Did Mormons Posthumously Baptize Hitler, Dracula, Ted Bundy and Others?

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2009/03/03/did-mormons-posthumously-baptize-hitler-dracula-ted-bundy/

Did Mormons Posthumously Baptize Hitler, Dracula, Ted Bundy and Others?
Jon Ponder | Mar. 3, 2009
When the leadership of the Mormon Church ordered its followers to donate $20 million to the Proposition 8 hate campaign in California last year — instead of, say, giving the money to feed the hungry or house the homeless — the leaders also invited unwanted scrutiny of the church’s bizarre practices and beliefs.

One of the strangest of these is the practice of “saving” dead people through posthumous baptism, which they call “proxy rites.” According to this belief, the dead are not automatically saved. Instead, the rites give them the option to choose salvation in the afterlife.

In a letter to the Salt Lake City CityWeekly last week, local resident Helen Radkey claimed that the list of famous people who have received these rites includes dictators and their henchmen like Adolf Hitler, Martin Bormann, Benito Mussolini, Josef Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung; pirates like Blackbeard and Jean and Pierre Lafitte; and gangsters like Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde and Benjamin “Bugsy” Seigel, who was, of course, Jewish.

Also on the list, according to Radkey, are two infamous serial killers, Vlad the Impaler, whose exploits were fictionalized in the Dracula story, and the only known Mormon serial killer, Ted Bundy.

Bundy raped and killed as many as 100 women on a cross-country crime spree from 1974 to 1978. He became a Mormon around 1974, while he was attending law school at the University of Utah. It’s unclear whether he was excommunicated before or after he was executed in Florida, in 1989, but Radkey says the list of those given posthumous rites includes Theodore Robert Cowell, the name given Bundy when he was born on Nov. 24, 1946, in Burlington, Vt.

[Gman]

1. Vlad the Impaler?

That's just plain weird.

[Hardrada]

2. Mao and Bugsy are the only ones there who were not baptized.

The rest, of course, were already recipients of the Sacrament of Baptism.

[DemBones DemBones]

12. I don't think Mormons count Baptism unless they do it

by their formula, which is not the standard one. Otherwise they wouldn't want to baptize dead people who had their own religions.

[old mark]

51. Mormons have a huge library, now computerized, of obituaries and

routinely baptize everyone, including your relatives and mine, after death.
They don't bother to ask permission, nor do they care about anyone's religious preferences or lack therof.

If you read about the details and beliefs of the Mormon religion, you may be surprised.


mark

[virgogal]

3. Thanks for the good laugh. Aren't religions fun ?

[Uzybone]

4. Crazy religious folks sure have a fascination with the unborn and the dead

Meanwhile the living can go to hell.

[midnight]

16. Exactly.

[w4rma]

5. Wow, forget all the good people in the world that aren't "saved", "Save" the famous evil people.(nt)

[Fridays Child]

11. Is the Mormon practice of baptizing the dead the same as the "saving" that evangelicals do?

Would any Mormons, or students of the practice, care to enlighten us?

In any case, for whatever reason they do it, it has the side effect/benefit of generating lots of genealogy records that the church makes available to all, Mormon and non-Mormon alike. And, while I would never rely on their records as the sole source of genealogical data, they often provide good starting points for research or confirmation for information found elsewhere.

[WolverineDG]

24. From what I know (and so fwiw)

they only "baptize" their direct ancestors, so I doubt they baptized Hitler or Mao.

dg

[SidneyCarton]

32. Here is a link that explains more or less why we do what we do.

http://loadstonerock.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/misconceptions-about-mormonism-baptisms-for-the-dead/

[csziggy]

20. Any "ancestor" can be "saved" by the Mormons

I don't really understand it but some people I know that are into genealogy were upset that their records were used to retroactively do whatever weird rites the Mormons do.

[WolverineDG]

26. I'm glad they do that

makes my job easier, since they research the heck out of those records.

dg

[csziggy]

43. But the Mormon records are reportedly inaccurate

They take whatever has been submitted without requiring sources or verification. Pretty much anything is accepted to add to their ancestor lists. OTOH, their free Personal Ancestry File software (http://www.familysearch.org/eng/paf/) is pretty good for the price. ;) But it is set up to make it easy to upload the records to the LDS site.

I need to get back into my families' geneaology while my Mom is still around so I can get all the stuff she has collected over the years. People now tell me the best internet site for researching is Ancestry.com though the fee is steep.

[WolverineDG]

44. Yeah, Ancestry is expensive

but worth it.

They have a really cool "find famous relatives" button...found out that (if the records are correct) that I am a direct descendant of Thomas More.....I guess that means I have to go read "Utopia." :( :rofl: And I think my dad would have gotten a hoot to find out that he was a distant cousin of Mark Twain, his favorite author.

dg

[csziggy]

45. Cool - how are they on the centuries old stuff in England and Wales?

My grandmother and mother exhausted most of our ancestors on this continent but did little on the people before they came to the US. A few families have family histories going back far beyond that but the ordinary people were harder to find back when they were researching in the 30s to the 60s.

One family may go back to Sir Francis Drake's brother, but we don't have hard proof of that one. Another branch goes back to William the Conqueror!

[WolverineDG]

46. I haven't had to delve into those

so I don't know how extensive those archives are, but they do have them. :)

Hey, Cousin! The branch through Thomas More extends to Bill the C too! :hi:

dg

[csziggy]

47. Cool about the Thomas More connection!

If I get around to getting back into geneaology I will let you know how Ancestry.com is on the really old stuff. :hi:

[WolverineDG]

48. Great!

Every now & then they have a "try us out for 2 weeks free" thing, so give it a whirl if you can. :hi:

dg

[SurfinBetty]

6. It's weird but I support their right to do it.

This is America, isn't it? Freedom of religion, anyone?

[Uzybone]

8. you get no points for killing the strawman

[SurfinBetty]

9. I wasn't aware it was a contest.

[Sydnie]

13. Freedom of religion IS what it's about ... not hoisting your beliefs on dead people

I speak from experience with this and mormons. My mother was not a mormon but her sister was. When my mother died my aunt arranged for a MORMON service, a MORMON preacher, and MORMON mourners! My mother didn't need any bused in mourners, but there they were all the same. My mother's children were furious with the arrangements that had been made and knew that my aunt had also arranged for her name to be added to the big list in the vaults under the desert. She would have taken over my brothers funeral in the same way if we had not barred her from even attending due to her behavior at my mother's passing.

Yes, she thought she had a right to "baptize" my mother after she died because my mother would NEVER of participated in that were she alive.

Yes, freedom of religion is what it's about and no one has a right to force it on someone, even after their death. If they were going to join that religion, they had ample opportunity to do so while they were alive, they don't need anybody forcing them to be members after they are dead!

[SurfinBetty]

22. Just think about that for a while.

Maybe something will come to you.

[Obamanaut]

25. Can one force the deceased to do anything? nt

[WolverineDG]

27. Um so let the dead sue them if they're upset about it

I have a super-duper Catholic cousin who insisted on sprinkling holy water on my dad's remains, and my dad was not Catholic. Unlike your aunt, however, he didn't make a big scene of it & it was no BFD. Your aunt's behavior at your mom's funeral was inexcusable, though.

[enlightenment]

28. Do you really think the dead people care?

You care and you're obviously upset because of what your aunt did at your mother's funeral, and I appreciate that. But what does that have to do with the dead?

IF someone's ancestor should be aware that someone baptised after their death, then I suspect they're in a pretty good position to say 'no thanks' when offered their chance to get into Mormon heaven - or laugh about it.

This is about the living, not the dead. The Mormons' do it because they are encouraged to do it by their church, just like evangelicals are encouraged to proselytize to strangers.

Some non-Mormons get upset by the practice, in the same way that non-evangelicals get upset when the proselytizers come knocking on Saturday morning.

I really, really don't think it bothers the dead.

[SidneyCarton]

33. The recipients of baptisms for the dead are dead.

If there is no after life than we are the greatest fools in the world. If not, then Mormon doctrine states that the deceased have the right to reject the baptism and it is of no effect. No one is forced to become a Mormon in the afterlife.

[old mark]

52. You are free to believe anything you want, no matter how laughable. nt

[chollybocker]

7. Yes, they did.

And didn't they also hold a ceremony to 'symbolically' baptize all non-living Jews?

This is our enemy, people.

[SidneyCarton]

34. Baptisms for the dead are performed one at a time.

You cannot symbolically baptize all non-living members of any religious group. For starters it would require several million people standing as proxy for the dead. As there are no temples with baptismal fonts of sufficient size for such an activity, your claim is preposterous. Have deceased Jews had proxy baptisms performed for them, yes. If you look at some of the posts noted above, assuming there is an afterlife, Mormon doctrine states that the deceased have the right to accept or reject the ordinances done in their name. If there is no afterlife, then this is an academic argument.

[Ilsa]

10. They probably baptized Ted Bundy because he was such a good Republican.

They'll be wanting him to run for office in "Heaven".

I guess they liked the "racial purity" ideology of Hitler.

I can't imagine why anyone would want to proxy-baptize Vlad. Maybe a Mormon high leader is his great, great, great, great grandson or nephew or something.

[Sebastian Doyle]

15. They needed to baptize Dracula because nobody else wanted to be a missionary to Transylvania

So what if he's a vampire? As long as he's got the holy long johns under the cape, its all cool with Elohim, our Heavenly Father!

[Ilsa]

19. Oh, that's gooood! LOL. nt

[CreekDog]

14. Yes and don't forget:

They have to get to everybody.

[FudaFuda]

17. They better do me too, when I'm gone

cuz I'm gonna need all the help I can get.

[Kip Humphrey]

53. Are you planning on becoming a mass murderer or arch criminal? Famous evil may be a key qualifier.

[deaniac21]

18. Religions and there damn forgiveness...SCREW THEM!

[leftofthedial]

21. What's worse is they baptized me.

A friend and former co-worker--good guy--did whatever it is they do to add me to the rolls of the cleansed.

I don't know if there is enough whiskey and depravity in the world to overcome that, but I'm trying. I'm trying like hell.

[SmileyRose]

29. Someone broke some rules to make that happen.

The Mormon church will not baptize a living person by proxy unless they have personally requested it, and even then it takes A LOT of red tape to make that happen. Including repeated interviews with Mormon church officials.

I know of a woman who was married to a Mormon man all her life but never joined. She was in the nursing home after her husband died and told one of her kids she was ready to be baptized, but getting her to the local ward building was impossible. It took no less than 5 interviews at 4 different levels of the Mormon church leadership in order to get her baptism by proxy approved.

[SidneyCarton]

35. Were you actually baptized?

Unless you actually went through the ordinance, You aren't baptized. We don't do proxy baptisms for the living. Did he put you on the temple roll? That's a whole different matter, the temple roll is a list of people who are going through difficulty who are being prayed for. People are only on that list for 2-week intervals. If he did so without getting your permission, he made a serious mistake. That said, you are on no church records as a member.

[leftofthedial]

37. whatever it is they do for "lost souls"

is what they did.

I don't try to keep their sacraments straight.

[SidneyCarton]

38. You would have noticed, we baptize by immersion, so if you didn't get dunked, you're not a member.

[leftofthedial]

39. I never thought I was a member.

Well, I'm a dick, but not a member.

[SidneyCarton]

40. LOL.

Seriously though, if you were not immersed, and then confirmed (another ceremony done afterwards) you are not on the church rolls.

[leftofthedial]

41. Thank god.

I mean, non-god.

You know what I mean.

I hope I can still keep drinking whiskey...

[SidneyCarton]

42. Yep.

But I'd wait until happy hour, the only thing worse than a hangover is paying too much for it. :cheers:

[backscatter712]

23. I have better things to worry about.

If the Mormons want to wave their dead chickens over my corpse after I die, why should I care? I'd be dead anyways.

[Sheepshank]

30. Oh the Irony of it all.

So I suppose there's really no such thing as hell...for those that deserve to be there.

Mormons have been caught several times conducting baptism for the dead on behalf of holocaust victims. They had promised some of the Jewish leadership they would stop...but then a couple of years later resumed.

So here's the irony. According the the Mormons then, it would appear that those holocaust victims will be able spend eternity with Adolph. Then there's Bundy's victims spending eternity with...well you get the picture. Isn't that just so special? 300 billions years...and eternity hasn't evn started. 700 million billions years..and yep, they are still not done buddying up to these lovely specimens.

[SidneyCarton]

36. Funny you should mention Mormon Hell, because it is a relative thing.

The reality is though, that Hitler would have had to undergo a repentance process in the afterlife to be able to even be in a position to take advantage of a proxy baptism. Being that we believe that repentance is far more difficult in the afterlife than it is here on Earth, and that Murder is one of the most serious sins one can commit, and that Mr. Hitler is clearly guilty of the murder of millions, if a proxy baptism was done for him (and I would seriously consider the source of this report before believing it) it was a mere formality, as is done for everyone, so that the opportunity, if not the reality of salvation is open to all.

[SidneyCarton]

31. According to Mormon Doctrine, the spirits of the deceased must all recieve the opportunity

To accept the Gospel, and hence it is our duty to offer that opportunity to everyone via proxy baptism. The dead may choose to accept or reject it as they wish. They will still have to answer for their sins, and depending on the life they lived in mortality (Hitler, etc...) they will be more or less likely to accept such an ordinance. As to Bundy, having been excommunicated prior to execution, I somewhat doubt his having vicarious work done for him. Anyway, who is Ms. Radkey anyway, and how does she claim to know this? I'd be fascinated to find out.

[ColbertWatcher]

49. Trick question. Dracula is undead. n/t

[illuminaughty]

50. I thought you were going to reference "Religulous"

Just saw it tonight with friends and we were howling at the section on Mormons. And yes, they brought this very thing up. People here are always refering to the "magic underwear" and I finally got to see what that was all about. I'm still hurting from laughing.