http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700265520,00.html

For an explanation of our views on scripture that should dispel your other questions, please see the link I already gave you.

I guess I always considered Mormons to be protestant as they accept only the protestant bible…not the septuigent that Catholics and Orthodox use. This also is somewhat of a puzzler as Mormons according to the education I received by mormon friends in school, that the Church fell into an apostate of unknown origin and the Church fell away until Joseph Smith. This would make one believe that mormons would use the Septuigent as that is the original of the torah before Jamnia in 96 AD… However if you do not believe in sola scriptura how do mormons choose to treat the story of Lazuras and the rich man…are mormons protestants? I am sorry that you had trouble following me :(.

lest we forget the foundation of protestant religion “sola scriptura”, we need to remember the rich man who died at the same time as Lazuras…

I’m having just a little trouble following you. Why are you talking about the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura, which you know is entirely rejected by Latter-day Saints?

See this link for an explanation of our views on scripture:

http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-851-30,00.html

This chapter is NOT an endorsement of the practice of baptism of the dead, rather it is an indication by Paul of all that was going on in Corinth after he began the Church there. Notice he says “they” and the rest of the references after admonitions against intolerable goings on he states the “we” things that christians do. In addition, the Bible DOES give references to “Whole families being baptized”. This gives rise to the practice of ALL members of a family being baptized, including babies…nothing hypocritical there. Also, lest we forget the foundation of protestant religion “sola scriptura”, we need to remember the rich man who died at the same time as Lazuras…Remember what was said by GOD, That they must make their choice while living…and he would not allow the man to get a message to his living brothers, let alone any dead ones,that the man could NOT change his mind once he found out after death that he really wanted to be in heaven.

Notably it would bother the Catholics to give away such information even though they know Mormonism is “wrong” as the first reply states for a single reason….you cannot cooperate with evil as they see it. Screwtape was very inane too…in the beginning.

Also I believe it is important to identify the significance and matter and form of baptism…It is not simply a ritual for initiation. It is more than that. The real reason that Catholics take issue with this mormon tradition is because the Mormon idea of baptism is at odds with ALL christianity. This is why people who join the Catholic church later in life, if they have been baptized in a protestant denomination, are not re-baptized…an occurence that is at odds with the meaning of baptism altogether, and why it is that Mormon baptism is NOT considered valid in the Catholic Church. re-baptizing is like re-removing your apendix…it is already been done and no amount of doing it again will perfect what has been done already. The only way Mormon baptism could have any significance would be for it to be at odds with the centuries old practice of baptism. Otherwise Mormons would accept when a person has already been baptized.

I think we do need to at least recognize that by performing proxy baptisms–especially for people still in living memory–we are basically saying that we know that individual’s wishes better than the individual’s own family did/does. To someone who was close to the decedent and knew of the decedent’s religious devotion (and often, the decedent’s ardent wish to not be associated with Mormonism)–that kind of “we-know-better-than-you” condescension comes off as a slap in the face.

The irony is that if more church members (persons doing their own family history, as well as those working in the Extraction Program) followed the church’s own guidelines regarding the baptisms of recently-deceased persons, this wouldn’t be nearly the issue that it is today.

The Catholic records will disintegrate sooner or later and then no one will have access to them, instead of them getting a free copy of each parish record for backup purposes and easier reading. But, whatever is most important.

I don’t believe I’ve ever met an eight year old child who, in my estimation, could possibly have understood the nuances of what a baptism really means.

I’m not going to go so far as to say our daughter fully understood the nuances of what baptism really means, but we did all we could think of to ensure we taught her what baptism means.