Is There A Way To Block Mormon Relatives From Baptizing Me When I Croak?

[AddamS]

It's possible, but is it really probable? it's also possible that I'm supermodel Linda Evangelista, but not probable.

Who are you to say what is possible or not possible in regard to the afterlife?

I will; however, accept that you are probably not Linda Evangelista. I think there is a reasonable amount of proof that we can all agree this is the case.

[Thinking]

I was unaware that there is a one-year wait time.

Does anyone know why that is?

I'm going to speculate, and use a personal experience to justify my speculation.

Many people don't think rationally when dealing with the death of a loved one. After my maternal grandmother's funeral, my mother and her brother decided that they were going to do the temple work for my grandmother and grandfather (baptism, endowment, marriage). Then they would be able to be sealed to their parents. What's wrong with this picture? My grandparents hated each other, had been divorced for many years and remarried. They finished their lives in long, committed, happy marriages to somebody else.

Consider the possibilities.

If they perform the desired vicarious marriage, they are essentially telling the later spouses that they don't matter.

On the other hand, if they decide to perform the vicarious marriage to the new spouses, how do the children decide to which set of parents they should be sealed?

This is the sort of thing that could tear a family apart.

If the church would have permitted it, they would have gone straight from the cemetery to the temple.

To my knowledge, nothing has been done in either direction.

[LifeOnaPlate]

When I asked you if there was a chance the LDS Church is God's Church you gave me the impression that you didn't believe there was a chance, I thought, when you said:

In my humble opinion, that's a pretty off-chance my friend.

In this post.

So you gauge the liklihood as a "pretty off-chance." Do you think your imaginary conversation with "Pete" above is less than that "pretty off-chance?"

More than, less than, or equal to that chance, is what I am asking.

[SolarPowered]

It's possible, but is it really probable? it's also possible that I'm supermodel Linda Evangelista, but not probable.

I'm in WUV!!!

[AddamS]

It's a completely irrational fear. Why would God keep someone out of Heaven over something they had no control over?

In the example, the inaction when prospect of baptism was brought to light was the "sin".

The accepting the baptism instead of fighting it, not the action of others casues the issue (in the hypothetical example).

When I asked you if there was a chance the LDS Church is God's Church you gave me the impression that you didn't believe there was a chance, I thought, when you said:

In this post.

So you gauge the liklihood as a "pretty off-chance." Do you think your imaginary conversation with "Pete" above is less than that "pretty off-chance?"

More than, less than, or equal to that chance, is what I am asking.

Equal to that chance. But when dealing with eternity, why take chances? You bet on your horse, I will bet on mine.

[LifeOnaPlate]

In the example, the inaction when prospect of baptism was brought to light was the "sin".

The accepting the baptism instead of fighting it, not the action of others casues the issue (in the hypothetical example).

Equal to that chance. But when dealing with eternity, why take chances? You bet on your horse, I will bet on mine.

There's a misattribution in your sig line.

My horse says your horse is being a baby.

[AddamS]

There's a misattribution in your sig line.

Corrected, thank you for the clarification

My horse says your horse is being a baby.

Now you believe in talking horses?

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Who are you to say what is possible or not possible in regard to the afterlife?

I will; however, accept that you are probably not Linda Evangelista. I think there is a reasonable amount of proof that we can all agree this is the case.

You know my heart can't take this! What happened to the picture

[Thinking]

Suppose my brother goes to the temple and vicariously performs the ordinances for my dead uncle "Sam." Can I vicariously commit sins for Sam so that he gets vicariously excommunicated?

[LifeOnaPlate]

Corrected, thank you for the clarification

Now you believe in talking horses?

Now that your posting has turned to open mockery, I have returned a little in kind and will withdraw from the discussion.

Currently I don't believe it really is this important to you, and I believe you are making noise for the sake of making noise.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. (1 Corinthians 13:1)

Have a good day.

[AddamS]

Suppose my brother goes to the temple and vicariously performs the ordinances for my dead uncle "Sam." Can I vicariously commit sins for Sam so that he gets vicariously excommunicated?

This maybe the best suggestion yet! I'm sure I can find an apostate much younger than me on this board to take up the task when I'm worm food.

[LifeOnaPlate]

Suppose my brother goes to the temple and vicariously performs the ordinances for my dead uncle "Sam." Can I vicariously commit sins for Sam so that he gets vicariously excommunicated?

I guess if you had some sort of authority to do so you could do whatever that authority allowed. Go ahead and have at it. If it's a true principle it stands, if it's false it falls. No fuss, no muss.

[emeliza]

Many people don't think rationally when dealing with the death of a loved one. After my maternal grandmother's funeral, my mother and her brother decided that they were going to do the temple work for my grandmother and grandfather (baptism, endowment, marriage). Then they would be able to be sealed to their parents. What's wrong with this picture? My grandparents hated each other, had been divorced for many years and remarried. They finished their lives in long, committed, happy marriages to somebody else.

If they perform the desired vicarious marriage, they are essentially telling the later spouses that they don't matter.

On the other hand, if they decide to perform the vicarious marriage to the new spouses, how do the children decide to which set of parents they should be sealed?

That is good reasoning on why you need to wait. Don't know how official it is though. However I thought vicariously they could be married to both spouses and the decision on whom they remained married to would be their decision....or maybe I am off and it is only when they have been widowed and not divorced.

[AddamS]

Now that your posting has turned to open mockery, I have returned a little in kind and now withdraw from the discussion.

Currently I don't believe it really is this important to you, and I believe you are making noise for the sake of making noise.

Have a good day.

Believe what you want. You do not know what is in my heart.

It's kind of funny that you accuse me of being a "baby" (or "your horse" does) and I'm the one mocking you.

Who are you to say what is important to me? Perhaps just because you don't believe in the same possibilities as I do, it makes it easier to discount it as mockery.

Its hard to talk about the hypothetical when someone has already determined what they believe about a theory is fact.

At any rate, I'm sorry this could not have ended more amicably. I hope you have a great weekend.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Suppose my brother goes to the temple and vicariously performs the ordinances for my dead uncle "Sam." Can I vicariously commit sins for Sam so that he gets vicariously excommunicated?

Lets just keep it in the land of the living, can you ultimatly make me do something against my will? If no, why not? If yes, why?

Do you think you can vicariously commit sin for some one else?

[MorningStar]

Suppose my brother goes to the temple and vicariously performs the ordinances for my dead uncle "Sam." Can I vicariously commit sins for Sam so that he gets vicariously excommunicated?

No. Men are punished for their own sins and not for Adam's transgressions.

[SolarPowered]

No. Men are punished for their own sins and not for Adam's transgressions.

What? Did you just reveal that Mr. Thinking's real name is "Adam"?

[Daniel Peterson]

They also can't be "helped out" after they die either.

That's your faith position. It's not ours.

You have no obligation to act on the basis of our faith. We have no obligation to act on the basis of yours.

You are free, and we are free. And nobody is interfering with anybody else's freedom.

So this is, as it always was, a non-issue.

[AddamS]

That's your faith position. It's not ours.

You have no obligation to act on the basis of our faith. We have no obligation to act on the basis of yours.

You are free, and we are free. And nobody is interfering with anybody else's freedom.

So this is, as it always was, a non-issue.

You are right. For now on I will simply dismiss BFD as a "cute idea" and we can all get along.

[Daniel Peterson]

You are right. For now on I will simply dismiss BFD as a "cute idea" and we can all get along.

Not a bad approach. There are thousands of religious ideas and rituals floating around out there with which I disagree. Virtually none of them "disturbs" me, and none of them, as an idea or a ritual, causes me even the slightest pain. You'll see: Life will be better for you this way.

[Calm]

Expositor, if you are really concerned about God rejecting you because you didn't make an effort of rejection of the baptism, why not write it in your will that you don't want it done or try to have it put on the family group sheets (the records that the family uses to keep track of temple ordinance ) as I suggested before or perhaps you might consider that your public announcement that you don't want it done here will be sufficient. If it's really disturbing you so much, then I'd do something about it. But I think it would be best to accept that you have no control over others' actions once they are dead...unless you plan on coming back and haunting them, and not obsessed over that angle. Just do what you can now and let their actions be judged by God for them rather than you worrying about it.

You might consider that making any bigger deal of it than that with your family might create some harsh feelings and God just might judge you for that more than He cares whether or not someone is baptized using your name in an invalid ceremony for you a year or more after your death.

===

The year wait might be in part to avoid making errors with mix up of identities as some people have been reported dead prematurely, especially in the past when records weren't kept so well or transferred so easily.

[AddamS]

Expositor, if you are really concerned about God rejecting you because you didn't make an effort of rejection of the baptism, why not write it in your will that you don't want it done or try to have it put on the family group sheets (the records that the family uses to keep track of temple ordinance ) as I suggested before or perhaps you might consider that your public announcement that you don't want it done here will be sufficient. If it's really disturbing you so much, then I'd do something about it. But I think it would be best to accept that you have no control over others' actions once they are dead...unless you plan on coming back and haunting them, and not obsessed over that angle. Just do what you can now and let their actions be judged by God for them rather than you worrying about it.

You might consider that making any bigger deal of it than that with your family might create some harsh feelings and God just might judge you for that more than He cares whether or not someone is baptized using your name in an invalid ceremony for you a year or more after your death.

===

The year wait might be in part to avoid making errors with mix up of identities as some people have been reported dead prematurely, especially in the past when records weren't kept so well or transferred so easily.

I will be sure to.

And I hope I can come back and haunt people, that would be a blast!

[RDL]

Are you disturbed by the fact that your name might sometimes be uttered elsewhere, too?

This seems positively bizarre to me. And the notion of trying to make sure that it doesn't ever happen strikes me as not only weird but utterly futile. Somewhere today, somebody is likely to utter all or part of your name. (It would be fairly pathetic if nobody ever did.) Someone may even pray for you sometime. That's just the way life is. We all have to learn to endure such pain -- and, sometimes, to cope with even worse agonies. It's part of living.

On the other hand, you could (I suppose) try to copyright your name. If I understood his 84-page legal complaint against me from several years ago correctly, one of the things that the Rev. Kurt Van Gorden found worthy of $4.5 million of my money [!!] was the fact that I and others had dared to use his name -- a name for which, he told the court, he had applied for copyright protection. (I have no reason to believe that such protection was granted, but, if it was, I can see that as a way of blocking vicarious baptisms, as well as an excellent method of extorting early-retirement income from innumerable so-called "innocent" people such as mailmen, IRS employees, sales clerks, policemen, dental hygienists, auto mechanics, and children.)

But the fact is that it's going to happen, whether you like it or not. Fifteen generations from now, one of your several million kinsmen is virtually certain to be unaware of your early twenty-first century attitude toward this subject and -- barring the rise of a totalitarian state that forbids free religious expression -- he or she will devote twenty to thirty seconds to immersing someone in water, or to being immersed in water, while your name is pronounced. I know of no certain way to prevent that horrific atrocity from happening other than global annihilation of the human race or, at least, of all Mormons.

A squirrel will also probably defecate on your grave. I can't understand why you would care. In any event, you can't realistically stop it, and it seems fairly pointless to work oneself up over things that one cannot control.

Apart from the matter of illicit access to confidential membership records, I wouldn't care even slightly. Not one teensy, tiny little bit.

The only real difference is that there is even less basis for a claim of harm if the person is dead than if she's alive.

It shouldn't matter what my reasons are. To the point, since you wondered why, I find the temple ceremony bizarre and cultish, and actual church doctrine (not the cleansed current version) offensively and patently racist and sexist. I want no association with it. Just as I don't want to be enrolled in the KKK by proxy after I die, I don't want to be enrolled in the Mormon church by proxy. Trivialize it, dismiss it, whatever--the point is, I'm offended at the thought. The question is whether the LDS church would respect my request, or baptize me by proxy despite it. By the reaction of most on this board, I suspect most think the church shouldn't respect my request. I think it's a matter of common respect and decency.

And I''m not saying Mormonism and the KKK are equal in terms of offense (though many early and some modern church leaders were and are racists)--I only bring it up as an example of another group I wouldn't want to be linked to by proxy after I die. I could just as easily say the Catholic church, etc...

[Cold Steel]

I have since found that sometimes this information is submitted for baptism of the dead. Is there any way to stop this from happening?

Yes, in the event that you're dead, when and if you are asked whether you will avail yourself of that work, say no. That way, the work will not be efficacious. Chances are, it won't be an issue, anyway, as you've already decided to reject the Gospel in this life.

Just as I don't want to be enrolled in the KKK by proxy after I die, I don't want to be enrolled in the Mormon church by proxy.

No one is enrolled by proxy. Acceptance is twofold. The Lord must accept your work and you must accept it. In the end, everyone will accept it, even you. But by then it will be too late to gain Eternal Life.

[LifeOnaPlate]

It shouldn't matter what my reasons are. To the point, since you wondered why, I find the temple ceremony bizarre and cultish, and actual church doctrine (not the cleansed current version) offensively and patently racist and sexist. I want no association with it. Just as I don't want to be enrolled in the KKK by proxy after I die, I don't want to be enrolled in the Mormon church by proxy. Trivialize it, dismiss it, whatever--the point is, I'm offended at the thought. The question is whether the LDS church would respect my request, or baptize me by proxy despite it. By the reaction of most on this board, I suspect most think the church shouldn't respect my request. I think it's a matter of common respect and decency.

And I''m not saying Mormonism and the KKK are equal in terms of offense (though many early and some modern church leaders were and are racists)--I only bring it up as an example of another group I wouldn't want to be linked to by proxy after I die. I could just as easily say the Catholic church, etc...

Baptism by proxy in and of itself enrolls no one in anything.