Here's how I see the mormon mindset on temple dunkings.

Mormons feel they are stewards of the human race. Their goal is to convert and draw humanity under their control. They're sure that everyone else is wrong and in need of fixing.

This is an impossibility in life so they have to resort to baptizing as many of the leftovers as possible in proxy dead dunking riturals after death.

I think mormons like to assume that the dead don't mind because they have advantages as spirits. They get spiritual instruction from mormon spirit giants in the afterlife. They see their lives in retrospect as wasted. So they are set and ready to be dunked. The spirits are humbled by their earthly blundering and sit by the font chewing their nails waiting for a kid to be dunked for them.

It's a final gotcha moment for the mormons. "Those gentiles and other riff-raff wouldn't see the light as mortals. We're not giving up on them in death. We mormons can get them coming and going. Ha-ha-ha."

It's very spiteful, to people who declined baptism in this life and to people who were members of other relgions, to turn around "baptism' them into membership into the Mormon Church after they pass on.

I once read a good comment on why baptisms for the dead were so offensive to many people. The person said, "It suggests that if the Mormons were powerful enough, they would require people to be baptized while they were still alive."

I'm not sure it's true, of course, but this comment does underscore the innate creepiness of the practice. Myself, I've never understood why -- if people can be converted in the afterlife -- they can't also be baptized at someplace located in the afterlife. Why does it need to be brought into this world?

I think that's an accurate statement, Oddcouplet.

Let's look at some of the requirements they put on living nonbelievers.

Mormons say their bishops are stewards of everyone in their ward area, including nonmembers.

Mormons don't officially keep or recognize "no contact lists" as JWs do.

Mormons enforce their rules on church owned property but do not accept the rules homeowners or businesses have against proselytizing.

Mormons believe that their temple sanctuaries are descecrated if nonworthy people step inside. That's why they dedicate and consecrate the buildings after initial tours which include outsiders.

Mormons feel perfectly justified in banning nonmembers from weddings of close family members.

Mormons don't mind breaking laws or trampling socially accepted good manners if they think it will force people under their will. Some examples include trespassing, visa violations, harassment, and stalking.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2011 09:55AM by Cheryl.

Gee, what a nice, family-oriented religion. Makes me feel all warm and cozy inside. No, not really.

I hadn't thought about an “element of spite,” but it is there, all right. Look how much spite there is in the letter back to those who resign, in which the Morg claims that all the blessings of baptism and of the temple are now revoked—as if THEY have the power to withhold good from people’s lives!

A controlling cult hates it when it can’t have power over others.

I see it as a complete lack of respect for other people and their own religious beliefs. The Mormons dead-dunked my great grandmother (and namesake) even though I feel quite certain that she wouldn't have given them the time of day. Absolutely none of her decendants are Mormon, either (thereby violating the LDS church's own rules for dead dunking.) She had her own religious beliefs, and our family deserves to have those beliefs respected.

So to me, every pronouncement that church officials make about respecting other denominations and religions is meaningless. They say it with their mouths but don't believe it in their hearts. They have no fundamental respect for others. They don't even respect their own members, so why would non-members have a chance with them?

The insistance on dead dunking also bespeaks a lack of humility. The Mormon church is *right* and everyone else is *wrong* (or as the Mormons put it, the others only have part of the truth.) It never dawns on them that if there is a God, then it is a God of *all* Earth's people. The Mormon God is petty, mean-spirited, autocratic, and rule-bound. I like to think that God would have far more wisdom, compassion, knowledge, justice and love than the Mormons seem capable of imagining.

Well stated. Dead dunking is evidence that, despite their rhetoric, MOrmons don't respect the religious choices of others - alive or dead.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I see it as a complete lack of respect for other
> people and their own religious beliefs. The
> Mormons dead-dunked my great grandmother (and
> namesake) even though I feel quite certain that
> she wouldn't have given them the time of day.
> Absolutely none of her decendants are Mormon,
> either (thereby violating the LDS church's own
> rules for dead dunking.) She had her own religious
> beliefs, and our family deserves to have those
> beliefs respected.


It feels like an erasure of another person's identity and the imposition of a Mormon one--much like the program the church carries on in life.

Eeuw. Creepy but accurate.

Mormon's were horrified when Big Love used their practices for its own purposes. They just don't understand why I am horrified to have my dead family used for them for their bizarre reasons.

Dancing on someone's grave doesn't affect them, but it certainly is an insult to their families. Symbolism matters, and people's deceased relatives are dearer to them than can be measured. Mormons understand how much symbolism matters with their own family, which makes it hard to understand why they don't get this whole issue.

Do you remember when the one guy was unplugging the people that were in the Matrix and Neo and Trinity stood there watching them die. That's how I picture dead dunking. Up in heaven people are sitting there chatting and all of the sudden they just drop down lifeless when they are dead dunked on earth.

It was that very teaching that led to my decision to be baptized.

Missionaries:- "So Sister _______ when do you want to be baptized?

Me:- "I told you I'm just not sure about getting baptized. I don't really know if Joseph Smith was REALLY a prophet.
I don't KNOW if the Book of Mormon is true."

Missionaries:- "Where you sincere when you prayed for an answer?"

Me:- "I DID ask and I didn't get any answer."

Missionaries:- "Pray some more. Read Moroni 10:4 again."

Me:- "Well, I think I'll wait until the next life to decide. I'll be taught there."

Missionaries:- "You can't................

Me interrupting them:- "WAIT! I thought you said that everyone will have a chance to decide in the next life and I'm going to wait until the next life."

Missionaries:- "You can't. You see, you've been taught the Gospel and so you won't have an oppourtunity to be taught in the next life.
The people who are taught in the next life are those who never had an oppourtunity to be taught while alive."

I ended up getting baptized. It was like an insurance policy, a just in case the church is true.

Not until after baptism did I know what it meant to be an ACTIVE member. I spent the next 13 years being a Mormon until that Sunday we just walked away.
It would be another 19 years before we made it official and had our names removed.

I've forgiven that 20 year old girl. I'm not as forgiving to that Church.

And that there was no option for dead baptisms for anyone exposed to the gospel in their lifetimes.

However, I don't think mormons ever actually lived by that teaching.

Of course they now baptize anyone, including ministers, priests and other holy men and women, also, terrorists and murderers, and including resigned and exed former members and those who openly state and put it in their wills that they don't want it.

Her niece & wacko husband tried to convince her - she was always polite about it, but quite firm. Obviously they don't follow the strictures about only dunking those who haven't had the chance to be taught about Mormonism. They do it anyway.

I HATE that they dragged her name through their temple rituals. It's a desecration of her name and legacy.

The irony is that if other churches were dead dunking mormons to "save" them, mormons would be furious and would talk about how disrespectful it is. Talk about a double standard.

emma Wrote:
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> The irony is that if other churches were dead dunking mormons to "save" them, mormons would be furious and would talk about how disrespectful it is. Talk about a double standard.


Maybe it's time to do just that?

A Pasta Dip! We could make them honorary members of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

They lied to you because they do NO investigations whatsoever to find out if a dead person had the opportunity to hear the gospel and reject it or not. If they were sincere, that would be important because they wouldn't want to be washing away the sins of someone who heard the missionary lessons and said "Nope, I'll pass."

If they allowed your scenario, it would make the missionary program completely unnecessary, even harmful because it would expose them to the gospel at the risk of their eternal salvation, which would be assured by Baptism of the Dead.

So the fallback strategy seems to be: die before 8 or never listen to conference and always plug your ears and say la-la-la when missionaries are speaking to make sure you never accidentally "hear" the gospel and ruin your golden ticket for dead dunking in the afterlife.

What a hot mess!

Anagrammy

I asked this question in a family history class recently: "If grandpa were a faithful Catholic and asked you on his death bed, not to have Mormon ordnances done for him after his death, would you honor his request or wait one year and then have his data processed anyway?".

One lady couldn't answer quickly enough,"I would have his work done. Being deceased, he has now seen the truth of the church and would want me to get it done quickly."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2011 12:09PM by george.

My dad's stepmom made my mom swear she would never, ever do her temple work. Grandma Liz HATED Mormonism, thought it was a scam and a money grab and was really pissed when my mom joined up with the Mormons. She cut my poor dad, who still isn't baptized, right out of the will because she didn't want the Mormons to get any of her money. She split his money between my sister and I, in a educational trust to pay for our school.

Because Grandma Liz was so against having her temple work done and because my mom promised she wouldn't do it, when Grandma died, my mom somehow contacted high mucky-mucks in Salt Lake who told her NOT to do Grandma's temple work and not to let us do it. No one who knew about the promise my mom had made were supposed to do the temple work. Currently, my mom has forbidden my sister and I to tell our children about the promise, in hopes they will find that Grandma Liz was "overlooked" when they start doing their genealogy and have her baptized. That's how my mom is getting around the rule.

Even before I left the church, I thought that was pretty snarky and told my kids they weren't allowed to baptize my Grandma Liz and one of these days, I'm going to make sure my sister's kids know too. It's the least I can do for Grandma for mentioning me in her will. But honestly, even if she hadn't left me a cent, I'd still respect her enough to watch her back for her.

I heard so many stories of what were basically hauntings: Gramma would appear in a dream and say she's "still waiting for temple work to be done." I was told countless times that my ancestors "are waiting".

I had images of them all floating around...nothing to do... waiting....watching.....crashing a dream or two.....

Maybe that's how I should handle my in-laws...tell them that my TBM family members are free to dunk me again after I've died and seen the error of my ways.

I am probably going to get lit up for this but I don't think baptisms for the dead have anything to do with spite, power, or control. I think the practice illustrates how some aspects of mormonism were poorly constructed and not very well thought out. Obviously I don't know the mind of Joseph Smith or any other church member but I believe idea of dead dunkings was well intended. I also believe that dead dunkings are subject to all the failings of any human generated program. I don't think anyone foresaw the problems that it would generate...a cute little idea with some really negative unintended consequences. I don't think a god in his/her perfection would make a mistake like that. I don't think mormons in general are doing it for spite but do it for other simpler-selfish reasons (i.e) they want to get into heaven and they want all their family to get there too. I really don't think they give it much thought outside of that.

The religion and culture grew and evolved like a vine and the spite of dead dunkings is one vein inside one outwardly curling tenacle.

Whatever grows the organization and keeps the members busy and contributing determines how the church evolves.

I've been told by a Mormon that it's done out of love. That may be true for them, but for the person on the outside it feels like an attempt to control. Attempting to control the rest of us, attempting to control God.

I think the next time someone says it's about love, I will have to tell them how I feel. When they respond with "It's just an offer of baptism, I will then have to ask "So the words during the baptism are different? The words are 'You are being offered to be baptized' not 'You are baptized'??

If they didn't believe it was actually forcing a conversion, they wouldn't move on to endow and seal them as well.

That's why they harass people in their homes and on the street attempting to fix them, love them into being mormons.

They have "courts of Love" to humilate and ex "sinners" in hopes that they can shame them into being better mormons.

They sometimes beat kids if they don't want to go to church or don't want to bear testimony. Why? For love. To make them into better mormons.

Same with dead dunkings. They call it love and like to think of it that way because the uglier reality stinks to the CK.

I've thought it was Smith's way of dealing with the death of loved ones, specifically the death of his older brother Alvin.

I'm also not sure spite motivates the baptisms, but I think narcissism plays a big part, as evidenced by the Mormons baptizing Holocaust victims without considering how others might feel about it and then persisting after an agreement to stop the practice.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/u-s-jewish-group-to-mormons-stop-baptizing-holocaust-victims-1.256935

But it's an emotion that comes into play because of them.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2011 10:55PM by robertb.

robertb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
as
> evidenced by the Mormons baptizing Holocaust
> victims without considering how others might feel
> about it and then persisting after an agreement to
> stop the practice.

The morg just can't keep it's word, can it?

In 1890, they said they'd stop with the polygamy, but did they? NO!

I'd say there's lots of spite to the dead dunking.

Susan

so you are saying its just like all the other snotty self infatuated self aggrandizing things/ everything else that MORmONS do ?

When I was believing I was jealous of everybody who was baptized after death. They got to live without the church in their life. Which seemed more fun. And they got the easy way out. I thought that all those people would accept it because it's so much easier after death. So I thought the two lower kingdoms would just have all the people who were raised Mormon but didn't accept it their whole lives.

Once I'm dead, if they rebaptize me because I resigned, I hope I have the power to make the water form into a spiritual middle finger...

It is spiteful. To deside what the dead want without even a true sighn is just cik and they say stuff like this can only be done on earth what happens to kids of twelve that get baptised for the dead? do they get endowd and seald to random priesthood holder?