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Is Barack Obama's mother a Mormon in heaven now?

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/religion/post/2009/05/66469...

(note: I normally don't read anything from sources as mind-numbing as USA Today, but I just could not resist this title -- how could I give in to a title...)

Ok, what the fuck?

So the LDS has been doing this for a while, taking dead people and posthumously baptizing them into the Mormon faith. There was a big ruckus about this when they were doing it to Jews who died in the Holocaust.

PZ Myers, my favorite person ever, has taken it upon himself to make all members of the LDS church posthumously gay. I'm all for it.

Now, just to put all my cards on the table here, I don't really care about this. I don't really care that they took Obama's mother, a non-believer, and made her a Mormon obviously without her consent and most probably without the consent of Obama himself -- I fully expect they'll be posthumously converting his dead grandmother in due order -- I also fully expect them to posthumously convert me after I die unless the whole Mormon institution collapses under it's incestuous/cross-marrying weight between now and the time I say I my last goodbye.

Apparently there are some rules, like you can't convert a person without their or their family's consent, but that hasn't stopped some overzealous cretins from doing it anyway and that hasn't stopped these unsolicited conversions from counting according to their faith. It seems like there's some kind of investigation going on as though it mattered at all.

As I said, I don't care. I know with a fair degree of certainty that souls don't exist, I know they're not converting anything, I know they're making up stupid shit and doing stupid shit with it -- a kind of doubly stupid shit complex.

My problem isn't that they're doing posthumously converting people, my problem is that they believe it means anything. They believe that a person, their individual merits withholding, should be allowed into their heaven. Now, I don't mean to say that everyone who died in the Holocaust was a bad person, but it's not unreasonable to assume that there were at least some people who died in that for whom I would want a hell to exist; to think that, should a heaven exist, they would be allowed into it because some Mormon baptized him after his or her death without his or her knowing, asking, or consent is rather insulting.

Also, Joseph Smith was gay.

Tags: baptistm, mormons, posthumous

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Hugh Kramer on September 8, 2009 at 11:56am

Just out of curiousity, where did you hear that Joseph Smith was gay?

Permalink Reply by Louis on September 8, 2009 at 12:11pm

I read it on some golden plates I found when digging in my back yard -- but you can't see them -- uh -- only I can -- in this hat.

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on September 9, 2009 at 8:44pm

Sounds absolutely credible to me Jack.

Permalink Reply by Rayven Alandria on September 8, 2009 at 1:28pm

Even though I do not believe in souls or an afterlife I still find myself mildly squicked when I read of nutcases like the LDS baptizing dead people. For some reason it makes me feel like they are spiritually raping people. I think it comes down to my belief that you should respect a person's boundaries. It's sickening that they think they have the right to do things to people without their consent. It's also incredibly bizarre that their religious beliefs allow them to think this crazy crap would actually work, but whatevah. *rolls eyes*

Permalink Reply by Aaron S. (USA) on September 8, 2009 at 1:52pm

To clear up what seem to be a few misconceptions about LDS theology, they aren't actually converting people posthumously. Basically, the Mormons, like the Catholics, believe that baptism isn't symbolic but rather an event that absolutely must take place before you can go to heaven.

Of course, this brings up the tiny matter of the billions of people who never had a chance to get one.

The official story goes that J.S. prayed on the subject and received the response that you could baptize the dead. The person in heaven can either accept or reject the baptism, but either way the ball's now in their court. (I'm not sure exactly where the unbaptized go before getting baptized - the theology doesn't seem to spell that out very clearly...) Now, you can get into the issue of whether or not someone would actually reject the One True Truth (TM) now that they have supposedly concrete evidence of its truth, but the point still remains that acceptance of the baptism isn't compulsory.

Second, it's a well-established fact that the Native Americans (specifically the ones around Smith's childhood home) did in fact create burial mounds that included stone, clay and metal objects, some of which had writing on them. So, even though it's incredibly unlikely that he translated them (much less from "reformed "Egyptian") I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he actually did have some kind of Native American artifacts that were at least very like the ones described.

Permalink Reply by Louis on September 8, 2009 at 3:57pm

As I said, my concern isn't with the act or the metaphysical consequences of it, my concern is that they do not seem to care about the merits of the individual being offered this proxy baptism. That a Nero may be offered the same chance at Mormon heaven as, say, a Cicero is the greatest disservice to posthumous humanity, should it even exist.

I don't doubt that Joseph Smith may have found something, there's even a chance that what he found actually was gold even though no other gold was found even in the general area where he lived. That he never allowed anyone to see it makes me believe that he knew he was full of shit, that he was a convicted con-man before becoming an American messiah only convinces me more so.

Permalink Reply by Rayven Alandria on September 8, 2009 at 2:08pm

Thanks for that info Aaron. If what you say is correct, then the *after-death conversion* is not quite as disgusting as I thought it was. It's still kind of stupid, but at least it's not as bad as I felt it was.

Permalink Reply by Realizer on September 8, 2009 at 2:17pm

The baptisms are but a bi-product of the geneology program, the real reason for the worlds biggest geneological library is to find females who are not married to a worthy mormon. Very few women will go to hell, most will be temple married to a worthy mormon!!
They will be required to produce spirit children to populate the worlds that the templed mormons will be GODS on.........

Permalink Reply by Louis on September 8, 2009 at 3:53pm

Oh ok, it's not merit or faith; it's pure utilitarianism, they just need ghost wombs for their ghost babies.

Permalink Reply by Dustin on September 9, 2009 at 1:54am

they will practice poligimy in heaven too!!! thats how they will make enough spirit babies to populate there planets they will create! cause every one knows that god has to have sex for us to have a children. If u do the math they will need alot of wives. That is why bad stuff happens, cuz god is really busy with all his wives making spirit babies for earth! makes total sense to me.

Permalink Reply by Aaron S. (USA) on September 9, 2009 at 12:04pm

Jacqueline knows her Mormonism!

A couple other fun facts:

Most people know that the Church used to prohibit blacks from entering the Priesthood, but did you know that Jews have to have their Jew-blood burned out of them by the Holy Ghost before they can receive it?

Also, Mormons are way ahead of us on the science game. Joseph Smith knew that there were twelve planets in the solar system, but so far, we've only been able to discover eight of them. (Darn you, Pluto!)

Permalink Reply by Louis on September 9, 2009 at 10:53pm

Also, black people actually came after white people. Mormon science at its best.