is get my head around this one

Apparently Mormons are baptizing dead people, some, particularly Holocaust victims, without family approval or even knowledge.  Seems that a living Mormon goes through the baptism ritual in the name of the dead person and then the dead person in Limbo or Purgatory wherever the hell they are gets to accept or reject the baptism and live happily ever after or not.

My first thought?  This is just stupid.  Yes, I am a non-believer so my opinion on this might be invalid but IF there is a god and a heaven my guess is that the chance to become baptized has already been offered.  Why would a forgiving god wait for somebody on earth to artificially baptize a dead person before extending his own invitation?  It just doesn’t make sense.

But that is not the controversy.  Some Jewish groups have taken offense.   Elie Weisel has asked Mitt Romney the likely Republican presidential candidate and a practising Mormon to speak out against the practice.  Weisel, a Holocaust survivor and perhaps the most famous spokesperson on the Holocaust learned that his parents (who did not survive the Holocaust) had been “baptized”.

So what’s the big deal?  More than likely nothing is happening anyway.  It’s not that they are trying to harm living Jewish people.  In their own misguided way, they think they are helping.

But, on second thought, what is the underlying message that is being sent?  If people are baptizing you after death they are saying “Your life on earth was not good enough to get into heaven.  Despite whatever pious life you might have led during your living years, you are still unworthy of God.”  And the reason those dead people (Jews or other non-Mormons) are unworthy implies that members of that group who are living right now are also unworthy.  I can’t accept that.

So, if the Mormons think a family member might have missed the boat (the original reason for the practice) then by all means give it a shot.  But I think it best that they leave out other religious groups who they think don’t quite meet their group’s Godly approval rating.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/21/mormons-posthumous-baptism-anne-frank_n_1292102.html