I've always found baptism for the dead to be ingredibly disrespectful. We all live with our own beliefs and values, nobody has the right to mess with them after we are gone.

As a Jewish person, I find baptisms for victims and survivors of the Holocaust to be especially egregious and disrespectful. After experiencing so much violence and trauma from antisemitism, it’s truly adding insult to injury when people do this. Judaism isn’t just a religion for us, but a deep sense of community and identity. To try and take that away from us, in death, is almost cruel and shows a deep lack of empathy and care. I respect all religions and religious people, but what I don’t respect is people who think their own religion needs to be forced upon everyone else. I love being Jewish, but I’d never try and convince someone to convert or posthumously convert them. It works for me, but it certainly doesn’t work for everybody, and that’s ok. Religious pluralism and tolerance is a beautiful and important thing.

What if im already chilling in Nirvana when all of a sudden im whisked away to moron heaven?

Omg i remember my first temple recommend interview at 12yo and the bishop (my best friends dad💀) asked if i kept the law of chastity and my dumbass was like "...i try to🤠", and this man looks at me for a full second and was like "do you *know* what the law of chastity is?" I did not. And if that doesnt sum up the church and blind consent, then i dont know what does 😐

I was a member for 7 years, and wasn’t happy with what I saw for at least 5 years. The thing that finished me off was the bishop wanting me to baptize my late father by proxy. When I asked him why I would do that, he said that if I didn’t, then my Dad would never sit at the right hand of god. I told him that if his god didn’t want my Dad at his right hand, then I didn’t think much of his god. Because my Dad was the kindest gentlest man you could wish to meet. He would help anyone. He served his country for 14 yrs in the Army. I never heard him use bad language, and he loved my Mom and my sister and I very much. So I told the bishop what he could do with his god, collected my husband and 2 children, walked out and never went back. Best thing we ever did. Of course in the church records we are EXCOMMUNICATED. Gasp 😂

"Mom, why do all the people I'm baptized for have polish names?" - actual question somebody I know had. Oh my god....

I was actually a convert at age 16. Right before this, my grandpa had died and he was probably the closest person to me. I remember my Mormon friends and the missionaries used that to get me to convert. They essentially told me that if I wanted to see him again, I would need to convert, and then baptize him using baptisms for the dead. So, I ended up converting. It was actually baptisms for the dead that made me run SOO fast. It was my first temple experience, and all my friends were so excited. I thought it would be this magical experience. I literally wanted to throw up after after I left the temple. I immediately knew I was in a cult during the whole process. I felt so scared and sick. Thankfully I was only part of the church for a year and a half, but that year and a half really traumatized me. I feel soooo much sympathy and pain for those that grew up in the church and had that trauma from the day they were born.

It's typical of cults to have their followers performing nonsensical routines and practices to give them a false sense of accomplishment which aims to strengthen their obedience. I believe this is why Smith created this practice.

Anne Frank? The gross disrespect is unbelievable

I’m a Catholic and we accept any baptisms done “In the name of The Father, and of The Son, and of The Holy Spirit” EXCEPT for Mormon baptisms! That’s because the Mormon conception of God and who the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are are just fundamentally and radically different, so the intent of those baptism are inherently different than those of Protestants

people in my father's village in northern Portugal were extremely upset on finding out our records were used this way. while I appreciate being able to see hundreds of years of our obscure tiny mountain village's baptismal and death records, I understand why my family feels violated, especially with a very superstitious Portuguese-Catholic background

Baptism for the dead is why I don’t use a certain free online genealogy site. I could be wrong but all those millions + of names have ID numbers and my suspicion is they end up being baptized without consent.

Thank you for making videos for secular people to see how Mormonism really is

Are Mormons not aware of the Biblical issues related to gold cow statues? That's kind of a strange choice for the baptismal font.

I have never been and never will be Mormon, but I do live in Utah. I feel like if I keep watching these videos, a squad of elders in a black van is gonna come and disappear me in the night. I appreciate the education about what my neighbors are up to!

Such a silly ritual that does no good for anyone, except keeping the cult members busy while achieving nothing.

it is sad that a church with enormous resources and tons of volunteers do not use it for actual needs as you stated. imagine the changes they could make if this was used to train people for jobs, help the homeless, domestic violence safe housing, etc. they could literally change the world!

Thank you for talking about this! I converted at 25 and really no idea about baptisms for the dead. (I actually had no idea about the temple at all. I honestly thought it was optional because there’s only 1 in my entire state lol😅) Literally the Sunday I was confirmed (by the way I had FOUR damn men touching my head. 😂) the sisters who taught me told me I needed to get my temporary temple recommend, which I didn’t know existed. I do so, and from that point the missionaries (sisters, elders and seniors) were OBSESSED about me getting to the temple to do baptisms for the dead! I was like, what the hell? No one said anything about this? Facebook messages asking if I could go this week, weekend, etc. interrogation before sacrament meeting! The senior missionaries got me on Family Search, and they pretty much required that I add someone before I could leave the building. It just felt so disgusting to me. Finally, when the sisters explained to me that my baptism did not “save” me, but temple ordinances do, I never came back into the church. I am still disgusted to this day.

My husband was raised LDSx, me Baptist. When we found out that his sister who is LDS did a baptism for their deceased father, it was a bad day in that family. Every one of the brothers 3 and 1 other sister were so mad. That is a decision between a person and God. We don’t get to make the choice for others. Luckily my husband converted and he never made our kids go do anything with their family church related. His sister did say 1 time the kids could stay with her and go to church with her. I said no they can stay with you but I will pick them up before church for them to go with us. She said well they can just go with me, I stood firm. My husband didn’t even know what to say. He knew me well enough not to push, of course this was before he converted.

About cemetery/headstone photography: as someone who has worked in cemetery conservation, including for city, state, and federal government as is a member of the largest gravestone and cemetery research organization in the world, cemetery and gravestone can photography is actually really important to us because grave markers degrade, get broken, fall over all the time. It helps with historical cemetery management so that we can even begin to guess how many people are in a cemetery and where, which is important for compliance with a lot of laws. Plus it can help people find where relatives are buried. I actually used to use family search a lot to do reverse genealogies to find descendants of people associated with certain archaeological sites and cemeteries for the government (so that we could contact them when/if something happened as that’s often a legal or ethical requirement). It’s one of the only places you can find a lot of census data for free. If you’re just a regular person, you can’t see anything about temple work.

My former (now deceased) husband was a Mormon convert. When my parents died, he had them baptized into the LDS church. I was not happy.

Wow that's such a disrespectful act that they baptized Ann Frank

Just when I think Alyssa has taught me everything I wanted to know about all things Mormon I'm pulled back in. I can't get enough. I'm learning so much

I have to say, I did not expect to find out that my great grandfather who was born, raised and died in a very small Portuguese village has been baptized by the LDS Church post-mortem on a random Sunday night but…. upon checking the records, here I sit with this information 🧍🏼‍♀️

It’s genuinely so fucked up and disrespectful to Anne frank and countless other Jewish people that they have done this to because they were massacred BECAUSE of their religion/culture so I highly doubt if any of them had a voice today that they would accept or be honored by such offensive and disrespectful act

It’s been so long that I forgot about the white scrunchies and no nail polish! Getting out of the font in front of everyone was absolutely the most embarrassing thing. Being very self-conscious and ashamed of my (normal) teenage body, it was so humiliating to have the soaking wet, white jumpsuit cling to every inch of me. Afterwards, we were always rushed to get in and out of the shower, dressed, and ready to leave. We would strip off our jumpsuits and white temple-lent underwear (those sports bras had absolutely NO coverage) once we were in the shower, and hand them over to a young women’s leader on the other side. She would then hand over a dry towel. Our dry church clothes were kept in lockers, and we’d have to have a friend hand them to us. The whole thing was just so uncomfortable. If we were lucky, we’d have a few minutes to try to fix our hair and put on makeup, but all of us were self-conscious about our soaking wet hair and bare/bare-ish faces.

the video of the baptism looks horrible. kids being repeatedly pushed underwater by adult men?? and not really being able to say no? like thats objectively awful

I was an exchange student in Utah in a Mormon family. I always thought baptisms for the dead were so weird and it still makes me so uncomfortable. The fact that they baptized Hitler is fucking crazy (especially since I’m German). I love the people and my host family but everything with the temple especially is so weird

As a child my dad did baptisms for the dead all the time. He’s been baptized hundreds of times!! It’s so wild.

Can honestly say this was the single most traumatising experience in Mormonism. Not only was it completely bad vibes bears, I seriously fucked up my back. Was all downhill from there. I’m sorry to all the Jewish people and those who didn’t want a religion assigned to them that I was made to take that decision taken away from. I’m so sorry. edit: sorry I can’t reply to all of you, apparently free speech doesn’t exist on KZfaq lmfao

I cannot believe there are literally some mormons out there getting baptized on top of 12 golden cows like come ON

One of the greatest challenges I've had since leaving is when sharing my experience I'm argued with and called ungrateful. I wish people were respectful and supportive.

Do they not read exodus? One would think they'd have the sense to stay away from any sort of golden bovine.

In the '90s in the Provo temple we would regularly get baptized for 40 to 50 people in one night. I remember one trip where I got baptized 70 times.

And a young girl surrounded by only men with no female or parent present is so creepy! No way in hell would my child be subjected to any of that?

Exmo here. I remember one temple trip where after I finished getting baptized, I realized I had forgotten an extra (all-white) bra. I had to stand in the dressing room with my bra under the hand dryer 💀 I didn't dry it fully because we were so rushed so when we went to the temple cafeteria (omg the food there was so good), my bra soaked through my dress in front of everyone 😭 Including my crush! It was MORTIFYING. Or the time I brought white underwear with very very light gray polka dots and the temple matron said it was a no-go so I had to use temple-provided underwear 😖 So many bad experiences, glad I'm out

Honestly so weird now… like pov im 14 just got done with soccer now i have to rush to the church to drive 30 min to the temple, do these baptisms, get in n out with all the teens, then get back home at 9:30pm at night and get ready for 6am seminary :)))

My best friend of nearly 13 years now is ex-mormon. Watching your channel helps me to understand her journey with the church & leaving the church without having to ask her a ton of questions all the time. I'm a Christian myself and its really interesting seeing exactly how different everything is. Thank you for this content ❤️❤️ You're helping me understand my best friends journey and how i can best support her.

That’s such a violation to ancestors who didn’t consent before passing away. 😢

As someone who loves databasing activities this peaks my interest BUT it's still messed up in all levels when you really think about it.

Okay, I am not religious but I come from a very catholic country. So, when I first read: baptized for the dead I was like: Weird but ok, maybe is similar to the oils. ....... Aaaand I was wrong. This is nuts, like. There is a major difference between the catholic oils and this: consent. In catholicism there is 3 types of oils: Oleum Catechumenorum or Oleum Sanctum (the oil of cathecumens) they used for baptism and symbolizes purification and strength; Oleum Infirmorum (the oil of the sick) they used for sick people or that they're closed to die and it's used to take away the illness or give the affection and console if not curable; and the last one is the Sacrum Chrisma (sacred balm), the most important one, they used it in special occasions because it's not bless as the other two, it's consecrate because it's the power of the Holy Ghost (Spirit? Idk, English is weird to me). So they can only make it in the Holy Thursday during the Chrism Mass with the collaboration of numerous bishops. They used only in special occasions as Baptisms, the First Communion (the first time a child goes into the Eucharist) and Confirmation. It used to symbolizes that you are willing to follow the faith and trust in God or something among those lines, so it confides you part of the power of the Holy Ghost as a good Christian. So I thought initially that I would be like the oil of the sick: a ill person WILLINGLY going to the church asking for a last blessing to feel the affection of God and their loved ones before it's their time to go. But this... This can't be right... Like, there is no consideration of the poor person who died... There is no consent in this whatsoever. I'm not a fan of catholicism (or any kind of faith if I'm being honest) but this is just nuts. This is not personal faith, this is imposition and it's not right.

I have officially left the church and yesterday I went into Family Search and deleted my tree and put as my first name Shelagh and last name Do Not Baptize. I think they'll get the message.

I want to know who the guy was that got baptized for Hilter, probably feeling holier than thou for being so forgiving. Also, I don't know if this is docterine, but I remember being taught that when you die those you were baptized for will be the first to welcome you, and I dont think I want Adolf Hitler welcoming me.

I was always so scared that I would never be able to go to the celestial kingdom, bc no matter what ancestors I baptized and sealed, I couldn't get my mom sealed to anyone (she wasn't married or sealed in the temple) so my line would still be lost, bc of the disconnect.

I remember looking on Family Search years ago and seeing that the Church had not only baptized Adolf Hitler posthumously, but they also baptized Eva Braun and sealed them together. How thoughtful! [/sarcasm] And I think what gets left out of the Jewish Holocaust victims thing sometimes is not just that they were murdered in the Holocaust, and baptizing them alongside Adolf Hitler is gross, but also that they were murdered, famously, FOR BEING JEWS. Their Jewish identity was the whole reason that they died in these horrible ways by the millions in the first place. So for an organization that is already supercessionist in its beliefs (i.e. claiming to have the "true" Temple ceremony, being the "true" inheritors of the Jewish priesthood, et cetera) then subsuming these Jewish people into their records after their deaths is particularly upsetting and offensive. It's not that Jewish people believe that their relatives are now Mormon, it's that they don't want their family members' names anywhere on the rolls of the Mormon Church, because decades from now, if someone goes looking and sees this, they may think that these Jewish people actually converted to Mormonism at some point (which indeed is the hope of the people doing the baptizing, albeit for a posthumous conversion). The whole thing leaves such a terrible taste in my mouth, honestly, and I have zero doubt that there are still people baptizing famous people and Holocaust victims as I type this.

32:49 “for anyone recovering from Mormonism” I love your channel

When I was about 11, my dad (who converted to Mormonism) and my step mom (who was already Mormon) and all of her kids got sealed in the temple as a family while we were on a family vacation. My brother and I had to sit outside of the temple with our step grandma while my birth father got sealed eternally to his new wife and kids. My brother and I felt like our father was replacing us with new kids. As we were sitting out there for what felt like forever, my step grandma kept telling us things like “you could be in there if you just got baptized.”

Thank you for covering this issue. It is one that is of great concern to many in the Jewish community (among others), since some of the people receiving these posthumous baptisms went to their deaths rather than abandoning their faith, and baptism against their stated wishes is viewed as a slap in the face and completely disrespectful of the Dead. Every once in awhile the issue gets resurrected and receives some press, and the LDS Church does damage control claiming that it is no longer practiced, is not formally authorized by the church, and so forth. However reports from inside the church indicate that the practice is still ongoing.

During my stint in the church, I did this. It sits wrong with me now, but back then I was told that everyone dead was learning the scriptures and WANTED this done. 😢

I was an adult convert for a short amount of time. I did baptisms once but quit before my endowment. I was interested in genealogy before becoming a member (it’s one of the ways they hooked me in) and I remember the ward being excited because my family tree researched back to the 16th century was basically fresh meat. After I left the church I tried to delete my tree off FamilySearch and discovered it’s impossible to do that. One nuance your non-Mormon viewers may not realize is since the only thing teenagers can do at the temple are baptisms, they’re usually the only ones doing baptisms. When I first got my temple recommend I got sent along with the youth trip to the temple. Imagine a heavy-set middle-aged woman being dunked by a scrawny teenage boy. The first time I went under my feet slid out from under me and the boy wasn’t strong enough to pull me back up again! I started flailing around like I was drowning! After a couple more failed attempts they had to go get an adult male temple worker to go throw on a jumpsuit and take over. One of the adult chaperones on the trip told me she saw the spirits of my grandparents watching in approval. I hadn’t seen or felt anything but the pressure to have a spiritual experience at the temple is so strong that I lied and said I saw them too. Thankfully it took me less than a year to realize the whole thing was a scam and request my name to be removed from the membership.

When I was active I just couldn’t do the family history. My child hood was so traumatic(father abandonment and sexual abuse). My childhood has dramatically effected my life and how it has played out. I cannot seem to form any type of connection with the opposite gender, I’m heavily introverted, have very few friends, no kids, and most of my life felt like an alien walking around the earth.

When my uncle, aunt and I (all Jewish) went to see the Book of Mormons on the West End for a fun night out this is all we knew about LDS because of how much outrage it sparked in our community when the news came to us. Crazy stuff honestly, thank you for talking openly about it. We have a few names to check on these online records unfortunately.

my father was also baptized/confirmed post mortem. His Mormon friend (who was also my mom's masters advisor and sat on her thesis panel) at least asked him close to his death if he would consent to it. Which is cool. One rare part was that he was (inducted?) after his proxy baptism into the Melchizedek Priesthood. At least that is what his friend said.

One thing I’m wondering is if LDS belief were to be correct, why would I bother joining the church in life if I could just be baptized in death? They seem pretty liberal on who they proxy baptize so it’d be a best of both worlds: A fulfilling sinful life and eventually ending up in spirit paradise after a short sentence in spirit prison.

Great video, I used to want to do a baptism for the dead for my late uncle who died in a worl related accident when he was only 20. Looking back now, I am so glad I never got the chance. Because not only do I no longer believe, but from what I've heard about him. I don't think he would've wanted it.

I was friends with Mormons when I was in middle/high school. I used to call their temple 'The Mormon Batcave'. To say theey weren't amused is an understatement 😂😬

Is it just me, or was the jumpsuit and the other things you had to wear in the showers super sheer? It was a long time ago, but I remember back in the locker area I was given a thing to wear to the showers that was completely open on the sides? I just remember feeling super exposed and uncomfortable.

I mean, temples are less common but in Salt Lake they FEEL like they are everywhere!

back in the 70s I did this, the SLC baptismal font was cool but everything else was so rushed (talking to fast) I found nothing sacred about it. There was a couple of us kids went through with the name "John John" which had us scratching our heads.

i really enjoy these longer videos. they're so informative and your voice pleasant to listen to! 😊

Thank you for such well though out and descriptive videos! You really are a wealth of information and keep up the good work! We are all rooting for you, you’re doing amazing❤️💕

The biggest argument my brother (lds) and I (never lds) ever had as adults was when I found out that he was doing baptisms for the dead for our staunch Lutheran great grandfather. We didn't talk for a few years after that. Wish he would have let me know that the departed has the opportunity to decline, would have had us talking sooner. Guess I'm going to have to make sure he hasn't sealed me to my ex also. Thanks for all that you share!

I find it interesting that they allow a kid to participate in a macabre practice of baptism for the dead, yet she was clueless about the "law of chastity". I would think they would be drilling that into the heads of Mormon kids constantly. It's all about fear and control. What a crock of 💩! As if life isn't hard enough, they layer on all their BS rules and weird practices. Power to the ones who leave.

make a video about the general conference! The mormons I know are crazy about watching the sermon videos, even getting together as a family to watch them together intentionally. It feels like they hold this conference so highly

Alyssa, tbh i have so much i want to say having grown up in the church but idk how to express it and my anxiety still goes through the roof thinking about my experiences in the church. Thank you for saying all the quiet parts out loud. ❤

I remember laughing so hard I was crying when reading the Mormon church was utilizing German papers to baptize Jews. They were so polite and basically said, “please stop” 😂🙈

Thank you for speaking on this. It's incredibly offensive to us in the Jewish community.

Necromancy.

Oofta. Baptism is supposed to be something that they choose to do, because it’s what they believe and feel called to do. How disrespectful and dishonorable.

I love your content, Alyssa! Thank you for using your voice. I have to say, it’s so creepy to me that the ads I get on your videos are frequently ads for the LDS church and even other scams. They really know how to prey on the vulnerable

This is all so weird. Sooooo much weirder than i knew😂Thank you. I am loving your content.

I found out while doing genealogy that I have at least one ancestor who this was done to. It felt very violating to know this was done to someone who died prior to the founding of Mormonism.

I had no idea this was why Mormons are so into genealogy. This is fascinating.

Fantastic video! Thank you for explaining. Your content is so interesting and your presentation is very well done.

That's genuinely evil and disturbing....you've no right to push a religion on anyone, let alone someone who's dead

Okay I’m sorry but Anne frank? That’s just not cool. Like I’m an ex Mormon and the things we did was ugh

I am so glad you’re explaining this. When I toured the DC temple during their open house in 2022, they touched on this when we toured the font room (or whatever its called) and I was confused.

I happened to be camping near the temple in nauvoo Illinois when it was just built and had not yet been dedicated and they allowed non-mormons inside. That's when I saw the baptism area for the first time. It's a crazy coincidence that I happened to be there during that time because I had very little knowledge of the religion prior to walking through that temple

Hey if this ever reaches you!! you are doing incredible work!! thank you for holding my hand through my really rough deconstruction from the church! i love you and never let anyone stop you from telling the truths that they smother!

I joined as a teenager, and I would hear about kids going to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. I think I felt a little left out that I was never asked to do this. I also was never asked or invited to go to Mormon girls' camp. I always felt like an outsider.

Thank you for always putting so much research and thought into your videos. Was wondering if at some point you could give your take on Mormon culture vs doctrine. When I was deconstructing that was often the argument brought up along with the “people are imperfect…” Also just ordered your book, so excited to read! 😊

Thanks again for making these ❤

I’m so glad you made this video. I was curious about how the baptism of the dead worked.

Thank you for making this content. Keep it up 🙌

My dad (now deceased, 2020 😥) had said that he envied people who saw spirits of the departed in the temple. He wanted one of those experiences greatly. He told me some stories once of people who had seen departed souls. And frankly, it scared the bejeebers out of me! I have not believed in the Church since my early 20's, so about 38 years now. It's so freeing. I never have gone through the temple for endowments, but did get baptized for the dead on a couple occasions. Also, a little story: I went as a teenager (fully believing Mormon then) to the Seattle Temple Dedication Ceremony. While they were doing the hosanas, I suddenly got a very bad feeling. It was almost like a whisper, someone saying "You should NOT be here!" I was confused, since I knew I was "worthy" to attend, based on Mormon standards. I brushed it off, but then several years later, it all made sense. After I had done a lot of research and study about the Church, with my sister. I'm so thankful I have a critical mind.

never morman here-thank you for putting this info out! it is so fascinating!

Funniest thing about this video is, I got a Mormon missionary ad half way through.

What does 'holding the priesthood' mean exactly? because I have heard it in so many different contexts (within mormonism) and its a bit confusing. Are there requirements for getting the priesthood other than being a man?

Thanks for making this video, I am an exmo that left at 13yrs, and a huge part of the push to leave was this temple experience (it's the only thing I personally experienced in the temple as a mormon) I've done I think only 2 or 3 of these before breaking down, praying about it because I was so uncomfortable with the lack of consent and everything else you talked about, and I felt the most potent dread after that prayer because I realized I needed to leave, and the hardest thing that dawned on me then is that I didn't have a shelf break in the same way as a lot of exmos, i always asked my mom questions about that cause I knew no one else would give me a honest answer and she'd sometimes tell me she wasn't sure. Once I experienced temple work I had doubts during all of those experiences, it was a lot of seeing it for how messed up it is, then feeling shame cause we're taught that's Satan, and feeling like I needed to leave this church all at once was so much. My temple experience was traumatic enough for me to disassociate a lot during it. I did also have to remove nail polish 😑 Thanks if you read all this, and i really liked this video ❤

This is the only way they can get new members.

We had that issue when a grandmother died. The biggest part of the family were upset. It was years before we got an apology.

Really nice video, Alyssa! I really appreciate the longer format 😊

So in Europe, we have a lot of data protection laws. I live in Poland and, recently, there have been big moves for people to remove their names from the Catholic Church. You can always declare to the Church that you are no longer interested and that you're leaving, essentially excommunicating yourself. However, the Church still hopes you will return so they keep records. Using those European data protection laws, regular people have gone up to the Church and said, I do not approve of you holding my data. Theoretically, it should do the trick. Would such a thing work to counter Mormon death baptisms? Also, question about ex-mos- do current Mormons baptize ex-mos as well?

The Temple: What if the experience of pilgrimaging to a Cathedral in the Middle Ages and pilgrimaging to Disneyland as a 12 year old was both

I’m Mormon and I love your channel. I really like your content. I come from a non lds background but have joined the church in my adult life. Your videos have taught me a lot and I think it’s important to know stuff. It’s complicated but for me it makes sense. Anyway I really like your videos and I just wanted to say thank you.

terrific personal and thoughtfully persuasive vids

how do i get them to never ever do this, super disrespectful.

As a person of the Jewish Faith, I find this highly offensive!

Amazing they have made literal golden calves. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Baptism for the dead and the clear racial bias in the church are a big part of what made me encouraged to leave