It was the first time I’ve heard anything like it. I’d have to see a reputable source before I’d even be open to believing it.
It seems to me that you HAVE seen reputable sources providing serious rational cites. Right in this thread. You’ve seen the same cite links we all have.
Cartooniverse, I read the articles, and here’s what I said about it in the first place, with certain bits in bold:
By “usually, a person is sealed to the person who was their spouse in life,” I mean that I have never heard of anyone sealing random single people to each other. That would not make sense. It makes a lot more sense to hypothesize that whoever read the record did not fully understand the notation, and misunderstood. I’d want to see the record itself before believing it.
I’ve never heard of it. As far as I know there is no such thing as marriage by proxy. Perhaps as genie explained so nicely, people are misunderstanding or confusing the term sealing with marriage. Her quote (I saw her post on preview and have had to come back and edit) kind of covers something I was going to point out from one of Guin’s posts where she is concerned someone performed a marriage for people who were celibate. I suspect if we were to see the actual record, that it says that (for example) Joan of Arc was sealed to her parents. In a post above I quoted from “Why These Temples?” by Gordon B. Hinckley
Sealings are so that in the above two examples, those relationships can be perpetuated beyond the grave.
One more time, we do not presume to know whether the intended recipient of these proxy ordinances accepts them. We do them because we are trying to be obedient to our understanding of God’s commandments. We believe God is our Heavenly Father and that not unlike earthly parents who send their children off to school and hope for their safe return at the end of the day, He has sent us here for a mortal experience (education so to speak) and is hoping that every one of His children makes it back to Him. We believe he has taught us that these ordinaces are necessary, because everyone who every lived in the past, lives today, or will live in the future is a child of God.
One more thought, I try really hard to live what I believe, however on a moment to moment basis. However, I am a flawed human being and do not live the gospel as I understand it perfectly. I don’t presume that anyone else does either. (I am sooo very grateful for the process of repentance.) I am also aware that members of other faiths do not live perfectly up to the precepts of their faith. I could insert examples from the news from a variety of faith, here but I’m not going to, because the actual manner or event is irrelevant. My point is, every faith has members to adhere to varying degrees and even members who understand and practice the same doctrine differently.
I think it’s possible that not unlike people of other faiths who make mistakes or go against the teachings of their faith, in someone’s enthusiam for geneology or for making the gospel available to all who went before has made mistakes or submitted names that probably should not have been submitted.
But it does not mean that every member of the church is going willy nilly about and submitting every name they come across. Most of us are really trying to following the guidelines and teachings and do the work for our progenitors.
I don’t mean to be rude, but it sounds like your brother is a dick. If my mom told me to burn her upon death, the ol’ Catholic-raised momma’s boy in me would do it if I had to steal her body from the morgue and take care of it on my grill in the backyard.
dang.
I just see a lot of ‘were doing this for your own good’ mentality. that’s fine for children, but given the availability of the message of pretty much every religion out now, it seems selfish in the extreme tooverride the wishes of the deceased under the cover of ‘well, if they knew better, they’d agree.’
Didn’t we have a similar situation with Madelyne (sp?) Murray O’Hare’s son?
Oh and I agree with emarkp, I haven’t seen a reputable source cited yet that says we do marriages by proxy.
I do not feel Diane Laake and Helen Radkey are reputable sources because it appears to me rather clearly that they either misunderstand what they have learned or perhaps are deliberately twisting what they do understand. They are both people who no longer practice the faith and I doubt they have any interest in you understanding the gospel (truthfully) either.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Stonebow *
I don’t mean to be rude, but it sounds like your brother is a dick. [ If you don’t mean to be rude, then why were you? I agree however that he’s being selfish, at times I don’t like him very much.
Did you even read the thread? We aren’t overriding anything. It means nothing unless they accept it. Our doing the work, doesn’t make them members or make them sealed to their parents or children. It just makes it possible for them to accept it, if they want to. No one is removing their free will.
Additionally, if you thought it through, you’d realize that every message of every message is not available to every person that ever lived in the past. Remember, this is work we are doing our ancestors going back generation after generation.
Well, apparently, it seems to say that the saints were listed as being married. It could be wrong, but that’s what it said.
And what OF specifically doing baptisms for people who died as martyrs to their own faith? Does it make me a bigot to say I find that offensive?
I say leave the entire business to the Soul Hunters. It is, after all, their job.
Esprix
I apologize for the botched coding. I was posting in a hurry and didn’t preview. Here is what I meant to post.
If you don’t mean to be rude, then why were you? I agree however that he’s being selfish and stubborn in the extreme, at times I don’t like him very much either.
Did you even read the thread? We aren’t overriding anything. It means nothing unless they accept it. Our doing the work, doesn’t make them members or make them sealed to their parents or children. It just makes it possible for them to accept it, if they want to. No one is removing their free will.
Additionally, if you thought it through, you’d realize that every message of every church is not available to every person that ever lived in the past. Remember, this is work we are doing our ancestors going back generation after generation.
It does seem to say that, and I’m saying that I stand by my conviction that it wrong. To my knowledge marriages are not conducted by proxy. I have many guesses, but don’t really know why the woman presented it the way she did. That is why I don’t find her credible.
Guin I nor any other LDS poster in this thread called or implied you are a bigot. You can choose to find it offensive. That’s the whole point you have the right (as do those for whom proxy ordinances are performed) to choose for yourself whether to accept something or not.
This proxy work is an invitation and like any other invitation, it can be accepted or declined by the person to whom the invitation is addressed.
As much as you find it offensive, I find it baffling why anyone would be offended over an invitation.
Catholic baptism of dying new-born babies or aborted fetuses, obtaining indulgences for the dead assuming that they are in purgatory, and now Mormons effecting the redemption of deceased people: the question is asked, “Do we have ‘The ethical obligation to save souls after a physical demise?’”
Let’s analyze this question very carefully so as to arrive at some resolutions that will give us some peace of mind as regards our obligations who are still alive towards our loved ones who are dead and generally all dead fellow humans.
We are here talking about obligations; and there are two kinds in the most broad classification, namely: positive and negative ones. Positive, to do; negative to not do. Next we ask the question: to do or to not do with regard to what target? Very simple answer, with regard to oneself or to others, the neighbors, other selves. So, obligations are things we have to do or to not do to oneself or to other selves. What about things which are not selves, like animals and plants and stones? They are represented by selves who are in charge of or have interest over them.
Are we forgetting some targets of obligations aside from oneself and other selves? What about dead selves, do we have obligations towards them? This question brings in another question in the order of logic an antecedent one: What can we do for dead selves, that will benefit them? Which question brings in another question correlatively, namely: How can we know that they are benefitted by our performance of obligations towards them? Again this last question brings in a still another one antecedent in the order of logic: What remains upon the demise of a person? Very simple answer: his earthly bodily remains (earth to earth, dust to dust, ash to ashes), his earthly possessions, and his memory.
What about his soul? That is a very crucial question, and the crux of our issue: “The ethical obligation to save souls after a physical demise”.
We have mentioned all the possible targets of obligations, which are oneself and other selves and anything in the charge of or of interest to oneself and other selves, and all of them are tangible objects, even the bodily remains of a deceased person, and his earthly possessions, and his memory. But the soul, it’s not in our enumeration. And here is where we enter into another world, that of beliefs.
All the targets of obligations are in the world of facts; with the soul, its existence is in the world of beliefs. This world is one of imagination. All people who believe in the existence of the soul are in unison in their imagination of such an entity, called the soul. And they define it so as to abstract it totally from all the indispensable incidentals in the world of facts, namely: that facts are subject to verification directly or indirectly by the senses and by the transcendental faculty of detection, viz., the rational mind innate in every self whether oneself or other selves – but not necessarily productively functional in each self most of the time.
Now, let us apply our analyses to the issue: “The ethical obligation to save souls after a physical demise”:
If you imagine that there is a soul and others like you also imagine that there is a soul; and you all imagine that the soul can be benefitted from acts of selves not yet deceased; then you all can discuss about the ethical obligation of saving them from whatever ill and for whatever weal you all imagine them to be at risk of or in line for.
I will now situate myself with you guys here who are into this imaginary world. Imagining that the soul exists and that we guys can do something from our side of the great divide to affect them favorably, I pose the question to everyone here in this imaginary world: why? from justice or from charity?
If from justice, what is the institution that is in charge of compelling us justly to perform our duties of justice to the souls of the deceased. That has to be an institution that our consensual imagination has to erect in our imaginary world. If from charity, how much, how long, how far, and how well in quality terms are we to bind ourselves from charity?
On the basis of justice, there are innumerable and almost insurmountable complications and difficulties here; but you guys all who believe in the existence of the soul, you all should get together like in a parliament and discuss the establishment of common institutions in the way of something like a governing body on the live side of the great divide, and principles and statutes for the enforcement on all peoples accepting this union of believers in the existence of the soul, to perform their ethical obligation to save souls of deceased persons.
On the basis of charity, all who imagine the existence of the soul, just do whatever you think is going to be beneficial to the soul of your beloved deceased, according to your convenience of time, trouble, and expense. And remember, it’s all an imaginary world here, so don’t get all emotionally disturbed as to lose of peace of mind and joy of real life in the world of facts. After some time, longer or shorter, you will get used to the habit of doing only what you determine is your convenient contribution to the imaginary world of the souls.
To all who are still alive, it is a very serious ethical obligation in the world of facts that: you take care of the burial and grave of your deceased loved ones, keep them in your memory and perform social acts of remembrance periodically, dispose and dispense of their material possessions appropriately: first to the credit of their memory, and second to the benefit of the living in advancement of life and freedom.
Finally, my personal message for those who join an imaginary body of believers in the existence of the souls, and that they can be benefitted by your acts from this live side of the great divide, and that benefitting them is an ethical obligation, and you have even bound yourself to follow such an institution of enforcement in your chosen establishment of soul believers like the Mormons or the Catholic Church, every time you feel that the obligation is getting to be overly burdensome, you can always get out at least partially, and no one can coerce you otherwise, as long as you still belong to that world of facts where you are in a society of civil and political rights.
Susma Rio Sep
As long as they don’t interfere with the dead folk’s survivors, it’s probably OK for the LDS to try to save anyone they want (posthumously). The people are already dead, their time in the universe is up, so I don’t see how much harm can come of it. After all, if a group of little kids wanted to make believe they can talk to invisible friends, you wouldn’t rain on THEIR parade, would you?
Leave the delusional alone. They’ve got enough problems
Now that’s an adult way to discuss things. Call the person delusional because you disagree with them.
:rolleyes:
This is Great Debates, not the Pit.
Since is seems to me from reading the links and the posts in this thread the name of the person being posthumously baptized by proxy is important, what happens when the name of a person is not known?
Multitudes of people have lived that we do not have the record of their names. For example, we don’t know the names of more than 150 people from Pompeii, however we know 2000 died.
Since the Lord does not mystically give the names of everyone who died without leaving a record for 20th and 21st Century people to find, He has to have made some kind of provision for those people. I do not mean this question in any way disrespectfully. I am truly just trying to understand.
Um, no. Reliable sources don’t include Mormonism.net (a site dedicated to criticism of Mormons). Both sources cite Helen Radkey as the source of the information (who is offering her “research” for sale–yet another questionable source).
However, we can conclusively declare the information (marrying of saints) to be false, because anyone can look up their records on familysearch.org. A little effort turned up Francis Xavier (born 1506) and his parents, but no spouse. Hence he may be sealed to his parents, but no spouse, and hence Helen Radkey is a fraud.
It’s a very good question. Now we are doing the work for people whose names we can find.
Correct. We believe that during the Lord’s millenial reign, we will be given clear information as to who needs their work done, who of the deceased desires baptism, their information, etc. I personally believe that much of the work we’re doing now is a warm up for what we’ll be doing then.
About not knowing the names of deceaseds for all the ages of everyone’s genealogy, guys who are Catholics or ex-Catholics or postgraduate ones, do you remember that anecdote about the smart kid who was imposed a penance to recite the Litanies of the Saints a good number of times. When the father confessor went out to the yard a few minutes later, he saw the kid already out and playing with other kids. Asked how he managed to finish his penance so soon, the smartaleck kid answered: “Simple, I just went about it page by page, like ‘All the saints of this page, pray for us’, while turning page after page”.
So, not to worry about lacking records listing the names of your genealogical deceaseds, just proceed by the centuries, like this: “All the deceaseds of this century… “
As regards saints marrying in the next world, I remember Jesus telling his opponents that in heaven we will all be like angels, no more marrying nor giving to marriage.
Susma Rio Sep
Fine. I was referring to posts by AbbySthrnAccent, and other LDS Members in this thread.
Where?
FWIW, it’s not THAT big a deal, from what I can see-I’m not oh my god, majorly offended.
But I just feel uncomfortable with the idea of giving a baptism by proxy to a saint or a martyr of a different faith. It’s one thing to give it to them by choice-and say they can choose.
But to list them among the member roles-unless there’s a separate list for proxies.