I get damned a lot. Mostly it comes from God's winged monkeys.

I get it from fundamentalist Christians, Muslims, Jews, faiths I never heard of before, and other Mormons who don't think I'm Mormon enough.

I even have friends of other faiths who think I'm damned. They're nice enough about it. The subject rarely comes up, but I know they believe their faiths' doctrines strongly enough to worry about what's going to happen to me when I die.

It doesn't bother me that they pray for my soul, fast for me or light candles for me. If what they believe is true, it can't hurt. And if what they believe is nonsense - well, then it can't hurt, either.

Such a casual attitude makes it hard for me to understand why people get so upset over Mormons wanting to baptize everyone, including dead people.

We don't actually dig them up. That's against the law. Also, it's messy. Instead, the baptisms are performed by proxy in our temples. The goal is to baptize everyone who ever lived.

Toward that end, the LDS Church collects all manner of historical records. Anything that proves someone was once alive is enough to get him or her dunked.

It's a lot of work. Also, there's no way we can possibly know every single person who ever lived. Those we can't find records for will get caught up with the Lord somehow.

We've baptized kings, popes, despots, peasants, natives, plague victims, pirates, lunatics and Elvis. I'm pretty sure we haven't baptized any Neanderthals, but we'll get around to it eventually.

When the Jews found out we were baptizing Jewish victims of the Holocaust, they considered it insulting and demanded that we stop. The church said we would, but apparently we didn't. They got madder and we quit again.

Now the Roman Catholic Church has decided to stop supplying the LDS Church with parish records. No more trying to make Catholics into Mormons, even if it's just pretend.

I can see their point. It's a bit rude to go around baptizing other people's ancestors and expect them not to get upset about it. Even if they don't believe what we're doing has any real religious value, it's the idea.

Mormons wouldn't like it, either. If a group of cannibals decided to stop eating people for real and simply eat their souls instead, I doubt the LDS Church would gladly supply them with our membership records.

Personally, I wouldn't care if they ate mine. It might even do it some good.

rkirby@sltrib.com