Does Mormonism Have “Dead, Zombie Rituals”? [The OTHER WORLD Series]

#1: This is written by a Mormon who says in the piece: I really enjoy attending the temple and participating in the baptisms for the dead...

#2: Yet the author still asks: Is the endowment ceremony a “dead, zombie ritual”...

#3: From the blog:

Also, Mormon Expression did an episode on The Top Ten Changes to the Temple:

Removal of penalties

Oath of Vengeance removed

Lecture at the veil and Adam-God theory used to be taught

You used to be naked under the shield during Washings & Anointings

The preacher was removed who used to lead participants in a Protestant hymn

Five points of fellowship abandoned

Changes to the garments

Washings & Anointings used to be with whiskey and perfume

Endowment now is a film rather than live performance (except the Salt Lake and Manti temples)

Change of female pledge of obedience such that women pledge allegiance to their husband as the harken unto the Lord

For a rendering of other temple changes written by a Mormon, see:

Consider the multiplication of "endowments for the dead" performed in Mormon temples:

1870s-->1985: Almost 86 million

A. "Through 1985, a cumulative total of...almost 86 million endowments for the dead have been performed."

1985-1988: Another 14 million in just three years (100 million total)

B. 25 years ago today - 1988 Oct.1 [Lds complete 100 million endowments for the dead in temples]

1990-1996: Another 50 million (150 million total)

C. "A 1996 estimate by Richard Cowan states that around 150 million endowments have been performed, most of which were in behalf of deceased persons." (Endowment (Mormonism))

Almost a billion endowments for the dead thru 2014???

D. Projecting the above #...if Lds merely maintained its early 1990 growth figures, it has now performed 300 million endowments for the dead. More likely, due to the the fact that the Mormon Church went from 49 temples in 1996 to now 143 completed temples (almost quadrupled) -- with a staggering 48 completed in 1999 and 2000 alone -- and technological (digital) increasing genealogical information, it wouldn't surprise me to discover that Mormonism is on the cusp of its billionth endowment for the dead!

These numbers are mind-boggling considering:

The Mormon Church...

...didn't even build temples for necro purposes until after 1840...

...and didn't have an "endowment house" until 1855...

...didn't really start endowments for the dead on any kind of broader scale til the late 1870s...

...and didn't have a temple outside of Utah until late 1919...

First temple built Kirtland Ohio, 1836; Second temple built Nauvoo, Illinois c 1845. Even as the Nauvoo temple was under construction, portions of it were used for sacred rites, such as baptisms for the dead in the basement font. During the winter of 1845-46, the temple began to be used for additional ordinances, including the Nauvoo-era rituals of Endowment and Sealings in Marriage and Adoptions.

First temple built Kirtland Ohio, 1836;

Thank you. However, that's an incomplete comment - at least in the context of baptisms of the dead.

You see, the Mormon doctrine of baptizing the dead didn't even enter the picture til 1840. So that temple wasn't constructed for that purpose.

Secondly, the Mormons lost that temple when Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon fled the town due to an insolvent debt on an insolvent bank Smith jumpstarted + bad real estate debt, etc. (And for those who might be tempted to think it...No, the Mormons were NOT persecuted out of Ohio)

Per LDS "apostle" Boyd K. Packer:
"They built the temple in Kirtland...The Saints lost the Kirtland Temple—that was to be something of a pattern for that generation. The Church does not have the Kirtland Temple now.” (Lds "apostle" Boyd K. Packer, The Holy Temple, p. 174, Bookcraft, 1980)

Seems like they did some funky things 150 years ago.

Other than intellectual curiosity, who cares?

Last I checked, if you told them to go away, they left.

(And I forgot to mention in the last post that the time period Smith fled Kirtland was the late 1830s...again, before baptism of the dead being intro’d in 1840)

I really wish FR weren’t used as a major conduit to demonize The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

he vitriol is beneath what FR is about. It’s never an adult conversation or honest inquiry.

That said, parse this.

KJV

1 Corinthians 15:29

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

Second temple built Nauvoo, Illinois c 1845. Even as the Nauvoo temple was under construction, portions of it were used for sacred rites, such as baptisms for the dead in the basement font. During the winter of 1845-46, the temple began to be used for additional ordinances, including the Nauvoo-era rituals of Endowment and Sealings in Marriage and Adoptions.

Again, let me cite Lds "apostle" Boyd Packer from his book The Holy Temple (1980):

“Much of what happened at Kirtland was repeated in Nauvoo. We built a temple in Nauvoo. It was destroyed...In Nauvoo the temple was defiled and destroyed.” (Packer, p. 174)

So what you really are referencing is but a mere handful of baptisms for the dead in the early 1840s to mid 1840s...It really wasn't until the latter 1870s in Utah that Mormons seriously embraced baptisms for the dead.

And the rates really weren't all that high "per member" until Heber J. Grant's "presidency" began pushing it in the latter 1920s. Mormons had a high spike in the 1930s...only to be diminished in the 1940s.

It then began to pick up steam again...and Hinckley's big push for new Mormon temples worldwide, coupled with the digital revolution making historical genealogical records available, is when it began looking like a chain fast-food drive thru operation.

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One other note:

Now what's quite interesting in Packer's above comment...one that made me think, "Wait a minute, Mr. Packer! I thought Joseph Smith prophesied on Jan. 19, 1841 that 'my servant Joseph and his seed after him {shall} have place in that house, from generation to generation, forever and ever, saith the Lord. And let the name of that house be called Nauvoo House...'” (Lds "scripture" Doctrine & Covenants 124:59-60)

...Hmm...I guess phrases like “generation to generation” re: Smith's personal household and “forever and ever” must have different meanings to Mormons and their leaders, eh?

It’s never an adult conversation or honest inquiry.

I beg your pardon. I almost always engage in dialogue. An exchange of ideas. And I usually cite Mormon leaders themselves...something rarely done on FR when discussing religious opinions and convictions.

IoW...I painstakingly allow Mormon leaders to speak for themselves...rather than simply citing only what others have said about them.

Your use of the word "never" is not only vacant hyperbole, but it suggests you've omnisciently examined EVERY single thread & comment on FR of which you reference.

(May I suggest you bow out of your bid for such claimed omniscience?)

...demonize The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints...vitriol

To accuse a fellow FREEPER of being vitriolic...(acidic...caustic) seems to betray what you might otherwise advocate. IoW, your appeal to religious tolerance is hard to fathom if you don't tolerate what others post on FR.

Why is it religious tolerance for others, but you seemingly have difficulty practicing it yourself?

parse this. KJV 1 Corinthians 15:29 Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

Simple. Here, let me cite the same verse with proper emphasis on a single word:

"what shall THEY do which are baptized for the dead...?"

[the apostle Paul doesn't say "we" are baptized for the dead...rather, he points to an unknown "they" sect practicing it...]

Btw, the evolution of baptizing the dead in which Lds temples was discussed on an earlier 2014 thread:
St. George Utah Temple: 1st operating temple [Dead 'Founding Fathers...appeared' in Mormon temple?]

I really wish FR weren’t used as a major conduit to demonize The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I know EXACTLY what you mean!

It is SO unbecoming!!

I'm glad it's merely an individual doing this; and NOT an Organized Religion!!!

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

That said, parse this.

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

O...
K...

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

'they' are pagan; non-Christians.

Have YOU any facts that show otherwise?

“Why is it religious tolerance for others, but you seemingly have difficulty practicing it yourself?”

the pot calling the kettle black!

For previous discussions linking the Mormon temple & the occult, see:
2013: * 15 occultic and controversial facts you may want to know about Lds temples [Vanity]
2013: * Reviews [The OTHER World Series: 'The eyes of the dead are upon us' - ex-LDS 'prophet']
2011: * Lds Temple Haunted? Did Declaration of Independence signers appear as ghosts to leader? [Vanity] (reposted in 2013)
* They See Dead People? (The OTHER World Series - LDS & Temple Hauntings)

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Do Mormon leaders still encourage occultic temple communications?

Judge for yourself:

DATE	Occultic Communication Encouraged	SOURCE
Open House start date April 3, 1993 San Diego, CA Temple	Visitations by the dead: Prior to the dedication of the San Diego temple, local Mormon families were given a packet entitled Family Temple Preparation Material. Included in this written material were about seven pages devoted to "true stories" of temple patrons who were visited by the dead	They See Dead People?
Aug. 12, 1949 -- republished by Mormon church in its Deseret Book Co. publishing, 1972	"I haven't actually seen any of them, but sometimes when I have finished an endowment or a sealing session in the Salt Lake Temple my bosom has burned, and I have known keep within me that those persons for whom I have officiated have accepted that work."	Bountiful Second Ward Chapel, "Disembodied Spirit Life" section of Life Eternal: A Series of Four Lectures Lynn A. McKinlay, Deseret Book Co. 1972, p. 206
1980	Lds "apostle" Boyd K. Packer: "On many occasions I have been present -- when sealings were to be performed, when temple ordinance work was being done, when funeral sermons were being preached --in circumstances when the veil was very thin. The gratitude of those who have gone beyond found its way through the misty barrier and was communicated as spiritual things are communicated."	The Holy Temple, Bookcraft, 1980, p. 267
2009	Even Mormon Sunday School material highlights spirit paranormal manifestations	Lds.org Sunday School Chapter Detail: Doctrine and Covenants and Church History Gospel Doctrine Teacher's Manual: See p. 2
Fall 2006 (and assumed other years' courses as well)	BYU freshman course offering	Religious Education class at BYU -- C261: Intro to Lds Family History (Genealogy): See 'Manifestations of the Spirits' section, pp. 57-58
1996	An official Mormon church publication -- even placed wholly as a digital publication for years -- highlighted such occultic communication allegedly occurring in 1884 and 1893 ... see chart below	Our Heritage: A Brief History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1996 pp. 99, 102
1983	An official Mormon church priesthood manual was encouraging such paranormal communication in citing an 1884 manifestation	Sermons and Missionary Services of Melvin Joseph Ballard, Deseret Book Co. p. 249, as cited in Come Follow Me, Melchizedek Priesthood Personal Study Guide, p. 162, 1983

“False teachings by a False Prophet and a FALSE religious organization fuels mine.

Where did YOU do missionary work?”

Well if that’s what drives you guys to do this stuff on a what SHOULD BE primarily a political website.
The anti Protestant, anti Catholic, anti Mormon stuff gets really old. Its the same crap; by the same posters ALL the time.
No love in any of it; just hatred comes across.
Maybe I’m just getting old and need to stay off the internet.

It is true. It is all true. Mormonism is a cult!! It says so in a cartoon.

Reject this dangerous Mormon cult, and join the Church of Cartoon Kristianity.

We’ve got pickled okra. We are orthodox.

CAUTION!! CHRISTIAN BASHING THREAD!!
----------------This thread does not praise God. It weakens faith----------------