Introducing you to the latest fibber...

Ya know, if I’m dead, I won’t give a rat’s ass who says what to whom about me or how. Y’all wanna baptize me in your church? Go for it. Won’t hurt me at all. Y’all wanna baptize my dear departed grandparents? My late wife? Anne Frank? Fine by me. No harm, no foul.

See, I just cannot understand what there is to be afraid of. What, God’s going to kick me out of Heaven because somebody said the wrong kind of prayer over me?

I just can’t find it insulting. So you think my faith is wrong. Big whoop–I disagree. Pray all you want. No skin off my nose.

All right, Andros, after you die, I’m going to make you a member of the Church of Scientology.

:smiley:

Concerning the idea of baptism for the dead, we’re sort of missing the point here. The idea is that Jesus told nicodemus that all people must be baptized, but the choice is theirs whether they actually do it. The dead have no such option, so just to cover all the bases, Mormons are baptized for their dead ancestors and others, who can accept or reject the ordinance in the afterlife. So nobody HAS to be a Mormon that doesn’t want to be, even if they’re dead.

As for the Jewish hostility toward BftD, these are Orthodox Jews who deeply resent baptizing people as Christians who lost their lives solely because they were Jews. I don’t know that I wouldn’t be a little peeved, too.

PS–Yes, I am LDS.

I’ll lump responses in one post. This is because I just got out of a 3-hour long English class (Critical Thinking, if anyone cares). My Monday nights are quite interesting thanks to that class–not everyone in there is critical, thinking, or even both.

Jodi: I’m not offended by anything you’ve posted. Heck, I even liked your use of the word “facile.” Regarding the ceremony being a prayer: I covered that in the threads linked/referred to above. I was a bit blunt in the descriptions, but consider the ranting and raving poster to whom I was addressing those descriptions and you’ll no doubt understand why I was a bit blunt.

Also to Jodi: Thanks also for understanding how I construe the rituals of my faith system. & I appreciate your understanding that what’s required is not for us to bend to other people’s decisions of what those rituals are but rather for us to educate people about them.

Guin: Personally, I’ve never heard of the proxy marriages of the priests and nuns. Once I’m temple-eligible, I shan’t participate in those, if in fact they have been occurring. After all, my personal take on the LDS theology is that the temple ordinances are that acceptance of the rite is up to the soul concerned. There’s no way I can know to which eligible female a particular male would accept marriage and vice versa. The alternative then is to marry off all the dead unmarried women to all the dead unmarried men. The Church isn’t about to let that happen in any of the temples. Anyway, I wouldn’t do it even if the Church did allow it (time restrictions, etc.). FTR, the ceremony for Anne Frank may have been performed three times, but that doesn’t mean it was performed three times validly. Provided it was a legitimate interpretation of the Joint Declaration referred to in the linked Pit thread above, there can only be one valid performance of the ceremony.

Also to Guin: Thank you very much for your compliment in the thread linked in the OP.

Mangetout: I’d like to do just that; however, I find such a tactic (and those who use it) incredibly boring.

iamphuna: Excellent comment! “Education without benefit of knowledge.” Classic line.

Spoofe: You can always be relied upon to point out facts. Good on you.

Well, you’re wrong, see:

I think that settles it.

I’m surprised Angelslantern hasn’t popped in here yet. That was the LAMEST rant I’ve seen here in a while (aside from my own). I don’t mean to be putting words in her mouth, but she was only trying to point out the dictionary definition versus the colloquial definition. We say “cult” often times to imply some kind of creepy, deviant rites. But the dictionary definition has a much broader definition.

I read through that thread and didn’t see anything paticularly inflamatory that she wrote. She didn’t sound like she despised LDSers and pointed out the origins of the religion, saying that it started like all other religions.

I don’t see any fibbing. Your rant is feeble.

Reminds me of my logic class. Intro to logic. If A, then not B. “But, professor, what if it could be B and A?” “It can’t.” And let’s not even get started on the “some Xs are Y, but not all Ys are Z.” [sub]“But you could make them Zs?”[/sub]

Sometimes I will jaunt to GD if someone from there gets Pitted, and sometimes I’ll even debate here. And on occasion I think “Hey, I’m a really good debater!”

Then I remember why those folks are in the pit in the first place (by and large).

And re: your comments, kuroashi, my take on this (and, I would think, Monty’s take) was not so much the implicit insult of using the word “cult” to refer to LDS but his/her (Angelslantern) way of both selectively quoting and rudimentary ability (read: none evident) to differentiate between source and supplier … and furthermore, the idea that the World Book Encyclopedia is the end of all sources. A flaming-to-a-crisp didn’t seem especially necessary. If this were another one of those “All Jews are EVIL and should be BURNED!” person who was so firmly cemented in this attitude and was polluting GD with such bile, then certainly a more thorough job would be warranted. But under the circumstances it seems to me it’d be a waste of effort to flame angelslantern to a thin crisp. Besides, we’re here to fight ignorance, and y 'aint gonna get nowhere if your subject won’t get near the truth. Y’aint gonna get 'em close if you burn the ones you try to expose to it:)

I’m not surprised. Like bullies, bigots can be quite the cowards also, IMHO.

'Twas, wasn’t it?

Actually, she was using the colloquioul definition and then when challenged on her bigoted stance, immediately shifted to the dictionary definition to “prove” she wasn’t saying that which she had actually said. That’s known as “being a damn liar” in most circles.

Please check the thread again and you’ll see this proves exactly what I just said in the paragraph above.

Please look at Spoofe’s & tomndebb’s comments and then check Angelslantern’s comments in that light. They both hit the nail on the head.

Apparently, you’re incorect.

Aahhhhhhhhhhh! The Plague is more widespread than I feared! I know people exactly like that. “But how can a Y not be a Z if all Zs are Ys?” Because, dammit, the freaking definition of a Z (in the instance I encountered this) specifically defined Zs as Ys and Ys as either As or Zs.

True. And as I mentioned in my post just above, it’s also the selective switching between definitions to make it look like she did not say that which she did say. Tom said it borders on dishonest. I agree and also say that it epitomizes tacky.

I’m wondering why she worships a child’s encyclopedia? And more important: why that children’s encyclopedia?

should read

Thank you for your support of Logic. Remember, folks, “Does 5 added to 7 make 11 or 12?” is a Yes/No type of question. It does not require a freaking number as an answer. Those who persist in the “But it’s 12” even after they, themselves, provide the proof of the actual answer are very much like 'lantern and vice versa: hidebound.

You forgot to include the definition of “boring.”

::d&r::

Guin, I to agree with Monty on this one. I have participated in the ordinances mentioned and to my knowledge there is no such thing as marriage by proxy and I would not participate if there were. There is “sealings” where an already existing marriaged is “sealed” for eternity. Even within the church, once you are legally married, you cannot be “remarried” in the temple. If what you read about occured (which I find unlikely*), then the couples were “sealed”. The two events are separate although when a young member couple goes to the temple they do take place on the same day at the same time.

I’m not explaining this well, but using me for example:
I have been a member most of my life, but did not marry in the church. Should my husband decide to become a member (unlikely). We would not be remarried in the church. Instead our already existing marriage would be “sealed” and the “until death do you part” part would no longer apply.

*The reason I find that scenario unlikely is that in order for a proxy “sealing” (or baptism) to take place, someone would have done genealogical research and submitted forms that document they found some record of civil marriage. Sometimes this is a record of a license or certificate and sometimes going way back it is only a note in a churches record book or a family bible. I am aware that in cases that are over a hundred years back, it has been presumed a couple was married after the birth of children. So my point is that we don’t “marry” people by proxy anyway. Period.

Please ask either here or in email if you feel I haven’t explained satisfactorily and I will try again.

The scriptures that we feel support baptism on behalf of the dead appear in the New Testament as well as The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ. If you would like me to list them. Just ask, I’d be happy too.

Abb

I don’t understand why fundamentalist Christians need to dispute with the LDS over matters of faith. I was looking at Bob Larson’s book Kingdom of the Cults at the library, and in addition to utterly mistaken critiques of Buddhism and Hinduism, it also was highly critical of LDS beliefs. It seems foolish to argue over unfalsifiable ideas: the nature of Jesus and the sacraments, the Preexistence, Baptism of the Dead. You can argue texts back and forth eternally, but you will get no nearer objective truth. Wouldn’t the FCs be better off agreeing to disagree with the LDS and be friendly to them anyway? It sure seems more in the spirit of Jesus, anyway.

In addition, FC anti-Mormon books tend to be badly researched, semi-literate screeds that only attack the LDS over Biblical doctrines, as opposed to something more concrete. I haven’t seen any rabidly anti-LDS texts that use pre-Columbian archeology to disprove the Book of Mormon’s identification of the First Nations as the Lost Tribes of Israel, or a refutation of Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Abraham by referring to modern Egyptology scholarship. There, at least, one would find something more intellectually rigorous than “The Lawd said that the Book of Mormon is the work of SAAAAtan!” I guess with the FCs, using the scientific method to discern fact from fiction is a two-edged sword.

Besides, being the fantically pro-America guy that I am, I find something indefinably cool about the LDS contention that America–or, to be more specific, Kirtland, Ohio-- is the New Zion.

As do some Catholics. Especially when those being baptised were martyrs, or nuns and priests who, from what I recall (I’ll look it up), were married by proxy. To a devout nun or priest, that’s pretty dammned offensive.

I know I read an article on this at the Snopes message board.

Note-I’m not knocking the LDS faith. I’m saying some misguided individuals went out of their way.

Ah, here’s the discussion at Snopes:

http://www.snopes2.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=45;t=000441

Like I said, I believe you. However, those who have done this, I’m sorry, are out of line.

Guin:

You’re exactly right. It was some misguided individuals. And the church leadership responded in a responsible and mature manner. They even discussed the issue with the offended parties prior to making a policy decision.

I’d say that makes a reason for congratulating the church, not knocking it.

I wasn’t knocking the church-just the morons.

Seconding Monty again. I typed this long post and then decided to delete. When I was offline I was still thinking of it. I was glad to see Monty’s post.

The thing I’ll like everyone to consider is that the ordinances are not done with the intent to offend, but to include. The goal is to give everyone regardless of the color of their skin, circumstances or timing of their birth the opportunity to have these ordinances. The work is performed with the spirit of love and inclusion, not the intent to offend.

That said, people even well meaning leaders make mistakes. I think the leadership responded appropriately as well.

Bah, your puny ‘logic’ and ‘reason’ are no match for the awesome power of my children’s reference library; run away! flee! or face the awful mighty wrath of my junior pictorial volumes.

I’m warning you - don’t make me quote something irrelevant again to bolster my inane opinions; you wouldn’t like it.

This is nothin’ about nothin’, but did anyone happen to catch tomndebb’s eloquent and infinitely patient response to one of this dude’s jejune snipes?

tom’s such a class act, I don’t know where to begin. Someone should tack that quote into every religious debate spawned from this point forward. Call it “tomndeb’s cul-de-sac” or something.