(January 12, 2021 at 3:46 pm)brewer Wrote: There are special tokens and hand signs? I had no clue. Sounds stolen from the Masons.
Another: Why the fascination with ancestry and genealogy? I've heard that it's used to convert a person after they are dead.
Yes, it was. In the church: I was told that the Free Masons comparison came from ordinances performed in Solomon's temple. The Free Masons had an incomplete or incorrect version of these sacred rituals and Joseph Smith in restoring the true church of Jesus Christ also restored the correct version of those sacred ordinances.
After I left, I learned: That Joseph Smith was a Free Mason and introduced the Endowment ceremony just days after he became a Master Mason(odd coincidence, right? But that's Mormonism. Stuff that happened to Joseph Smith was merely an inspiration for true revelations from God and NOT inspirations for more wool spinning of a conman like you might assume). I also learned that up until 1992 the Endowment ceremony included very graphic descriptions and motions for penalties if the secret signs and handshakes were ever revealed. The hand signs they do now are but shadows of these old signs and they no longer speak of things like slitting the throat or disembowelling, etc. I went to the temple for the first time in 2007 but I'd like to think I'd recognize the cultish behavior if I'd been there for any of that stuff.
Another dose of cognitive dissonance: This ancient, sacred ordinance that is necessary for exaltation in the next life had to be restored to the earth because there was no correct form present that God would accept. ...but after surveying the church members who were creeped out by the penalties in the 70's and 80's resulting in a drop in membership, I suppose we can change this ordinance to update it for modern sensibilities. Anything sacred that is worth doing is certainly worth changing at a later date, I guess.
As for genealogy: busywork and indoctrination. That's my glib, apostate answer.
In reality, Mormonism puts up the pretense that they are family oriented so members are encouraged to do their family history work. The purpose is to take those names to the temple so that you can get their ordinances done. There is baptism, washing and anointing, endowments, and then sealing. You cannot have access to the ultimate high heaven and get your own planet and a harem of wives unless you do all of them. There's that question in theology about what happens to someone who never got the opportunity to hear the truth or get baptized? Are they just punished anyway? WRong. Mormon God shows mercy by forcing your descendants to find you in their records, take your name to the temple and get baptized in your place. It is a proxy system. Regular members only get baptised and endowments once. The returning trips to the temple over and over are all for the dead.
So they say. Going to the temple is a desensitizing and logic inoculation. The more times you go, especially with friends and family, bolstered by their cheer, pressured by their sense of duty, the less weird it appears. And the more likely you are to not rear up when some other weirdness happens. The more likely your defense mechanisms will kick in when you encounter something controversial about church history. Almost every exMo I have talked to about the temple endowment had the same thought I had the first time I went, "Omg...am I in a cult?" But many of us stayed in for years afterward, conditioned to "put it on the shelf".
Sorry, got a bit sidetracked. Yes, it is for proselytizing. In the afterlife right now and ever since there has been death, there have been missionaries on the other side, knocking on the doors of the dead to give them the lessons. Those that hear it for the first time and accept it have no recourse because they do not have bodies anymore to baptize. So, their descendants do that work, just in case. So that they already have all the ordinances done if they meet with afterlife missionaries and they can go to the highest heaven. If they meet with the missionaries and don't accept the message, then no harm no foul. But I have NEVER heard it assumed that dearly departed great grandma or great grandpa didn't want to be baptized. It is ALWAYS assumed, in thousands of stories, where while someone was getting baptized or getting endowments for the dead, "I felt great great cousin there! I could feel their joyous relief and gratitude as I got their work done for them! They've been waiting for so long!"
Once you die, of course you'd visit with Mormon missionaries and desperately want to get baptized. [/deadpan]
