Posted on 02/07/2007 12:00:36 PM PST by theothercheek
The Stiletto is not a theologian, and does not have an informed opinion on whether Mormonism is a religion or a cult; if it is a religion, whether it is a Christian religion; or whether any beliefs or customs of its adherents are outside societal norms in the US. There are people who have strong opinions on these questions, but The Stiletto readily admits she is not knowledgeable enough to be among them.
However, there is one Mormon practice The Stiletto finds extremely disrespectful to people of other faiths, baptizing the dead by proxy:
The Mormons, a United States-based denomination officially named the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), encourage members to baptise [sic] the dead by proxy in the belief they are helping the deceased attain full access to heaven.
Church members are told to focus on their ancestors, a rite understandable in a relatively new denomination founded in 1830. But so many now perform the rituals for celebrities, heroes and perfect strangers that the practice has spun out of control.
Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Zedong, King Herod, Al Capone and Mickey Mouse have all appeared for a short time in the International Genealogical Index (IGI) for proxy baptisms, said Helen Radkey, an IGI researcher.
"It seems that any kind of name at all may be submitted," said Radkey from Salt Lake City, where the LDS is based. The IGI also accepts names for rites that "seal" spouses in eternal marriage or parents and children in eternal families.
This has outraged Jews and baffled Christians who see it as usurping the memory of their departed relatives. The LDS says it cannot stem the tide of dead baptised [sic] in its own temples.
The Stiletto will never consider giving her vote to Mitt Romney unless he unequivocally repudiates these proxy baptisms and uses his vaunted leadership skills to impel the Mormon hierarchy to abandon it immediately and eternally.
Someone who died a Jew in a Nazi concentration camp "becomes" a Mormon years after death – without his consent, obviously, but also without the consent of his living descendants. Ditto Armenian Christians killed by Ottoman Turks. Imagine the emotional trauma proxy baptism causes surviving relatives and descendants of these victims.
Changing the religion of someone who was murdered in the Genocide or the Holocaust by proxy baptism is annihilating him a second time. The Stiletto will refrain from foisting her religious beliefs on Mormons – but in return she insists that they keep their mitts off her ancestors.
The U.S. Constitution declares that all men are created equal – which means The Stiletto’s religion is neither inferior nor invalid, as compared to Mormonism. But this arrogant and odious practice of proxy baptism suggests that Mormons judge their beliefs superior to everyone else's. In a pluralistic, multiethnic nation as ours, anyone who believes (s)he follows "the one true" religion is de facto unfit to be president.
NOTE: In case I did not put the link in correctly, this is the second item in a feature called "The Daily Blade, and follows an article titled "In Serious Denial."
In our country, you have the right to believe whatever you want. However you do not have the right to force your beliefs down other people's throats - which is what proxy baptism does to the living relatives. Also, every Pope has been baptized into the Mormon faith and given a "wife" - you do not find this incredibly disrespectful to Catholics?
Would not this activity by Mormons be "projecting" their religion?
We are in agreement on the "I believe what I believe is true" part.
I am not attacking the LDS either, just questioning that post of yours. I've had MANY friends who were Mormons, and found them to be as a group, very honest and dependable and not the least bit condescending. Everyone one of them tried to save my agnostic ass from an eternity of the bad place, and failed. However they were good folks and sincere, and walked the walk more than many others from other Christian sects that I have known. I would have no problem voting for a Mormon for president, in fact, if a CONSERVATIVE Mormon ran he would most assuredly get my vote.
People are way to eager to give others control over their feelings. We are so in tune with "victimhood" now that people can be "traumatized" by proxy.
What a sad life some people lead.
Mormonism is absurd and I've not much respect for it -- but this is a dumb criticism. Makes no difference to Dead Guy Z what Living Mormon A does to, for, or about him. Silly, silly criticism.
More power to 'em. If they're right, then they saved my bacon from the flames. If they're wrong, what harm can some misguided Mormons do me? "If this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought; But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God" (Ac. 5:38-39).
A person who believes his religion is "better" than anyone else's - you don't see a problem with this?
I'm an Evangelical - I'm convinced of the superiority of my philosophy. Catholics teach that "outside the Church there is no salvation." Everyone who holds a religious viewpoint necessarily believes that his "religion is 'better' than anyone else's." Even the wishy-washy post-modernists who don't believe in absolute truth believe their subjectivism to be superior to crass objectivism.
So you're Jewish? Don't they call themselves "the chosen people"? Doesn't that mean you think your religion is better than everybody else's? If Romney was a Jew, how would you feel about him?
You do not become a mormon through the practice of proxy baptism. I won't go into the details of other people's religion, but it's easy enough to find out exactly what proxy baptism is supposed to mean in the mormon religion.
I have baptised many idiots both living and dead..
This is not a quesiton of one's personal beliefs. It is a question of respect for other people's beliefs which is the bedrock of our diverse ethnic and religious population getting along together. If you practice a religion that does not respect the beliefs of other religions - and disregards requests from other religious leaders to stop a practice they consider offensive - then yes, you cannot be President to all Americans. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
They're not forcing anything down anyone's throats, unless what they believe is true, in which case they're doing people a favor. If Mormonism isn't true (which it's not), then the "baptisms" have *no effect* whatsoever. What's so hard to understand about that? And if your problem is that it's "disrespectful," since when is anyone entitled to respect?
Not sure what you mean by "one of those people". I work with several mormons, and none of them cause me the least bit of trouble. We talk about a wide range of topics, and other than specifics of church doctrine, I find them to be quite in tune with my philosophy and social beliefs.
I pray for their souls, of course. The Stilleto will no doubt disapprove of that, as it implies I think my religion superior to theirs, and further am trying to force them into my religion against their will.
And yet I still pray for their souls. Maybe I should pray for Stilleto as well, just for the fun of it.
I do not feel that the Mormons are forcing this or any other tenet of their faith down my throat. The only time I've ever even heard of proxy baptism is when opponents of Mormonism have raised it as a reason why I should take offense. I politely decline to do so each time. The day Mormons collectively do me harm in the name of Mormonism is the day I will start to care about their religion. In the meantime, to each his own, I say.
Unitarians are unfit for office. If you can't even figure out what your beliefs are enough to join a church to practice them, I don't want you leading the country.
I am not Jewish, however, I do know that "The Chosen People" does not mean exactly what you think it means. It does not mean that Jews are better than anyone else.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_as_a_chosen_people
Bunk. I don't have to respect anyone's beliefs; I only have to acknowledge their right to hold those idiotic beliefs.
I'll put it this way: *YOU* are not qualified to be President because you do not respect my religion (Christianity), which claims that Jesus was telling the truth when He claimed to be the ONLY way to God. You CANNOT reconcile your (absolute) belief in relativism with respect for my belief in absolute truth; therefore you're in the same boat as me, Mitt Romney, and everyone else.
GOing by your definition, Dems are until for office since they can't figure out what their opinions are until a public opinion poll tells them. ;)
What, they send the relatives a plaque or something?
Amazing the silly, absolutely meaningless things that can get panties in a wad. What if you learned that a neighbor was sticking pins in a voodoo doll of you, are you going to rush out and demand a restraining order? If you don't believe in something, how can it affect or harm you?
Precisely. If Mormonism is false, then they've engaged in some weird ritual beyond closed doors that purported to affect me post-mortem, but in reality had no effect beyond the walls of their temple. The only way their ritual has any effect on me is if the Mormons are actually right, in which case, they have done me a huge favor.
Doesn't bother me in the least. We've got radical Islamists who want to annihilate our way of life, and somehow some clean-living, family-centric, law-abiding, hard-working, self-reliant Mormons are supposed to be a grave threat to our political system? Not bloody likely.
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