Mormons perform baptisms on Holocaust victims

[left-of-center2012]

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) —
Mormons are posthumously baptizing Holocaust victims as well as grandparents of public figures like Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Steven Spielberg, despite church rules intended to restrict the ceremonies to a member's ancestors ...

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Proxy baptisms are tied to a core church teaching that families spend eternity together, but the baptisms do not automatically convert dead people to Mormonism. Under church teachings, the rituals provide the deceased a choice in the afterlife to accept or reject the offer of baptism.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only major religion that baptizes the dead, and the ritual has contributed to struggles by the faith to combat the mischaracterization of its beliefs.

The posthumous baptizing of Holocaust victims reopens Jewish wounds from being forced in the past to convert to Christianity or face death or deportation, Jewish genealogist Gary Mokotoff said.

Read more at:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/apnewsbreak-mormons-perform-baptisms-holocaust-victims-141749437.html

[Journeyman]

1. Wonder if they can be charged with desecrating a corpse . . .

If someone believes the spiel -- that the dead are resurrected or transported to an afterlife -- then some other believer imposing their values upon the departed seems a rank violation of the dead's prerogatives.

Hmm . . . seems ripe for a class action suit.

Or, as "Southpark" characterized the Mormon's in song:

"Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum DUMB!"

[Mariana]

3. You usually have to actually desecrate a corpse

to be charged with desecrating a corpse. These people are just saying some words. I don't see how you could prohibit them from doing it without completely trampling on the First Amendment.

[left-of-center2012]

2. Imagine the shock ...

When the deceased are resurrected as Mormons?

[Mariana]

4. As I understand it

the baptized deceased get to choose, in the afterlife, whether they want to be Mormons. This doesn't force them to be Mormons, it just gives them the option.

[trotsky]

5. And in standard religions fashion, the Mormons of course imagine themselves to be completely right..

and everyone else wrong, so NATURALLY everyone who is dead has "chosen" to become a Mormon now that the truth has been revealed to them.

Neato!