Holocaust Victims Names in Mormon Database (Guardian)

by Jennifer Dobner AP

There is new evidence that the Mormon Church's vast database includes the names of Jewish Holocaust victims and that the practice of posthumous baptism is continuing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5848386,00.html

I'm sure they are.

And they perished during the Holocaust because they were Jews.

Baptizing them posthumously and claiming that they can reject it in the afterlife is such a strong violation of their memories that I cannot even begin to understand why your attitude is so cavalier.


From the story in Yahoo

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060526/ap_on_re_us/baptizing_the_dead

Church President Gordon B. Hinckley has said the baptismal rite is only an offer of membership that can be rejected in the afterlife by individuals. "So, there's no injury done to anybody," Hinckley told the AP in an interview last November.

But Jews are offended by the practice and in 1995 signed an agreement with Mormon leaders aimed at preventing the names of Holocaust victims from being added to the genealogical index. The agreement would also have limited entries of other Jewish names to those persons who are direct ancestors of current Mormons.

A cross-referencing of more than 1,500 Dutch Jews whose names should have been deleted from the church's International Genealogical Index remain in the database, Michel said.

Concepts like "sanctity," "afterlife" and "baptism" are primitive, barbaric and totally artificial ideas that have no bearing on reality. If these Mormons have been so totally lobotomized by their god that they think they'll rack up brownie points in Heaven by performing ceremonies for random dead people, let them. Unlike many other pastimes of the faithful (abortion clinic bombings, gay bashing, etc.) these activities don't have any negative impact on the real world. Religious nutjobs should be encouraged to play pretend games so they'll have less time to murder and disenfranchise people who don't share their beliefs.

I just thought that they were included in the records.

I totally do not think anyone should be baptising anyone postumously. Unless the family wants them to be. And of course.. not people of another religion who had no say in how they died... were murdered. That just reeks.

Sorry .. my bad.

Note to Self: Must read whole article when a thread starts.. not just skim.

BEFORE death...is like post-death RAPE. It's bad enough that when you're alive, that people of various faiths feel it's their "mission" to continually, uninvitedly, "FORCE" your conversion to THEIRS...as the ONLY 'TRUE' religion. Lately, I've met SO MANY who are extra-fervant to SPOUT their views, and say they will "pray" for me to convert...even though I say I have NO wish or interest whatsoever in doing so. Their persistence, and arrogance I find deeply offending...and boundary invading.

The Mormons take it a step further however...saying if they couldn't convert you BEFORE death, at least they have your "captive" passive spirit AFTER death to assault, and "speak for"...so that somehow miraculouly they "imagine" you repented (with THEIR mind's help),and changed your mind and belief to Mormonism. To be SOOOO hallucinatory, in mentally, religiously RAPING dead people, I find deeply disturbing, and disrespectful of the dead. R.I.P. is my "belief."

I personally have a Mormon relative (one only) who curiously enough keeps "regular" contact with me. While I truly feel the person is not particularly fond of me, I feel(in his own deeply "raptured" mind's eye)...he does so, planning on my conversion...if not before death...at least afterward.

Isn't THAT what families are for...but to harrass you even AFTER death?!

They're "poaching souls" who never expressed any interest in become either Mormon or christian.

For what it's worth, my Last Will and Testament has a clause stating that I refuse to be posthumously converted to any religion.

Totally indefensible and disrespectful.

I'm posthumously re-baptizing Brigham Young.

capture for the Mormon Church?

My wife's Mormon aunt (married to Mrs. J's maternal uncle) created a genealogy of that branch of the family, which includes a list of the "ancestors" and when they were baptized into the church posthumously.

I found evidence on a popular genealogical website that MY data was taken and my relatives, including some that are still very much alive, were "baptized" into the Mormon Church. Of course the person who posted the information refused to answer any emails; the website owners would take no action;the Mormon Church said they didn't have anything to do with it.

...several Jewish organizations have asked the Mormons NOT to do this as people who died as Jews presumably died happy to be Jewish.

it's very weird behavior by the Mormons if you ask me...

PB

One of the "secret" mormon rituals along with marriage of the dead conducted within the closed confines of the temples.

Mormons believe that this restores a practice followed by the early Christians, lost for 2000 years.

Mormon theology states that a dead person can be baptized via proxy, which means that a Mormon can be baptized on behalf of someone who has already died.

The Mormon Church teaches that because millions lived and died without learning the teachings of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith and without benefit of belonging to the Church, ordinances such as baptism and eternal marriage should be carried out on earth on their behalf.

So, they aren't only baptized into the church after death, they are also married, as marriage is a pre-requisite to gaining entrance into heaven.

This is with or without the knowledge or approval of living relatives.

Peace.

her temporarily Mormon husband when he asked her to one of these celebrations...for his dead Grandmother!

She told him to marry her to Robert Redford while they were at it.

Are they inflating their membership roles by counting dead people baptized into their church.

J

But those numbers would be pretty large if they were, wouldn't they?

Peace

if you truly understand the Bible (no mean feat)

- it is a mix of data from most everyone that does online genealogy. The LDS church collects, packages and sells the data on disk. It's not only about baptism, it is mostly about family history.

LDS data is notoriously inaccurate and I refuse to use it for research. Most of the LDS research I've seen is poorly documented with no source references whatsoever and the church will not correct inaccurate submissions even when faced with documentation as proof.

I was raised LDS. Before the church and I parted company, I did make a trip to the Mesa Temple and was baptized FIFTY times for dead persons. They damned near drowned me. Supposedly the dead reveal their wishes to the church's elders that they wish to be baptized mormon so they can inherit the kingdom in the afterlife.

...according to some who have compared notes, they are recycling names.

...3 times.

They have had baptism for the dead for all but one of the late US presidents.

They baptize anyone dead with a name. Sometimes they only have the first name or the last name of an individual. It doesn't matter, they do it anyway.

The Mormons did... 3x...

I'm not sure how i feel about that :silly:

Peace

- with all that baptizing!

Yes, they definitely go for quantity but their work has really suffered for it. Am I correct in my understanding that they only baptize their own ancestors which is why they do the genealogy in the first place?

The LDS database is garbage.

Every family is obligated to do their own tree, so a lot of them are done by people who don't have a clue what they are doing.

I just looked up several of my late relatives and friends. The DB is full of duplicate entries, with only about 1 in 4 being close to correct.

I am not a mormon and don't in any way agree with what they do...but they do have TWO sources of information in their databases. One is the info from people who said "I think this person was born etc" and the "children were." This was done early on. BUT you need to check much of their info comes directly from town, county, church records etc. The individuals are baptized, married etc according to info taken from those records. You need to check the source of the records to make sure where they got it from. I"ve been an LDS librarian volunteer for 15 years...and teach this to everyone who comes to the library.

- I'm referring to the accuracy of the contributed pedigree files. The "I think this person was born, etc." contributors - some of whom have it very wrong and there is no original source shown for their specific data to enable a researcher to confirm it. Even when presented with evidence that the data in inaccurate, LDS will not remove the bad data from the file. That inaccurate data is then bundled and sold, further expounding the problem.

The LDS data gleaned from census, tax, county and town records is as accurate as any libraries but the contributed family databases - by church members and the ones that they have added from online sources - are terribly inaccurate.

Ok, so millions of Jews are slaughtered in one of the worst examples of systematic genocide the world has ever been witness to. They were starved, they were brutalized, raped, tortured, for pete's sake vivisected and worse for being Jews. And yet they kept that faith, made it untouchable by Nazi claws.

And here some subhuman filth claims that they have converted to Mormonism, posthumously?

That really takes the cake. I believe you also have a really damned strong case to say that it's anti-Semitic, to boot and I don't throw around that word carelessly, either.

PB

with what you are saying. It is really infuriating that one group of people feel that they possess a superior religious doctrine and conduct such an outrageous act. I also see it as anti-semitic and disrespectful of the Jewish faith.

You've all been Mormons for years !!!

Let's see your underwear!!!

...pikachu's face!

PB

of those posthumously baptised. Living as a Jew, or a Catholic, or whatever and dying for the very same. The LDS baptisms are beyond insulting.

...and need help understanding.

What does it matter to someone of faith X, what person of faith Y thinks about the fate of the person of faith X?

I mean, a great many of Christians are perfectly happy in the confident knowledge that most everyone around them are consigned to eternal death. ("a great many", I know it's not a Christian's place to judge)

If I had some personal quirky faith in which I believed that touching your screen name on your monitor with my index finger would save your soul, and I sat here touching your screen names with my index finger - not bothering you, but just performing my private little blessing ritual here on your screen name - how would it harm you?

I know it is "insulting" in some sense, but why is it any more insulting than, say, the basic Christian implication that those of the Jewish faith don't understand their own religion?

and now you are going to desecrate their memories by converting them?

Yes, it is bothering. It is bothering to all Jews who remember the Holocaust. How can you possible compare your wandering finger to the genocide of six million people?

Whatever your quirks are, keep them to yourself.

not to the Holocaust. He's saying that both his index finger and the Mormon's "offer of baptism to the dead" are trivial.

Now, I've gone ahead and conducted my screen touching ritual on you seven times, so that you will be assured entry to the Kingdom of Everlasting Mirth. What skin is that off your back? If I'm right, then you have a free ticket to the Kingdom. If I'm wrong, what did it do to you?

If one thinks of religions as all brands of Love, and it's late so I'm aware the metaphors might not be the best, but quickly- if religions are all brands of Love. One particular group of people were executed because they endorsed that brand. Then, tens of years later a new brand of Love comes out and this one claims to be endorsed by those killed for their unshakable faith in the previous brand- why, it's an affront to all the people (in this case, Jews) lived for, stood for and died for.

I think the real difference here (and maybe not in this article but I've heard of this before in other newspaper articles) is that those names are being used to endorse Mormonism.

That's the rub- and I think the clarification you were asking for.

PB

...I don't see how it amounts to "endorsement".

They promised in 1995 to stop doing it, so it's not as if it makes them look any better to anyone to be found to have kept doing it.

Of course, it isn't the first time they've promised to stop doing something. They continued practicing plural marriage among the hierarchy for well after they promised to stop doing that too.

:argh:

This is a hit below the belt, even for the LDS. They are have NOT right to "baptize" people after their death.

...nice, reasonable, overly polite and generally, a pretty swell guy or gal. I'll assume, then, that, like all religions, Mormonism has its requisite minority of absolute nut-jobs. The only religion I have seen with a larger-than-average share of assholes was the one created by that druggie science fiction writer. You know, the one who would sue everyone in my zip code if I used their name.

PB

deceased chose to die in whatever faith (or lack thereof) suited them.

It's all mumbo jumbo as far as I'm concerned but also very patriarchal: even though you didn't choose "us" while you were alive, we're going to give you another chance (or 2, or 3 or 6).

As bad as telling an atheist you're going to pray for them.

did this to my dad and her father after she married a Mormon guy and converted in the '70's. Didn't bother me too much about my dad, who's most likely at some Heavenly Happy Hour watching the Brooklyn Dodgers on a B&W Admiral teevee and laughing his ass off at her. Did bother me about grandpa who was a staunch So Baptist. Whether you agree with the positions of the So Baptist church or not, that's who he was. Something really bothers me about people who try to deny other folk's reality.

He came to me in a dream last night, and said he wants to be converted, and that he repents of his wicked, evil, Mormon ways.

Brigham Young was burning in Hell for following a false religion, and for ordering The Mountain Meadows Massacre. And then he came to me in a dream and asked to become a member of The Universal Life Church, Jewish Flying Spaghetti Monster Chapter.

Now, he is at peace and in heaven.

And as soon as I print some stationery and send some press releases, the world will know it.

Ramen.

$30 well spent IMO.

Praise "Bob" and pass the 'frop!

If Jewish people want to covert to anything, let them do it while they are alive. This goes for anybody of any religion. This is one of the dumbest things I ever heard.

about whether or not/for whom the Mormons initiate into their cult. Certainly the holocaust victims don't.

I was shocked to find my own Irish Catholic great-grandfather had been "baptized" into the Mormon faith. It's bizarre,but I consider it to have absolutely no meaning for me,nor would it have had for him. I don't know if I would feel differently if I were the descendant of a holocaust victim,but I suspect not. The evil that was done during their lifetimes is what matters,not this bit of nonsense.