Are Mormon people LITERAL saviors of dead Jews, others? (Baptism of DEAD Top Lds mission: Vanity)

Colofornian | April 4, 2013 (slightly distinct version published on FR Oct. 31, 2011) | Colofornian

[Elsie]

The leadership of our Church has made it abundantly clear that the practice is abolished - in no uncertain terms.

Unlike POLYGAMY; which ius STILL in your 'scripture'.

Only the 'practice' of it has been, uh, set aside.

(I'm sure that your GOD is NOT pleased with the way you SLC Mormons follow His EVERLASTING COVENANT!)

[Elsie]

The leadership of our Church has made it abundantly clear that the practice is abolished - in no uncertain terms.

It's GOOD to follow the LEADER!

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In conclusion let us summarize this grand key, these “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet”, for our salvation depends on them.

1. The prophet is the only man who speaks for the Lord in everything.
2. The living prophet is more vital to us than the standard works.
3. The living prophet is more important to us than a dead prophet.
4. The prophet will never lead the church astray.
5. The prophet is not required to have any particular earthly training or credentials to speak on any subject or act on any matter at any time.
6. The prophet does not have to say “Thus Saith the Lord,” to give us scripture.
7. The prophet tells us what we need to know, not always what we want to know.
8. The prophet is not limited by men’s reasoning.
9. The prophet can receive revelation on any matter, temporal or spiritual.
10. The prophet may advise on civic matters.
11. The two groups who have the greatest difficulty in following the prophet are the proud who are learned and the proud who are rich.
12. The prophet will not necessarily be popular with the world or the worldly.
13. The prophet and his counselors make up the First Presidency—the highest quorum in the Church.
14. The prophet and the presidency—the living prophet and the First Presidency—follow them and be blessed—reject them and suffer.

I testify that these fourteen fundamentals in following the living prophet are true. If we want to know how well we stand with the Lord then let us ask ourselves how well we stand with His mortal captain—how close do our lives harmonize with the Lord’s anointed—the living Prophet—President of the Church, and with the Quorum of the First Presidency.

Ezra Taft Benson

(Address given Tuesday, February 26, 1980 at Brigham Young University)     http://www.lds.org/liahona/1981/06/fourteen-fundamentals-in-following-the-prophet?lang=eng

[Elsie]

The leaders of the LDS faith are good men and women striving to be good examples and do the right things.

WHAT??!?!?!?

You guys got WOMEN leaders, too????

[Elsie]

The leaders of the LDS faith are good men and women striving to be good examples and do the right things.

Nah - they are merely deceived.

Or worse: DECEIVERS!!!

[Elsie]

You need to be more specific!

[Elsie]

It must be time for some QUOTES that these fine men and (no) women LEADERs of Mormonism have made...

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Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

 

 

 

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

 

 

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

 

 

 

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

 

 

 

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

 

 

 

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

 

 

 

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

 

 

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

[Elsie]

Kid I do hope you have your tongue in your cheek...

Unlike having his head up his... you know...

[Elsie]

If you Mormons truly wanted us to not object to your interferring with our beliefs you would stay away from our doors... throw AWAY your 'beliefs' that are HERESY!

[svcw]

That was NOT the question

[svcw]

mormons baptize non-relatives everyday, just as they practic poligamy everyday

[SJackson]

Obviously individual Mormons are disregarding their Church's instruction, the only Jews to be baptized are relatives. A couple of my posts from former threads.

Much of it has to do with the great decades long effort the Jewish community has put into attempting to identify both the dead and survivors. A grueling process, institutions like the Red Cross have only agreed to releas data within the last year. Of the living, and the dead. So I can understand why after that effort, someone takes the list and baptizes Jewish dead. Killed for their faith. That's just me.

Then there's the fact that the LDS agree with me, that Holocaust dead shouldn't be baptized. Which kind of settles that disagreement. It shouldn't be going on.

From a publicity standpoint, it's rather foolish to put a prominent individual like Elie Wiesel on the dead list till he's dead.

In their favor, they do have wonderful, and free, resources for tracing ancestors.

Yes, that's nice. And it gets to the genesis of the dispute. The Jewish community has also spent a great deal of time and effort attempting to compile the names of victims of the Holocaust, an impossible task as entire villages were destroyed. And lost of man hours and money. Institutions fought the effort tooth and nail. The Red Cross and, I believe, the German government refused access to records until the last couple years. Certainly this was done to some extent for the dead, but primarilly for the living. Survivors and relatives, could learn the fate of family members and even within the last couple years family members have been reunitied. You can imagine the surprise of the groups collecting and distributing this information, one of the early results is baptism as a Mormon.

Harmless or not isn't really the point. People are entitled to take offence, or not. What's significant is that the Church has barred the practice, and is correct in enforcing their policies. Perhaps a millenia from now reasearchers will use the baptism data to prove America was a Mormon country.

[Gumdrop]

Thanks for confirming my memories about this subject.

Years ago (the early ‘80’s) I was at the LDS Gen’l Library in SLC, and I discovered one of my ancestors (a 6th ggrandfather) had been “sealed” into the LDS Church. I was allowed to contact the person who submitted my ancestor’s name and we discovered we were something like 7th or 8th cousins. I added a few more people to my family tree that day.

Although I am not Mormon, I see no particular harm in your faith’s tradition of doing this. However, I don’t comprehend why a man who was already baptized in the “Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” in a Christian faith in the 17th century would need to have it done again.

You really do not need to reply to this - it is only a comment on my part.

[Ransomed]

“Those Mormons who did baptize dead Jews were not intending to do anything wrong. They did these baptisms out of love. They did not mean to do harm. Please forgive.”

If it is being done for the benefit of the dead out of love, I don’t understand why anyone would listen to the living when they complain about it. It seems like it would be a cruelty not to do it based on what anyone else thinks of the practice.

Freegards

[greyfoxx39]

It’s OK if you don’t believe; (Yeah, that's why you have 100,000 missionaries around the world lying to Christians by telling them their faith is bogus!) but we do with all our hearts and wish to be left alone to practice our faith and give you the same opportunity.

Then STOP the missionary program and and give US the same opportunity to be "left alone"!

[MEGoody]

Baptism for the dead is a complete waste of time.

"For it is appointed once for man to die, and then the judgment."

[caww]

Those two alone should give any individual a heads up.

Trouble is people don't know the Bible, and have dulled their own conscious to the point they no longer can detect falsehood or obvious lies......not knowing the truth they will fall for anything...and do.

[svcw]

Like button pressed

[District13]

“If it is being done for the benefit of the dead out of love, I don’t understand why anyone would listen to the living when they complain about it. It seems like it would be a cruelty not to do it based on what anyone else thinks of the practice.”

Thank you for your understanding and for keeping an open mind.