they take the preteens and teens to a local cemetary and they "index" the dead; basically they take pictures of the gravestones to enter into the database. Not sure what type of "service" that is.

Do they clean the graves, plant flowers, pull weeds, cut grass, trim bushes, or anything actually useful? No, but they sure "help serve" all those dead bodies....

You're right. Cleaning the graves of debris and weeds would be a nobler gesture of more lasting worth than a ritual and exercise in futility. It would also be teaching these kids more about genuine service than what they're learning about baptism for the dead. Just the term itself sends chills down my spine.

Eww, disturbing.

They ought to just get smart and pass an ordinance doing a massive one time dead dunk for every one who has ever lived. The way they do it is get 1 guy and one girl and dunk them once and say it's for all those people. No way in hades you can trace the name of every one in the world who has ever lived and do their work. But that would be too easy. I guess it would also be pointless since the only ones who believe it had any validity are the tbms.

Good point! Like Jesus dying to save the world.

It took one gesture, one human sacrifice to atone for the sins of mankind (so the story goes.)

Your solution is too simple for the busy bodies! They need busy work to keep them going running their temples.

What will they do when they run out of names? Heaven forbid! They might have to clean toilets!

But we're not as special as Jesus, no ordinary person could possibly be able to take on such an important responsibility alone!

Ah, but Jesus could just walk around the various Kingdoms and say: "Hey, I'm Jesus, no doubt about it now, right? So, you wanna be saved? It would save those knuckleheads back on Earth a buttload of unnecessary ritual busywork."

Names are used multiple times. The dead have been baptized seven or eight time each. Some names as much as seventeen times per temple.

The dead know not who committed them to an eternity of washing toilets.

I've heard something like this as well. The story goes that collections of names are done for awhile at one temple, then moved to another temple, so that there's always names to do for members who don't bring any with them.

One could always make up names, when all else fails.

Wonder how often that happens? LOLOLOL.

Another on the list for investigators: show how the "sacred" BFD's are repeated over and over. What, they didn't take the first, second, third time??

Stupid, not sacred.

BFDs are like Doritos. Baptize all you want, we'll make more.

Big Fat Deal.

It's possible because people continue to die. Pretty simple. And people like to do rituals that make them think they are doing soemthing important.

That part I understand.

What Eyring was emphasizing to members was to do more of their ancestral research so they can do more of their ancestors work.

That might work for converts.

In my family the Mormons run deep. The names on that side of my family tree have been researched and then some. I don't know how much more they could go. Either records don't exist for some ancestors, or the ones that do have already been documented.

For me delving into my family history was a personal journey to understand my roots, not to submit names for temple work. If Eyring is referring to people's spark of interest in genealogy I don't think a young person's motivation is to do temple work (I could be wrong.) It seems like more busy work for elderly temple workers.

And redundant at that, if the sole purpose is to do temple work.

In this ONE insstance I actually agree with the Bible and its condemning of what it calls: "vain genealogies".

Names and dates, names and dates, names and dates ... and that is as far as the interest in a mormon's mind goes. Yawn so BORING, and so prone to errors and mistakes (if that is even important). Heck, I'm just as likely to trace my roots with mormon methods back to my origins with "Fred Flintstone" as I am to get even halfway back to father "Adam" lol -- ya gotta love those who do get back to Adam!!!

Morgbots encourage this name-date genealogy and totally skip encouraging the REAL genealogical persuit of gathering real stories and historical information surrounding one's forebearers. When I DIDN'T skip the actual story and history gathering process -- i.e. diaries etc. that is when I discovered the wholesale early belief in Adam-God etc etc. Mormons LOVE name-dates (period) because the whole history is current blasphemy.