Why I am an atheist – AJ Champlin » « Another view of de Botton

The Mormons haven’t thought the consequences through

I’ve got a class to teach in an hour and a mountain of snow to clear from my driveway and sidewalk, and the morning was looking rather grim. And then I saw this cartoon and laughed, so I feel better now.

Mormon Heaven is going to be a much more interesting place now, especially since Stephen Colbert had all the dead Mormons converted to Judaism, so they’ve been sucked right out of the place and presumably sent to Sheol, instead.

Why I am an atheist – AJ Champlin » « Another view of de Botton

Comments

  1. McCthulhu, now with Techroline and Retsyn says

    With all the necrodunking wars going on, I hope they packed light.

    Okay, I’m lying. I hope they have 175 lbs of luggage and are getting hernias and compressed vertebrae. At least we know the magic undies are binding uncomfortably, especially under the extra weight of suitcases.

  2. den1s says

    The mormons won’t be going to heaven in the minds of main stream christians anyway. According to…

    Galations 1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

    …. the fundies think it was the devil himself who visited Joseph Smith and gave him the copper plates inscribed by L. Ron Hubbard or whatever the story was.

  5. McCthulhu, now with Techroline and Retsyn says

    Is this the next new Japanese videogame craze?

    Necrodunkemon – ‘Convert them all!!!’

  6. jamessweet says

    I’m sorry to have to keep harping on this, but according to Mormon mythology, a baptism for a dead person doesn’t posthumously make that person a Mormon, it gives them the opportunity to do so. They are free to accept or reject the baptism — and accepting it means being an honest-to-gosh Mormon-y motherfucker, i.e. you can’t just “fake it”. Presumably, Mormons assume Genghis Khan either a) is reformed, or b) would refuse the baptism.

    Not that this is tremendously important, but it’s sort of annoying to see so many people getting this detail wrong. In this community, we value truth for its own sake, right?

  7. Sastra says

    jamessweet #6 wrote:

    I’m sorry to have to keep harping on this, but according to Mormon mythology, a baptism for a dead person doesn’t posthumously make that person a Mormon, it gives them the opportunity to do so.

    Yes, I think most of us understand this. It’s the same basic assumption Christians who believe in the ‘salvation-by-faith-not-works’ theology use: when you are saved by faith you automatically want to do the good works, so they come along for the ride.

    The humor and mockery isn’t the result of misunderstanding. It’s because we recognize that the entire system — religion in general as well as Mormonism in particular — is one giant game of Calvinball. Make it up as you go along, and anything goes as long as you can think of some way to make it sound like it “fits.”

    The Book of Mormon is filled with battles where the “good guys” slaughter the “bad guys” with total moral impunity. IF Genghis Khan were to enter into their Paradise (or one of their paradises), then it takes only a slight narrative shift to reframe him as a “good guy” crusading against some invented evil the Mormons were engaged in.

    Calvinball. Just assert it with confidence, as if you were relaying something God told you. Not thinking through consequences is practically a defining aspect of spiritual thought processes.

  8. scorpy1 says

    Sastra said,

    The humor and mockery isn’t the result of misunderstanding. It’s because we recognize that the entire system — religion in general as well as Mormonism in particular — is one giant game of Calvinball.

    Indeed. Trying to squeeze the precise details into a three-panel cartoon is idiotic since the shifting details aren’t the joke.

    The specificity that jamessweet wants ignores the target: the Mormons’ arrogance and disregard for the families of the dead.

    Though, it would be fun to use that in a cartoon with someone sitting comfortably in their version of an afterlife and whisked away to make another “choice” because of their asshole Mormon distant cousin.

  9. says

    We need to induct Joseph Smith and all his successors into pastafarianism, satanism, and every species of ludicrous nonsense which mormons will find offensive. And we should make it clear that it ISN’T optional.

  10. CompulsoryAccount7746 says

    @jamessweet #6:

    a baptism for a dead person doesn’t posthumously make that person a Mormon, it gives them the opportunity to do so.

    This sounds like a softening apologetic.

    What are the circumstances in which someone would refuse, given that they’re in one of the mormon afterlives when offered the choice. No need for faking. And what would be the point of bothering to baptise Hitler if they didn’t think the opportunity would be thoroughly compelling?

    Not guranteed conversion, but likely very close to it.

  11. Beatrice, anormalement indécente says

    Actually, the author of the cartoon knows how Mormon baptism “works”, it was I guess just too much to explain in the three panels, although the mouse-over can indicate a choice on Genghis Khan’s part.
    Anyway, the article that accompanies the cartoon explains it all.

    While the whole concept of posthumous baptism seems silly and wrong to people of other faiths, it’s hard to say that it’s done maliciously. Mormons, like any other religious people, believe that they are right and that your beliefs and your choice of religion have far reaching consequences. We’re talking eternal consequences. Their idea is that they are offering you a choice in that purgatory realm by performing baptisms for the dead. It’s a sweet idea, if a little bit misguided.

    (emphasis mine)

  12. nemothederv says

    The whole baptizing of corpses kind of misses the point doesn’t it? I wonder whether or not they understand their own religion

    Mormons do not seem to understand what hell, as a concept, is supposed to be either. The only pertanent concept involves it being right here on earth.
    If they ring my door bell 8am on a sunday morning one more time I will teach them.

  13. jba55 says

    CompulsoryAccount7746: I have a friend who is Mormon and last time we talked about it her response was pretty much what jamessweet said. To which I replied with pretty much what you said. She fumbled around for a bit then plopped down some crap about “having faith” and changed the subject. Seems to happen a lot when we talk about her religion. It helps that I’m ex-mo, I can whip out all kinds of things about the LDS that make her uncomfortable. It’s kind of fun to listen to her scrabble for apologetics.

    nemothederv: Mormons don’t believe in hell, I’m afraid. If you really want to cause a ruckus for missionaries that ring your bell at 8am on a Sunday all you’d need to do is tell the Mission President about it. They aren’t supposed to be out proselytizing on Sunday.

  15. says

    James Sweet @6 is repeating what LDS Church leaders say. That explanation that the dead person/spirit can accept or reject the mormon necrodunking is the softening apologetic.

    However, the Church seems to assume that no one ever rejects the offer because they go on to schedule additional temple ordinances, including one that is called “confirmation.” The dead person is confirmed as a member of the mormon church.

    In addition to confirmation, there may be marriages (“sealings”), as in Hitler being sealed to Eva Braun, and other sealings. Children may be sealed to parents. Romney’s great grandfather may have additional wives sealed to him.

    There are currently Ancestral File ordinance records that show that Adolf Hitler was “baptized” on September 4, 1993, “endowed” on October 12, 1993, and “sealed” to his parents and also Eva Braun on June 14, 1994 in the Los Angeles Temple. The June 14 sealing of Hitler and Braun is the same sealing of which Roberts sent copies to McAreavy and Ashton. These entries could once be found in the IGI. They have since been deleted, along with other entries for prominent Nazis. What is going on here? Prior to adding the 1997 edition to the IGI, it seems that the Mormon Church, intent on preserving its public image, attempted to remove the names of well-known Nazis from the IGI files. Most of the IGI entries for Adolf Hitler, Mrs. (Adolf Hitler), Adolf Eichmann, Paul Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, and Heinrich Himmler were quietly removed. Also erased were the records for Benito Mussolini, the dictator of Fascist Italy from 1922 to 1943 and an ally of Hitler and the Third Reich.

    There are “endowment” ceremonies, where males may be endowed with priesthood.

    Details that demonstrate mormon efforts to carry on posthumous baptisms, but to hide the fact that famous people, and Nazis, and Jews (for example) have been baptized can be read here:
    http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/hitlertemplework.htm

    A lot of articles noting the proxy baptism of Anne Frank have been written in the past week. Some of them reproduced the record showing that Anne Frank was not just baptized, but also “Confirmed.” See this presentation in the Daily Mail for example.

    Mormons recently baptized Daniel Pearl. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2012/02/29/mormons_baptized_slain_reporter_daniel_pearl/

    George Washington, and other Presidents of the USA have been proxy baptized … and all the follow up ordinances have been done for most of the presidents as well, including confirmation and sealings to wives, etc.

  16. Brownian says

    Also, can we please stop saying ‘necrodunk’?
    Dunking is something wonderful done to doughnuts, and you understand how we Canadians feel about our doughnuts. The whole association of such a divine food with Mormonism is pretty tasteless.

  17. yiab says

    Lynna @15 Wait, you’re saying that next time a Mormon says that Hitler was an atheist we can flip the accusation right back in their face and say that he’s a Mormon? AWESOME!

  18. rr says

    …a baptism for a dead person doesn’t posthumously make that person a Mormon, it gives them the opportunity to do so.

    I’m struck by the sheer absurdity (perhaps inanity would be a better word) of allowing a DEAD PERSON to make a decision.

    They are free to accept or reject the baptism…

    Except there’s one thing stopping them – THEY’RE DEAD!

  19. Brownian says

    I’m struck by the sheer absurdity (perhaps inanity would be a better word) of allowing a DEAD PERSON to make a decision.

    Except there’s one thing stopping them – THEY’RE DEAD!

    Oh rr, you’re missing the most important thing about religion—simply taking something real, and saying something imaginary about it.

    See that cracker over there? Not really a cracker. Nope. Human flesh. And that wine? Vampire juice.

    Also, that dead person? Not really dead. Making all sorts of post-life decisions. I think heaven now has a time-share office.

    And that little guy hanging on that wall? Actually three people, rolled into one. Like a 2 in 1 shampoo plus conditioner plus, uh, a holy spirit, I guess.

    Try it on your own; it’s great fun!

  21. says

    We discussed previously that living Romney relatives had posthumously baptized Mitt Romney’s father-in-law, Edward Davies. Link … Davies was a scientist and an atheist. They did more than baptize Davies, they did “all the ordinances except sealing to spouse.” So, yeah, baptized, confirmed, endowed…

    Helen Radkey has dug further into the Romney records. She found that living Romney relatives have been sealing additional wives to dead Romney relatives. From the Rick Cross website:

    http://www.rickross.com/reference/mormon/mormon804.html

    …[Radkey looks through] stacks of manila folders labeled “Gaskell Romney, grandfather,” “Archi­bald Newell Hall, great-great grandfather,” and “Parley Parker Pratt, great-great grandfather.”

    Radkey … has decided that the world should know about what she considers the posthumous love life of Romney’s forebears.

    This is because, she said, “there’s a double standard” in which Mormons have renounced polygamy for the living, but “allowed plural marriages for the dead.”

    More important for her, she found Romney’s depiction of polygamy — he called it “bizarre” and “awful” — in bad taste. “How dare he say that polygamy was horrible when it was what his ancestors believed?” she said. “I believe you should honor your bloodline. I have convicts in my bloodline. I don’t reject them.”
    …

    The church insists that there is no polygamy in the afterlife. “We believe that marriage is the most important relationship in this life and can continue after this life when performed in a temple. Temple marriages — also known as sealings — are performed only for those married in this life,” said Michael Purdy, a church spokesman.

    <=Radkey, however, has produced documents from private church databases that suggest many prominent Mormons, including Romney’s ancestors, have been sealed to multiple spouses after they died.

  22. peterh says

    @ #6:

    That explanation makes as much sense as any other doctrinal claims they’ve come up with, which is to say none at all.

  23. says

    Brownian, I regret having insulted your doughnuts.

    Maybe we can come up with a little ritual that marries your dunked doughnut to another doughnut. Or, better yet, to a biscotti. Said ritual to take effect only after doughnut-death via vigorous Brownian chewing and swallowing.

    At least your doughnuts are dunked while they are still of this world.

  25. Brownian says

    Maybe we can come up with a little ritual that marries your dunked doughnut to another doughnut.

    I think that already happens. When one doughnut and another doughnut and another doughnut and another doughnut and another doughnut and a creme-filled and another doughnut and another doughnut and another doughnut and another doughnut—how many is that? Are we at ten already?—and maybe one of those crullers and—what’s in those fritters? Apple? Blueberry? Perfect—and sure, one of those fritters love each other very much and want to raise li’l Timbits of their own…

  26. raven says

    Mormons don’t believe in hell, I’m afraid.

    I thought they had a version.

    4 afterlives. Celestial (where gods are made and goddesses rounded up for the harem), Telestial, Terrestial (which seems a lot like earth), and…The Outer Darkness.

    Supposedly very few people end up in the Outer Darkness. If they’ve baptised Hitler, Mohammed, Genghis Khan and so on, they must believe they aren’t in the Outer Darkness.

    I suspect these days, being a genocidal maniac isn’t even enough to end up in the Outer Darkness. It is reserved for atheists and people who make fun of the Mormons and fight them in court cases about separation of church and state.

    PS One of the myriad things I found kooky about Mormonism. All gods are married. In fact, countless times. Our god the father on Kolob has a fleet of goddess wives to fuck and impregnate millions of times. So what is our holy goddess mother’s name anyway? Cthulhu, even in their fantasy afterlife, women get second class citizenship and are oppressed.

  27. says

    Reflecting on raven’s comment @26:
    It always amuses me when mormons say they don’t believe in Hell, or that there is no Hell in the mormon religion.

    Mormons obviously think Outer Darkness is a place to be avoided at all costs. They think that separation from God and from Joe Smith would be horrible. Outer Darkness comes off as very much like hell when mormons talk about it, and when the threat of it shapes their actions and their thoughts.

    I think another way to get shunted into Outer Darkness is to deny the awesomeness of the Book of Mormon. But first you have to read it, and then deny that you are uplifted by its many virtues and by its obvious truth.

    I’m not sure, but I think you can even be spared visits by mormon missionaries during your time in the Outer Darkness if you harden your heart to the BoM while you’re still alive. And you need to be stiff-necked about this hardening of the heart.

    It is like a medical condition with no cure. Not even necrobaptism can cure your rejection of the BoM.

  28. 'Tis Himself, OM says

    Brownian is reminding us that while the national symbol of France is the Eiffel Tower, the national symbol of England is Big Ben*, and the national symbol of the US is the Statue of Liberty–the national symbol of Canada is Tim Hortons.

    *Yes, Brits, I’m aware that Big Ben is actually a bell. The clock and the tower are commonly called Big Ben, even by most Britons.

  29. blgrant1 says

    Oh no the outer darkness is not empty! All the women who have had an abortion are hanging around in the outer darkness. That is, after all, according to the Mormons, and unforgivable sin and no amount of baptizing is going to change that.

  30. says

    Brownian, the true meaning of life is … doughnut holes. Which one can worship at Tim Hortons.

    Far from being truly sorry about necrobaptizing all the wrong people, mormons are looking to ramp up the great work: http://www.lds.org/ensign/2012/03/a-call-for-indexers-worldwide?lang=eng

    Excerpt from a much longer article:

    Indexing is designed for people in all stages of life—including students, stay-at-home moms, businesspeople, or retirees. David and Bernice Blyde served seven full-time missions and are settled at home in New Zealand, where they continue to serve. “There is always something you can do within the Church to keep busy and active,” says Sister Blyde. “Indexing has fulfilled that need for us.” Since 2009 Sister Blyde has indexed over 180,000 names. “It’s exciting to be engaged in this wonderful resource,” she says. “This work is vital to finding our ancestors and giving them the opportunity to progress.”

  32. says

    Wherever we turn we find mormons shooting themselves in the foot. It’s bloodbath. LDS public relations lackeys must be pulling their hair out.

    After being quoted in a Washington Post article regarding the LDS Church’s evolving positions on race, popular BYU religion professor and LDS author Randy Bott has been accused of making racist remarks while defending the LDS Church’s historical ban on blacks from the church’s priesthood. On Tuesday the story began to go viral on social networking sites, leaving many BYU students deeply divided over whether Bott’s comments were appropriate.

    After suggesting that the theological underpinning of the Church’s ban was that blacks were believed to be cursed descendants of Cain, the Washington Post reports Bott to have stated the following:

    “God has always been discriminatory” when it comes to whom he grants the authority of the priesthood, argues Bott, the BYU theologian. … Bott compares blacks to a young child prematurely asking for the keys to her father’s car, and explains that similarly until 1978, the Lord determined that blacks were not yet ready for the priesthood. … Bott argues that the denial of the priesthood to blacks on Earth — although not in the afterlife — protected them from the lowest rungs of hell reserved for people who abuse their priesthood powers. “You couldn’t fall off the top of the ladder because you weren’t on the top of the ladder. So, in reality the blacks not having the priesthood was the greatest blessing God could give them.”

    The comments shocked many BYU students when the story began to be shared on Facebook and Twitter, with many claiming in disbelief that Bott must have been misquoted. Other students, however, claim that Bott has taught similar ideas in his religion classes. Bott is one of BYU’s most popular professors and is the top-rated professor of any university on RateMyProfessor.com. …

    Generally when BYU religion professors speak to the media they are required to have a summary of their statements approved by a religion department head. It is unclear whether Bott’s comments were pre-approved by the deans of the religion department or even whether this is official BYU policy….

    Link to more details and full story.

  33. heironymous says

    Serious question.

    If the Colbert has posthumously brissed all of the existing dead Mormons, does that mean that all existing living Mormons lose their Mormonstrosity? And taking it a step further, when they posthumously baptize me, will they have lost their powers because their now actually Jewish?

  34. horrabin says

    Bott compares blacks to a young child prematurely asking for the keys to her father’s car, and explains that similarly until 1978, the Lord determined that blacks were not yet ready for the priesthood. …

    This is an interesting twist on the ‘non-white races are like children’ paradigm. Blacks were, as a race, immature and intellectually inferior…until 1978, when presumably the entire worldwide population of people with more melanin graduated to the lowest rungs of whitehood en-masse.

    All religions have at least a touch of incoherence, but it really seems like Mormonism was specifically designed to point out religion’s absurdity.

  35. says

    Brownian #16

    Also, can we please stop saying ‘necrodunk’?.

    I put this matter to our backroom savants, and they have come up with a term that I think you’ll agree is a vast improvement:
    Retrohortonizing.

    yiab #17

    Wait, you’re saying that next time a Mormon says that Hitler was an atheist we can flip the accusation right back in their face and say that he’s a Mormon? AWESOME!

    I’d love to see a Hitler version of one of those tiresome “…and I’m a Mormon!” ads.

  36. rr says

    “There is always something you can do within the Church to keep busy and active waste your life with meaningless crap,” says Sister Blyde.

    FIFY Sister Blyde

  37. says

    From the mormon “Indexing” article in comment #30:

    Hilary is one volunteer who is helping meet FamilySearch’s ever-growing need to index records in non-English languages. Like the other 127,000 active volunteers, Hilary is extracting the names and events of those who have passed on so that members can find the information they are seeking and complete their ancestors’ ordinance work in the temple.

    What Is Indexing?
    FamilySearch indexing is the process of reading digitized versions of physical records—such as census, vital, probate, and church records—and typing the information they contain into an online searchable database. Through this work, indexing volunteers make it possible for members and other family history researchers to easily locate their ancestors’ information on the Internet.

    That does not sound like the picture the LDS Church paints of individual mormons submitting the names of their relatives.

  38. says

    Meta comment on comment #32: Mormons are fast when it comes to policing the internet. They’ve already managed to get one blog discussing the recent racist blatherings of a BYU Professor shut down.

    However, the internet defeats even the finely honed organizational skill of the mormon internet police. The discussion continues on several other sites, including: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,430527

    The blog that was shut down was here: http://ldskyr.blogspot.co.nz/2008/04/blacks-and-priesthood.html

  39. footface says

    Damn, but this is all so strange and silly. That adults can actually manage to believe this stuff is still—after all these years—incredible to me.

    So there’s, say, Hitler’s soul out there in the Outer Limits or the Twilight Zone or Gillligan’s Island or whatever. Somehow, this essence of Hitler still exists and retains some kind of Hitlerity. Okay, that’s weird enough. But then someone back on Earth says some magic words, and suddenly, Hitler’s soul is whooshed to a different afterlife.

    How is this supposed to happen? I know that question is as stupid as the underlying belief. But still. How does the message get to Hitler’s soul? How is Hitler’s soul moved? How does the soul know where it’s going or how to get there? Is it someone’s job to move souls around? By what mechanism could any of this happen?

    Do religious people ask questions like these? If so, are they content with the answer “Aw, who cares—it’s magic”?

  40. jefferylanam says

    That does not sound like the picture the LDS Church paints of individual mormons submitting the names of their relatives.

    They do considerably more than that. Some years ago, I worked for a computer company (now defunct) that sold several large systems to the LDS Genealogy Library to store their databases. A member of the church came to our offices and gave a presentation about the work they do to capture genealogical data. Their workers go all over the world to get copies of parish records, census forms, etc. and enter them in the databases. They were doing research back then on optical character recognition in many languages.

  41. puzzlecraig says

    @footface, this is the Mormon explanation of things:

    Until the final judgment, all the deceased reside in a spirit world, in which the dead ate divided between those in Spirit Prison and Paradise. The souls in the former are being taught the (Mormon) gospel; however, until someone in this life performs the ordinances (rites) necessary for them to move to the other part, they are stuck even if they would accept the gospel.

    The ordinances can only, per the Mormons, be performed in the LDS temple by proxy through the power of the Mormon priesthood (power and authority from God). Once the ordinances – baptism, confirmation, the “Endowment”, and marriage (where applicable) have been performed, the deceased can then, if penitent, accept these and move to Paradise.

    Eventually, per the Mormons, Christ will all the deceased from the grave, reuniting their spirits with their bodies (now perfected). The Final Judgment follows, when the deceased will be assigned to their ultimate “kingdom”: Celestial, Terrestrial, or Telestial, or sent to Outer Darkness.

    Per Mormon theology, Celestial beings are essentially new gods/goddesses and will be able to create their own universes, new spirit children, etc. Beings who get the other kingdoms will still have God’s love, but they will not be allowed to “increase”. Those in Outer Darkness are cast completely from God’s presence – and presumably everything else that God created, by extension.

    It is hypothesized that the degrees of glory thing was inspired from Swedenborgianism. The rest is an attempt to reconcile a bunch of contradictory Christian afterlife stuff from the Bible.

    Anyway, I doubt that will clarify much, given that the subject matter itself is a muddle, but there you go. I’ve got to get some mileage out of the 26 years I wasted in their faith. :)

  42. puzzlecraig says

    Corrections:

    “…in which the dead [are] divided…”
    “…Christ will [resurrect] all the deceased…”

    But really, who cares, given that it’s all malarkey.

  45. Phledge says

    They are free to accept or reject the baptism…

    Do the mormons ever cop to someone saying “no?”

  46. craigore says

    This reminds me of TF’s the best emotional porn (flagged by YT as inappropriate). I recall immediately thinking of Posthumous Conversion, which is nothing short of wanking it in public while displaying your insanity for all to see under the guise of ‘religion,’ and then of going up to these same jerkoffs and declaring that Joseph Smith is no longer a mormon – he’s an atheist now that we’ve converted him using an ‘ultra powerful,’ highly complex and convoluted ceremony with all kinds of magic words and non words, and black jack and shit, so he’s one of us now… although they’re free to take him back anytime – we don’t really want him anyway. Seriously, it’s insansity on par with declaring oneself to be best friends with Ghengis Khan, Mahatma Gandhi, and Catherine the Great. Let’s face it, they’re dead and not confirming your friend invite, and that’s going to be ridiculed no matter what pious bullshit you dress it up in.

  47. craigore says

    *I do however find myself feeling mixed towards posthumous marriage which has been undertaken at least in Korea (however it is done between two deceased people). Even though the reasoning might appear very sensitive to the ‘needs’ of the dead, and where it is not done to elevate the status of group by exploiting the dead, it nevertheless comes off as paranoid superstition which still reeks of crazy… I welcome other peoples thoughts on it though.

  48. says

    Well, well, well. It looks like the mormons have necrobaptized Mohammed ibn Abdel-Wahhab. And they are also all set to baptize the current Pope after he dies.

    Except from a new Reuters article:

    …[Pope} Benedict looks set to join his predecessor John Paul and a centuries-long list of popes Mormons have baptized — despite the fact that he, back when he was the Vatican’s top doctrinal authority, ruled that Mormon baptisms were not even Christian.

    “There is no reason theologically why a former Pope or any other church leader shouldn’t be offered the same opportunity given to the rest of mankind,” Farah said.

    …
    The Catholics are not the only non-Mormons on the Church’s International Genealogical Index (IGI), a list of those baptized or cleared for the rite in which a Mormon undergoes a full immersion baptism at a temple in the name of the dead person.

    Jewish Holocaust victims, Protestant reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin and Mohammed ibn Abdel-Wahhab, founder of Saudi Arabia’s stern version of Islam, have all popped up on the list.

    A purged version of the IGI is on the Internet, at http://www.familysearch.org, a Web site run by the LDS church, but does not show which rites have been performed.

    That data is reserved only for Mormons, who can consult it at one of the 3,400 Family History Centers worldwide where they go to enter names for these rites using special software. The rites are then performed at temples off-limits to non-Mormons….

    Link.

  49. says

    Reuters dug deep enough into not only mormon posthumous baptizing but also into mormon record keeping to find out how sneaky LDS Church leaders can be. This is actually an older article, written by Tom Heneghan in February of 2007, but the article is receiving renewed interest.

    Another excerpt from the Reuters article:

    Pope John Paul II was baptized not once but four times in April 2006, in line with Mormon practice of waiting a year before starting these rites. He died on April 2, 2005.

    His name was purged from the online IGI, so a normal search will not find them. But his four now-anonymous files are still in the database and three still show his parents’ names.

    Pope Pius XII was baptized three times and also “sealed” in eternal marriage to a fictional Mrs Eugenio Pacelli. Saint Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order of priests, was also “sealed” to a bogus wife. Catholic clergy do not marry.

    Names are purged from the public IGI after being found and publicized. Pope John Paul I and Pope Paul VI were both baptized and were listed on the online IGI in December but removed after Reuters asked about them, Farah confirmed.

    But earlier popes, going back at least to the Crusader Pope Urban II (1088-1099), are mostly still there. “They remove any names that could potentially cause criticism,” Radkey said….

    I don’t Catholics will find it amusing, but I can’t help laughing at the ridiculousness of “sealing” dead Popes to dead women so that, finally, top Catholic clergy will be having mormon-style sex in the afterlife.

  51. craigore says

    *actually, no. I don’t really have mixed feelings about posthumous marriage come to think of it. It’s also ridiculous, and I am going to ridicule it.

  53. Wowbagger, Madman of Insleyfarne says

    Brownian wrote:

    Dunking is something wonderful done to doughnuts…

    I’ve never heard it called _that_ before.

    …and you understand how we Canadians feel about our doughnuts.

    After that first bit I’m going to assume it’s ‘aroused by’. Though I guess that answers the age-old question about what the holes are for.

    Say, anyone else want to help me with my reimagining of American Pie – which I intend to call Canadian Doughnut? It’s pretty much the exact same script, only with an ‘eh’ thrown in every now and then, and instead of lacrosse the Chris Klein character plays ice hockey, eh.

  54. bcskeptic says

    I wonder if Tom Cruise has heard about this religion?

    It’s even crazier bat-shit than Scientology, sure to attract even the wackiest of the wackiest wing-nuts out there.

    Maybe the exposure of this utterly absurd practise and belief of the Mormons to the shining light of skepticism, will reflect some of that light onto the other craziness out there, like Catholism, Judaism, Islamism blah blah blah.

    It would be fun to see a religious “stone-throwing in glass houses” fest…maybe those houses will all come crashing down around them.

    So much entertainment, so much opportunity for ridicule, so little time! (well, lots of time, you know…)

  56. says

    The reporter who wrote the article about mormons baptizing members of the Dutch royal family received a visit from the all-seeing eye.

    Look who just turned up on my site

    Domain Name ldschurch.org ? (Organization)
    IP Address 216.49.181.# (THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS)
    ISP THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS
    Continent: North America
    Country : United States (Facts)
    State : Utah
    City : Salt Lake City

  57. says

    In reference to my comment #38, that BYU professor’s blog that was hastily killed once the mainstream press got wind of it has resurfaced. Sort of.

    Topic: Masturbation
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qL77fHgFv-YJ:ldskyr.blogspot.com/2010/09/is-masturbation-sin.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

    Some mormons and ex-mormons have been finding and reposting Professor Bott’s astounding outflow of old timey racist, anti-science, and anti-human thoughts. This guy Bott is a star at BYU. This is not old news. This guy is for real, and he is for now. [cringe]

    Topic: Evolution
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:sanp1e8bBnYJ:ldskyr.blogspot.com/2008/04/evolution.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

    Topic: Homosexuality
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_WLaTfGWvWEJ:ldskyr.blogspot.com/2010/11/trying-to-justify-homosexuality.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

  59. says

    On another forum, Steve Benson suggested that we change the name of the necrobaptizing church to Morbidism.

    We could also have a Book of Morbidism instead of the Book of Mormon.

    I like it. All that so-called doctrine plays better as a horror movie, with accompanying horror genre book, than it does as religion.

  60. Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD says

    I have to admit, when I read BoM I did for a few seconds wonder what the Bureau of Meteorology had to do with anything.

  61. Ava, Oporornis maledetta says

    According to the Famous Dead Mormons link at #50, they’ve claimed George Carlin too. So not fair. Can you imagine, though what George would say when asked if he accepted?