Temple Prayer Roll

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2bizE
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Temple Prayer Roll

Post by 2bizE » Wed May 24, 2023 4:37 pm

Can someone explain to me how the names placed on a piece of paper (maybe even electronically today) can receive special blessings via a prayer?
If the names on a prayer roll works for prayers, why not just perform temple ordinance for all dead people in one big single ceremony?
For example, “I baptize you in the name of all people that are dead”….
Or, “I anoint your loins for all men that are dead.”

Get the dead taken care of and then focus on the living…
~2bizE

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Hagoth
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Re: Temple Prayer Roll

Post by Hagoth » Thu May 25, 2023 2:31 pm

This is my argument exactly. If God can read the names in a zippered bag, he could read them just as easily for endowments as for prayers. For that matter, he could read them off a list or computer file. Even better, he knows exactly who needs their temple work done. Why wait for people to read their name off a headstone somewhere? Also, we are constantly taught there is missionary work in the spirit world, so why not get them all mass-baptized and anointed on earth and then have spirit teachers walk them through the endowment. If you're thinking it's because they need to physically receive the handshakes, recall that they have removed that from the temple now (or so I'm told). Now hey just show you the handshakes.

The answer, of course, is that it's really not about dead people. It's about keeping the living members invested in doing secret stuff and feeling like they're part of something essential and special that they can only access through the LDS church. Otherwise, not only wouldn't all of this temple activity be necessary, it certainly wouldn't be necessary to recycle the same names over and over again, passing them from temple to temple.

I recently read a post on another thread by someone who had discovered that their grandfather had been baptized in the temple 8 times, even though he was a life-long member who had been baptized when he was 8. I guess any old name will do. Maybe they should just have a computer generate names for temple work.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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Ghost
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Re: Temple Prayer Roll

Post by Ghost » Thu May 25, 2023 3:10 pm

The computer in heaven calculates the number of people participating in the prayer, divided by the number of names. This is also why people ask others to pray for them when they are going through a difficult time and why a congregation praying for someone is more effectual than the prayers of someone who is not as well-connected.

The faithful answer to all of this is, I think, that going through the motions is primarily for the benefit of the person praying, performing ordinances for the dead, paying tithing, etc. When I was a missionary, I was told a few times that a mission is more for the missionary than for the potential converts. This was communicated as a sort of special insider knowledge. It's the faithful version of the cynical formulation that Hagoth mentioned.

The prayer piece of this is the most difficult to square because divine intervention in general is difficult to reconcile with other beliefs when you observe the seemingly random results of prayer that suspiciously resemble a world in which prayer has no effect.

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wtfluff
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Re: Temple Prayer Roll

Post by wtfluff » Thu May 25, 2023 3:25 pm

Back in pre-historic times when I was attending Polygamy Palaces, when they pulled out the "Prayer Roll" it looked like they had stuffed all the names into a fancy tissue box. Maybe it's the Fancy Tissue Box™ that holds all the Magick power to help all the people who's names are "on the roll" in the box? Or as Chief Hagoth mentioned: Maybe it's a Magick Pouch?


Also: Is the "Roll" actually a roll? Or is it a bunch of tiny slips of paper with names on them? Inquiring minds and all.


Also Also: I'm pretty sure my name has been on a "Prayer Roll" somewhere at some time for most of my life; Yet here I am, wallowing in the truth-crisis of LD$-Inc.
Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. -Frater Ravus

IDKSAF -RubinHighlander

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Just This Guy
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Re: Temple Prayer Roll

Post by Just This Guy » Thu May 25, 2023 4:28 pm

wtfluff wrote:
Thu May 25, 2023 3:25 pm
Back in pre-historic times when I was attending Polygamy Palaces, when they pulled out the "Prayer Roll" it looked like they had stuffed all the names into a fancy tissue box. Maybe it's the Fancy Tissue Box™ that holds all the Magick power to help all the people who's names are "on the roll" in the box? Or as Chief Hagoth mentioned: Maybe it's a Magick Pouch?


Also: Is the "Roll" actually a roll? Or is it a bunch of tiny slips of paper with names on them? Inquiring minds and all.


Also Also: I'm pretty sure my name has been on a "Prayer Roll" somewhere at some time for most of my life; Yet here I am, wallowing in the truth-crisis of LD$-Inc.
I have a black leather bag from my mission that I keep my shoe polishing kit in. The temple name bags look just like my shoe polish bag, just in white "leather" instead of black.
"The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." -- Douglas Adams

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wtfluff
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Re: Temple Prayer Roll

Post by wtfluff » Thu May 25, 2023 9:22 pm

Just This Guy wrote:
Thu May 25, 2023 4:28 pm
I have a black leather bag from my mission that I keep my shoe polishing kit in. The temple name bags look just like my shoe polish bag, just in white "leather" instead of black.
HA!

J-T-G has a Magick Pouch™ that makes shoes shiny!
Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. -Frater Ravus

IDKSAF -RubinHighlander

You can surrender without a prayer...

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Hagoth
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Re: Temple Prayer Roll

Post by Hagoth » Fri May 26, 2023 8:23 am

Hagoth wrote:
Thu May 25, 2023 2:31 pm
I recently read a post on another thread by someone who had discovered that their grandfather had been baptized in the temple 8 times, even though he was a life-long member who had been baptized when he was 8. I guess any old name will do. Maybe they should just have a computer generate names for temple work.
Ha! Just realized this was Cnsl1 on another thread.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

Gatorbait
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Re: Temple Prayer Roll

Post by Gatorbait » Mon May 29, 2023 10:17 am

Have not been to a temple in quite some time, unless you count a Buddhist temple that I visited in Korea a few years back , so I don't know how they do it now, but I always thought writing names on pieces of paper and dropping them in a box so that people who you don't know, who don't know your name is on a "list" of people who they assume have special needs so they can lead the proverbial helping hand to those who cannot help themselves. A Things associated with this "list" are even more disturbing to me, such as:

Someone advises you, "I placed your name and your troubled child's name on the prayer roll at the temple." What's with that? Judging me, my child, acting like a holy savior, coming to the rescue, stubby pencil in hand on a piece of scratch paper (if that's how they do it now) because you are "temple worthy" and I am not, but I sure need them double special prayer circle V.I.P. blessings. Good grief.

What about a simple prayer from me, going to God direct myself, acting in faith? Don't see anywhere in the scriptures where is says to ask and you shall receive, provided you have the mind to do it with, reason to understand the situation and the wherewithal to do it- except if some bozo who is your self appointed temple worthy savior gets your name on a prayer roll in a temple. Good grief again.

Joseph Smith had all sorts of visions and prophecies long before he was a member of any church, let alone a card carrying temple worthy pray circle prayer. How'd he manage?
"Let no man count himself righteous who permits a wrong he could avert". N.N. Riddell

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Hagoth
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Re: Temple Prayer Roll

Post by Hagoth » Tue May 30, 2023 4:35 pm

Gatorbait wrote:
Mon May 29, 2023 10:17 am
Have not been to a temple in quite some time... so I don't know how they do it now, but I always thought writing names on pieces of paper and dropping them in a box...
A lot of people phone it in (in more ways than one), but I'm pretty sure you can do it via internet these days.

Here's a question. Is having your name on a slip of paper, bundled up with thousands of others, actually more effective than if there was a single slip of paper in there that said, "Everyone in need of blessings at this time?" Sounds more like a magic spell to me.

Nevertheless, I do see the value in being able to to feel like you can do something SOMETHING in a situation where there is actually nothing you can do to change the outcome (e.g. a friend lying unconscious in a coma). On the other hand, I also see the cop-out value of being able to just write someone's name on a piece of paper and stuff it into a box when there might actually be a real-world thing that you could have done for them instead.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

Cnsl1
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Re: Temple Prayer Roll

Post by Cnsl1 » Tue May 30, 2023 10:24 pm

Hagoth wrote:
Fri May 26, 2023 8:23 am
Hagoth wrote:
Thu May 25, 2023 2:31 pm
I recently read a post on another thread by someone who had discovered that their grandfather had been baptized in the temple 8 times, even though he was a life-long member who had been baptized when he was 8. I guess any old name will do. Maybe they should just have a computer generate names for temple work.
Ha! Just realized this was Cnsl1 on another thread.
Yeah, it was me who posted that, and it's a true story, but it was my wife's grandfather not mine. I am the one who discovered it.

I think I probably also mentioned that my great grandmother had her work done multiple times. The first was me baptizing my oldest daughter at proxy for my great grandma, but I later discovered that she'd been baptized three more times. She was a pretty stubborn lady and years ahead of her time, so maybe she needed it multiple times.

The other day I looked again and now the record just shows her as being baptized the one time. I guess they fixed that glitch.

What I found very interesting, however, is that she (my great grandma) has been sealed to her first husband (my grandmother's father) AS WELL AS her LAST husband, who was hubby # 6 if I remember correctly. Back when I was a TBM, I'd thought I would seal her to the husband that she and my grandma and my mother always said was the favorite, but who had died relatively young. I even happened upon a taxi drivers license for this fellow that listed his bday and address, which I figured would probably be sufficient to get the sealing done, but alas by that time I figured all the sealing stuff was a bunch of hooey anyway, so granny and her favorite beau are left to traipse around spirit prison unhitched whilst those other two dudes fight over her.

I am pretty sure that this granny of mine had read "No Man Knows My History" prior to her granddaughter (my mother) joining the church. If I remember correctly, I heard my mother talking about some crazy book that Granny read that turned her off to Mormons, and I think it was the first time I heard the name Fawn Brodie. I might have been about 13 or 14.

I suspect that after granny was no longer herself and suffering with Alzheimer's, some well meaning neighbor probably put her name on the temple prayer roll.

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Hagoth
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Re: Temple Prayer Roll

Post by Hagoth » Wed May 31, 2023 12:18 pm

Cnsl1 wrote:
Tue May 30, 2023 10:24 pm
What I found very interesting, however, is that she (my great grandma) has been sealed to her first husband (my grandmother's father) AS WELL AS her LAST husband, who was hubby # 6 if I remember correctly.
I will give the same response the Gospel Topics Essay on Kirtland & Nauvoo Polygamy about Joseph Smith's crazy shenanigans: God will sort it out.

And the same answer I would give that: If God is just going to sort it out anyway, why do all of this whack stuff in the first place?
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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deacon blues
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Re: Temple Prayer Roll

Post by deacon blues » Fri Jun 02, 2023 4:23 am

Once in a while I ponder the contrast between what they did in Solomon's ancient temple, as commanded by God/LDS Jesus, and what is done in modern temples. All that gross stuff cutting up and burning animals was repulsive. And according to Joseph Smith it has to be done in the future to "fulfill all things!" :roll:
God is Love. God is Truth. The greatest problem with organized religion is that the organization becomes god, rather than a means of serving God.

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moksha
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Re: Temple Prayer Roll

Post by moksha » Fri Jun 02, 2023 5:32 am

2bizE wrote:
Wed May 24, 2023 4:37 pm
Can someone explain to me how the names placed on a piece of paper (maybe even electronically today) can receive special blessings via a prayer?
Mormonism is transformed into ethereal healing waves which are broadcast via Moroni's trumpet. BYU's Hugh Nibley had the mathematical formula recorded in the footnotes next to his notations regarding the demon Pazuzu which he unearthed in 1922 while on an archeological dig near the Babylonian city Ur.
Good faith does not require evidence, but it also does not turn a blind eye to that evidence. Otherwise, it becomes misplaced faith.
-- Moksha

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Hagoth
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Re: Temple Prayer Roll

Post by Hagoth » Fri Jun 02, 2023 5:43 am

Gore warning: bloody picture below.

This is what the sacrifice of a single sheep looks like. This was done in Jerusalem for a religious ceremony. This is only the killing part. The priests would then pour blood on the corners of the altar, on themselves, and other places. Then they would cut the animal up and burn parts of it. Can you imagine the horrific scene at the temple on a festival day when they are killing animals one after another all day long and slinging their blood every which way? Now try to imagine that in the celestial room of the Draper temple. A friend of mine attended an animal sacrifice of a Middle Eastern sect that still does them. It was one sheep, and he was totally unprepared for the amount of blood and overwhelmed by the quantity and the smell of the blood. He said the priests wore white robes and by the end they were covered with blood.
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“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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