Mormons' macabre Jewish baptisms won't benefit Mitt

South Florida Sun-Sentinel ^ | Feb. 4, 2012 | Rachel Patron

[Colofornian]

...I attended a luncheon for the Holocaust Museum...Each year I ask myself, Why am I here? ...Tis a gruesome tradition.

I think of my grandfather, Rabbi Jacob Meyer Rakowski... My grandfather was the...last — descendant of a rabbinic dynasty hailing back to 11th century France. At age 82, grandpa was gassed in Auschwitz, together with 47 members of my parents' families. I last saw him two years earlier, when my parents, my brother and I were deported to Siberia.

I'm retelling this old history because now, with Mitt Romney possibly becoming the Republican nominee, it's important to remember that his Church of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, had most likely baptized my dead grandfather, a ritual they've been performing on 6 million dead Jews...

SNIP

So tell me truly, does my grandfather need to have his body snatched so he can be redeemed in a Kingdom of God he never wanted to enter?

SNIP

It's interesting to note the Catholic Church had outlawed this rite as early as the 4th century. But it was resurrected 1,500 years later by American Mormons. As a result, today we have an argument between Mitt Romney, Rabbi Jacob Meyer Rakowski, and me — his only surviving grandchild. Plus 6 million dead Jews.

SNIP

...they believe in choice, stipulating that any dead person can refuse to be baptized — but so far they'd heard no objections. (I kid you not.)

Every Jewish organization has begged the Mormons to stop. They promised to do so, but continue the practice. And they've never explained why they perform this necrophiliac aberration.

I therefore demand, for my grandfather and the rest of the dead, that Mormons immediately reverse all baptisms. They keep a great set of books and will have no problem to publish lists of un-baptized Jews...

[MarkL]

No, I guess not. But that might explain the level of hatred against Mormons for so long, and even here on Free Republic. It might also have been a contributing factor as to why it was legal and rather popular to kill Mormons in the state of Missouri for so long.

Mark

[SoothingDave]

Personally, I would far rather have my remains disinterred and scattered to the wind than have my name used in an evil, wicked, bizarre, satanic ritual ... and every one of my departed relatives that I had the pleasure of knowing felt exactly the same way.

And you would take away another's right to practice his religion as he sees fit to avoid this?

[Colofornian]

Of course to Jews, the Christian heresy and its Mormon off-shoot seem to be far more offensive than the Mormon heresy is to Christians.

Well, of course.

As a response to Jesus, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees first tried to repeatedly stone Jesus (for claiming to be "I AM" etc)...and then had him arrested for an illegal trial @ night...

The eventual response to Joseph Smith-- in contrast -- is that Smith went down in a shootout after firing at least 6 bullets with one gun...while in possession of a second loaded gun...and we don't know whether any of the people Smith fired at -- or that fired on Smith were Christian or not.

[SoothingDave]

Probably. The plural marriage didn’t help either.

[Scoutmaster]

I don’t ascribe that much power to their farcical aquatic ceremonies.

I was talking about farcical aquatic ceremonies with my favorite moistened bint just the other day. She lobbed a scimitar at me. Luckily I had a migrated coconut to block it.

[Colofornian]

It might also have been a contributing factor as to why it was legal and rather popular to kill Mormons in the state of Missouri for so long.

Mark, you flunked American history in high school & college, eh? (Or do you just take a few tidbits @ face value & then never check under the hood?)

There's usually only two periods designated as including hostilities in Missouri:
1833 Jackson Co. MO
1838 Davis & Carroll Co., MO

So, FIRST of all, you're talking about just three Missouri counties (NOT the entire state).

Q1 What about 1833?: In the middle of 1833 in Jackson County, Missouri...Mormons had armed men...ranges have varied from whom you listen to from tens to hundreds...up to 400 armed Mormons. Source: Kansas City Daily Journal, April 24, 1881
Result from Nov. 4, 1833 conflict: TWO died (one a Mormon)

After that, the Mormons had 58 more months of peace in Missouri.

Q2 What about 1838?: Jackson Co. people, along with those representing Bay Co., then got involved in backing some hot-heads in Davis & Carroll Counties in Sept. 1838...by October 1838 fighting & killing occurred on BOTH sides, with property losses being less than what Lds later exaggerated.

I'm not justifying what some Missourians did in 1838; things happened on both sides:
(a): See, for example, the first entry at: Setting the record straight on the 'Hawn's' Mill Massacre In article, it explains how the Mormons love to cite Jacob Haun (real name was spelled Jacob Hawn with a "w"), who was the owner of the Hawn's Mill. But Jacob Hawn was never a Mormon...(In that article, a historian discusses why Jacob and Harriet Hawn were never Mormons. "I like many other historians mainly assumed they were Mormons." But among other proofs, Baugh explained that they arrived earlier to Caldwell County before the Mormons, and no family records report that they were Mormons. So the mill that was attacked wasn't even a Mormon mill, after all. [Rewrite the history books]
(b) From the above-linked article: With 17 Mormons killed and 14 Mormons injured, the historian explained that the massacre on October 30, 1838 was the "singular most tragic event in terms of loss of life and injury enacted by an anti-Mormon element against the Latter-day Saints in our entire church's history." Well, I would hope that historians would present history in a more balanced way. What's NOT mentioned in that article is that 12 days before this attack:
•On October 18, 1838, Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Lyman Wight, D. W. Patten at the head of 40 men made a descent on Gallatin, the county seat of Daviess, and they burned the only store and stole their goods. Previous to the 25th of October a great part of the Mormons residing in Caldwell County had returned home with their dividend of plunder.
* 6 days before this attack: • On October 25, 1838, the Battle of Crooked River: Mormon forces attacked (unknowingly?) the Missouri state militia under the command of Samuel Bogart. This incident became one of the principal points of conflicts in 1838 Missouri. The battle resulted in the death of three militia and the LDS leader, David Patten. One of the militia was taken prisoner by the Mormons. Source: http://www.carm.org/religious-movements/mormonism/are-christians-persecuting-mormons

You can see how "lopsided" Mormon historians tend to present history!

I guess per your way of "presenting the 'facts'" -- that 'twas "legal & popular" for Mormons to kill Missouri militia in 1838 and another individual in 1833, eh?

BTW...beyond the above, Mormons overdramatize how long these hostilities lasted in Missouri:
* 'Twas about 100 days in Jackson Co late spring/early Summer & early fall of '33;
* Another month or so-- maybe 40-45 days in Sept/Oct 1838 -- violence all occurring in Oct.
* Less than 5 months actual real time, all told.

That's about 5% of the time they resided there! Between Fall, 1830 and September, 1838, the Mormons were either well-treated or not bothered by their Missouri neighbors for 8 yrs MINUS that 100-day series of events prompted by less than 50 people in one county.

So much for your lame blaming of the entire populace the actions of a very small minority!

[Colofornian]

Probably. The plural marriage didn’t help either.

You're no better, Dave, in your ignorance of Midwest history than Mark is!

Yes, the Mormons were practicing a lil bit of polygamy in the 1830s. (At least Joseph Smith was). But it was a secret even among the Lds grassroots.

There was NO polygamy in 1830s Missouri. I won't go as far as to say it was 0% -- but if not 0% as close to it as possible...and there certainly was NO OPEN polygamy there! When Joseph Smith started practicing it, he was in Kirtland, Ohio in 1831. Smith frequently visited Missouri, but didn't take up ongoing residency there. Polygamy didn't begin to come out as public knowledge until the early 1840s in Nauvoo, IL. And the Mormons never published any public doctrine on it until an 1852 book by a non-Mormon forced their hand.

By then, they were in Utah.

This is what I mean, Dave, by the tendency of some posters to come into these Mormon threads. It's OK to have an opinion. But to export ignorance goes a bit beyond that.

[SENTINEL]

They've got to build their “downlines” somehow !

[Colofornian]

And you would TAKE AWAY another's right to practice his religion as he sees fit to avoid this?

My. Do you always try to knee-jerk footballs out of the stadium for mere extra points?

Show us where Zakeet has advocated some government enforcing it so that the Mormons can't necro-baptize? (And if not the govt, tell us, what entity would have that power to enter into Mormon temples and tell them how to run them???)

'Tis seems you have a problem, Dave, of setting up overblown straw men with great hyperbole -- just so that you have an easy target to knock down.

[Gamecock]

the Mormons, had most likely baptized my dead grandfather, a ritual they've been performing on 6 million dead Jews...

The author should get a life. Mormons baptize all the dead folks they can, not just Jews.

One of their creepier traditions.

[donmeaker]

postulate, verb (used with object)
1. to ask, demand, or claim.
2. to claim or assume the existence or truth of, especially as a basis for reasoning or arguing.
3. to assume without proof, or as self-evident; take for granted.
4. Mathematics, Logic . to assume as a postulate.

Examples of postulates (per Euclid)
1. A straight line segment can be drawn joining any two points.
2. Any straight line segment can be extended indefinitely, to form a straight line.
3. Given any straight line segment, a circle can be drawn having the segment as radius and one endpoint as center.
4. All right angles are congruent.

Euclid’s 5th postulate does start with “if” and was identified by the ancients as different from the others, in need of proof. Of course without it, you get perfectly valid, but non-Euclidean geometries.

I don’t assert that the Mormons are right. My Pratt ancestors had enough contact with Joseph Smith Jr. the convicted fraud, that I am pretty sure they are not.

Still, their use of your or my ancestors’ name in a ritual demanded by their deluded cult doesn’t harm anyone. Put your fingers in your ears and say “na na na”. If they write it in a book, don’t read their book. If it is on television, turn it off or change the channel. Be a grownup.

Now if I was a cult leader, I would want to be a cult leader of a good and inoffensive people. I would make up harmless and inexpensive rituals, stating that the divine powers provided jam yesterday, and would provide jam tomorrow, but would hold as an article of faith that jam should not be expected today. Just as I would offer the blessings of the divine to my followers, in exchange for their tithes, I would suggest that my followers could feel generous if they engaged in rituals that delivered the blessings of the divine to others. And who could prove me wrong?

If I was a fraud, that is what I would do. Of course as a fraud, any true G-d would condemn me, and perhaps the more self aware of those of my followers.

[Tennessee Nana]

Many of my Christian ancestors have been dead dunked into Mormonism...

They died as Christians..

Dutch Walloons, French Huguenots, Palatine German Lutherans, Scot Presbyterians, Canadian Connexion Methodists, Anglicans, Irish Catholics...

None were Mormons and none would have wanted to be if they had ever heard of the false religion..so anti-Christian, so unAmerican, so evil and unBiblical..

But they are listed as “baptised” “endowed” “sealed”

If your ancestors are in the IGI its because they have been dead dunked...

There is a jolly upside to this though...

We already have the “first Mormon president” and theres not a thing that the Mormons can do about it...

Barak Hussein Obama, seed of Cain is a bona fide Mormon...

His mother Stanley Ann Durham contented atheist was dead dunked, emdowed, and sealed to her children in June 2008...

There is no religious ritual in Mormonism to excommunicate a dead person...

in other words to reverse the process...

Until 1978 Mormon high priest and bishop Willard Mitt Romney practiced racism and bigotry in the Mormon religious rituals in the temples and elsewhere..

Blacks were excluded as the seed of Cain and unworthy to be members of the “priesthood”...

Romneys pure white and delightsome boys only club looked forward to the day when one of their number would be the first Mormon president..and “save the Constitution”

and looked what happened ...

The Mormons are stuck with a president that Joey Smith never imagined when he campaigned to be POTUS in 1844...

and that Brigham Young would have let the blood of anyone even suggesting it could happen...

God will not be mocked...

[Yardstick]

But you’ve overlooked the intent, which is too big a piece of this to be left out. What these Mormons are doing is nothing like peeing on a grave because peeing on a grave can only be done with the intent to insult or provoke. This clearly is not what the Mormons are intending. What if instead of peeing on the grave they were sprinking rose pedals on the grave? Would that still be offensive? Probably, but nowhere near in the same way or to the same degree.

What’s going on here is that the Mormons and their particular religious hangup (infatuation with controlling the afterlife) is lapping directly onto Jews and their particular hangup (fear of loss of identity). And so what would otherwise be a minor disagreement to be brushed off becomes a fairly major kerfuffle.

[Colofornian]

Still, their use of your or my ancestors’ name in a ritual demanded by their deluded cult doesn’t harm anyone. Put your fingers in your ears and say “na na na”. If they write it in a book, don’t read their book. If it is on television, turn it off or change the channel. Be a grownup.

Hey. If you have polluted water come into your neighborhood pipes -- and most of the neighbors know that it's not "A1" grade (or worse), anyway...

Hey. Be a "grownup." Just turn off the faucets & go buy bottled water.

When you think of anybody else drinking that pipe water in your neighborhood...put your fingers in your minds' "ears" and say "na-na-na."

If your neighbor offers you some of that pipe water when you visit with them, don't take the offer.

[And there thine responsibility hath concluded...after all...most of them drink that pipe water with their eyes semi-opened...would they not?]

[Oh, yeah...many of those neighborhood households full of polluted water hath kids daily watering, showering, cooking and drinking that stuff...wouldn't they?]

Oh, well. After all..."neighbors" are kinda tough to define, anyway...

[Colofornian]

What’s going on here is that the Mormons and their particular religious hangup (infatuation with controlling the afterlife) is lapping directly onto Jews and their particular hangup (fear of loss of identity). And so what would otherwise be a minor disagreement to be brushed off becomes a fairly major kerfuffle.

Well, except for your downgrading an obsession -- Mormonism's out & out obsession with the dead -- into mere infatuation...not too bad of an analysis here.

But even that good concept of "loss of identity" you hit upon needs further unpacking:

Jewish history is that they are the "chosen people." They are Zion.

Germany not only took aim @ Jewish identity, but COMPLETELY snuff it out. Reduce it to ashes.

That's what they perceive Mormon baptism of the Jewish dead does: It attempts to completely snuff out any Jewish identity, 100% replacing it with a Mormon identity.

Now, how does that differ with Christianity?

#1, Christians say that identity is merged -- not snuffed out. They become a completed Jew -- a Messianic Jew -- not an ex-Jew.

#2, Christians don't try to snuff out the Jewish identity by usurping the word "Zion" as exclusive to them. That can't be said of the Mormon church, which has claimed the word "Zion" as exclusively theirs. (Jews are "Gentiles" only in the Mormon world).

[MarkL]

But you’ve overlooked the intent, which is too big a piece of this to be left out. What these Mormons are doing is nothing like peeing on a grave because peeing on a grave can only be done with the intent to insult or provoke.

Not at all. Once pretty much every Jewish organization and thousands of individuals had notified the Mormon Church that it was offensive and they should stop, their intent became one of insult and provocation.

Mark

[Colofornian]

That's your problem. Very short-sighted.

(I guess you don't mind the GOP Establishment shoving RINOs at you for the rest of your life...candidates more liberal than the Dems use to run in the 60s!...all because they know that voters like you will capitulate, anyway!)

[SoothingDave]

Once pretty much every Jewish organization and thousands of individuals had notified the Mormon Church that it was offensive and they should stop, their intent became one of insult and provocation.

Nonsense. Something doesn't become offensive because a "victim" claims offense.

No one can say "Each child should bring his book" because some feminists claim offense at the masculine pronoun being used in the generic sense.

Are they right, because they felt offense, that offense must be intended by everyone who says "one small step for man?"

What Mormons do is utterly irrelevant to your ancestors or mine. Let them have their delusions. Getting all offended about it doesn't achieve anything except giving you something to feel offended about.

[MarkL]

Most Missourians have pretty much been the "live and let live" sort of folks. I never claimed there were mass pogroms against the Mormons, nor was there rampant oppression against them. They pretty much kept to themselves. But there were a lot of people who didn't like them, and as I said, it was "legal" to kill Mormons in MO until the 1970s when Kit Bond rescinded the executive order. Most left voluntarily and moved on to Utah. But just a couple of decades later, many RLDS members began to move back to MO, and in fact now Independence, MO is the home of the RLDS church.

Mark