http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96858486

I heard this on NPR the other day and I was simultaneously stunned and unthinkably pissed off. Apparently, the mormons have a custom of baptizing people who are already dead, thus providing the dead person with the ability to choose to become a mormon and participate in the mormon afterlife. This is bad enough on it's own, but they've been baptizing Jewish victims of the holocaust. Don't they understand how offensive this is?

I really tried to accept their reply that it is only symbolic and only provides the person with the choice to become mormon, that the person doesn't have to become mormon. But, I can't. There are no words to describe how violated I would feel if this happened to me.

I can understand that religous people would be PO'd at this, but honestly, my reaction is that its just nonsense, it has no actual effect on anything resembling reality.  If I was a devout Jew who'd lost family in the Holocaust I'd probably be crazy mad, I wonder if there's a way for living relatives to prevent their departed from being "baptised".

Sounds like the acts of a desperate religion trying to gain new members any way they can.

Hell!  Dig 'em up if we have to! 

All joking aside, they have no respect for others, which is why I clearly have shown no respect for them.

Isn't it sort of like closing the barn door after the cows are already all out?

I was under the impression that they had stopped baptizing Jewish people, because people found it offensive.  I could be wrong, though.

What you have to understand about the LDS mindset is that they believe the only way to get to the highest level of heaven is to be baptized in the Mormon faith.  So they feel they are doing something good for the people who have already passed, because they believe then the people will have a chance to accept the Mormon religion after they die.  Otherwise, if the person hadn't been baptized while living, or baptized by proxy, they would have no chance. 

I'm not trying to convince anyone that it's okay, just trying to help you see it from their view.  Honestly, I'm not sure why it's so offensive.  I tend to agree with what Vanessa said.  If you don't believe in baptism, and especially if you're not Christian, or not even religious, what harm does it do if someone dunks someone somewhere, and says "this is for so and so" (these are not the actual words)?  I could dunk a Barbie in my bathtub, and say I'm baptizing her in your name, but does that really effect you?  :)

That being said, I'm not Jewish, I have no ancestors who died in the Jewish holocaust, so I can't really say that it shouldn't be offensive for them, because I'm not in their shoes.

Brenda, I understand their beliefs about it. And I'm trying really, really hard to just let it go, because it truly doesn't effect me. If I'm dead, then I'm dead, and whatever rituals they do in my name don't matter. However, the idea that my choices regarding religion while I was alive would be viewed as null and void once I'm dead still bothers me. It is just as offensive as when they come knocking on my door in the middle of my supper to try to convert me. It is inherently disrespectful because they are treating my religious values as completely unimportant and irrelevant.

Simply put:

The Nazis tried to erase Jews from the earth by extermination.

The Mormons are attempting to erase Jews from the afterlife by baptism.

This is fairly old news.  There was a big fuss about it and they said they would stop but not everyone seemed to be sure that it had really ceased.

At one time I didn't see a problem, but it was a very strange feeling to find some of my ancestors' names included in some "Sealing" (I think that's what it was.  I got into a discussion with an LDS member on the forum and they call it their "work."  Supposedly, they only do it for people to whom they're related. 

Aside from the issue that I was related to those people too, their databases contain some very bad genealogy and they don't really care if they're related or not.

As I recall, this was supposed to give these people the chance to - well do whatever is so special that Mormons do.  They can still say no, even after death.  Logically, I think it's meaningless, but I still don't like it and I guess the Jews didn't care for it either.  There are a number of people who will not give the LDS access to their genealogy for this reason.

(If you search under something like LDS holocaust victims, it would probably bring up the old story.)

I found this on another list.  Apparently the Mormons recently returned to the practice of "baptising" dead Jews.  See CNN link.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/11/baptizing.dead.jews.ap/index.html

I won't include the page that included this link, but it was funny, in a twisted disrespectful way :)

I think Karen summed it up perfectly, and that it is why it's so offensive to us.  As if our relaitves hadn't been violated enough.