I don’t know if I’m just doing something wrong but I built my family tree and the website seems to have barely any information about my family at all. I found out more just checking out our national archives then what I found on this website. It’s maybe worth noting that I’m not in the US and it does appear to be somewhat US-centric.
The best it could find was a couple of enrollment records for voting and a single immigrant notification in an old newspaper. It didn’t find these either by itself, I had to manually go though the search system to find it. The OCR didn’t even get the spelling of the name correct.
I’m not sure what I expected but it was definitely better than this, especially for all the pay walls they throw up.
Latter-day Saints believe that the deceased may choose to accept or reject baptisms for the dead. There is no “forcing dead people to join the church” going on.
“Dear Angel of the Lord, I am afraid that having died and been sent to spirit prison to be ministered to by the souls of righteous Nephites, I am still not convinced. I am sure that Catholic heaven is just on the other side of those pearly gates, and I formally request a transfer.”
Do you not understand how patently absurd this is for a faith that makes claims of exclusive truth? It’s PR nonsense so that most outside people will shake their heads and back off, and members won’t feel like they’re doing something disrespectful and disturbing.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. Your paragraph of dialog doesn’t make any sense to me.
I’m saying that the church claims to be the one true church with unique access to the entirety of the Gospel. I am further saying that Baptism for the Dead is described as something that the deceased person can choose to accept or reject.
I am then saying that the “choice” to accept truths presented to you after you have died and find you now exist on a supernatural plane in which the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was “correct” is no meaningful choice whatsoever. Presenting it as such is to obfuscate the fact that the Church will continue to heed its own counsel as to what is “a respectful, reverent process that is motivated purely by love,” and that the non-believers need to STFU so the Mormons can get on with the extremely important business of saving souls, but only those whose names were written down somewhere, because apparently the Lord is a stickler for paperwork.
What they believe is irrelevant. It’s disrespectful to the beliefs of the deceased and their loved ones. Do you realize how insulting this would be to a Jewish person? It’s spitting in the face of their own beliefs.
Those who understand the spirit in which vicarious baptism are performed by Latter-day Saints understand that it is a respectful, reverent process that is motivated purely by love. It is not spitting in the face of anyone’s beliefs.