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by dbg31415 1172 days ago
Oh... um... I mean look, it's a bit controversial.

They document family trees, and then post-humorously baptize the dead so everyone's kin can get to heaven.

They mean well, and it's coming from a good place, but it's a little weird and it can be off-putting to know that they don't think any other religion's baptisms count so they have to do it over the LDS way. But look, they mean well.

Some background on the controversy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/us/jews-take-issue-with-p...
3 comments
masklinn 1172 days ago
Posthumously, rather than post-humorously.

As you note, many take a rather dim view of the practice (and it is very much not coming from a good place).

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crazygringo 1172 days ago
> and it is very much not coming from a good place

Can you elaborate? I know nothing about this, but from the description it seems well-intentioned so I'm curious what isn't?

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dbg31415 1172 days ago
I posted a link in an earlier part.

But basically instead of just "Oh, we're just saying some prayers for your dead granny..." -- which I think everyone would be fine with, it's the Mormons saying, "Oh, we're saying some prayers for your dead granny... because without true Mormon salvation she'd be burning in hell forever."

The Mormons also have "stand-ins" that they baptize in place of the person. Usually kids. So a kid goes up and says, "I'm so-and-so, grandmother of such-and-such..." and then they get dunked in a tub. And it also serves to further indoctrinate the kids... who are re-baptized a bunch of times.

My view... all religions are nutty. Not sure where we draw a line on any of them. But I don't really care what people do in the privacy of their own temple, or what internet archives they want to spend their time transcribing. If it lets them sleep a bit better knowing my dead great grandmother is with her family in Heaven... that's great. Or at least, it's no going to hurt her any. (=

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dbg31415 1172 days ago
> Posthumously

Good catch. This is how we'll be able to spot AI in the future. It won't make nearly as many dumb typos as humans do. (=

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dmckeon 1172 days ago
From that article:

> Church policy is that people baptize only their own dead relatives

but indeed, some adherents apparently do proxy-baptise unrelated people.

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sokoloff 1172 days ago
I long for the day when we treat all religions’ baptisms as having precisely identical value.
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