[Avodah] [Areivim] Are there halachic issues with using the Mormon fmaily history website?

[Zev Sero]

Avroham Yakov <avyakov at hotmail.com> asked this question on Areivim.

I don't see why there should be.

I'm not even sure that Mormonism counts as avoda zara; as near as I can
tell they *believe* in many many gods, but only worship One, the one of
the Tanach, Whom they believe to be the God of this particular world.
The other gods, according to them, each has a world of his own, and it
is right and proper for the people of those other worlds each to worship
their gods, but it's not right for us in this world.  Or something like
that; I don't really know that much about it and have never cared to
investigate it in depth.

But even if it was mamash AZ, their geneological research isn't itself AZ,
it's just a tool that they use to find people to recruit and "save" (with
or without their knowledge).  It's neither AZ nor tashmishei or meshamshei
AZ, it's more like a priest's car with which he gets around to his various
AZ-related appointments; the car isn't assur behana'ah, and AFAIK there's
no problem in accepting a lift from the priest, even if he's on the way
to his temple, let alone if he's on the way to the supermarket.


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher