This makes me chuckles every time I see it in the comment section for an article about Mormon temples:

While it’s routinely accepted that Joseph Smith, Jr. was an egomaniacal philandering plagiarist who over-stretched his pseudo-intellectual legs and got practically every biblical re-interpretation wrong, the requirement for proxy baptism was one of his most colossal blunders. Rather than being one of the most merciful/charitable doctrines, it’s easily the most insidiously deceptive one.

Except for keeping many devout Mormons comatosely infatuated with scouring records for names of unbaptized ancestors and spawning the erection of obscenely pricey albeit useless edifices that are nothing more than huge multi-million dollar billboards, the notion that a loving "Heavenly Father" would demand corporeal ceremonies performed by living substitutes before allowing some of his dead children into his "kingdom" is a benchmark of gullibility.

Of course, it’s no more absurd than anything else Mormons feel they must do to keep their capricious SkyDaddy™ happy; it’s just so damnably pointless and massively wasteful.

It should be outlawed like polygamy was.

It violates the civil rights of the living and the dead. It's disrespectful and sacrilegious to substitute Mormonism for someone else's religion in death just because they have no voice to object. Their living loved ones don't wish to be subjected to that either.

Nor do ex-Mormons have any desire to be posthumously baptized after we're gone. Knowing in advance that is something that is bound to occur is a gross violation of our civil rights. If ex-Mormons were to bring a class action lawsuit against TSCC we have legal standing to sue because it affects us as ex-Mormons, and our families.

Some may find it silly and capricious. Others find it wholly offensive.

I like the way your write.

Spot on!

Love the way you put all that. Mormons have to keep saying how loving Heavenly Father is over and over and over because he just isn't. I guess they are trying to convince themselves. And that whole baptism for the dead thing in order to get past the velvet rope says it all.

Every cult needs some good busy work to keep those cleansed minds occupied. Dead dunking and funny business with hats and veils is as good as any I guess.

D & D,

You are so right! Those weird ass costumes and hand gestures in the temple just SCREAM CULT!

"Except for keeping many devout Mormons comatosely infatuated with scouring records for names of unbaptized ancestors"

Many don't care if the ancestors are "unbaptized" or not. The names are submitted in any event. The so-called researchers are only doing it for the ward bragging rights: "I've sent in 3,000 names this year!" "Well, I'VE sent in 5,000 so there!" and out of all those entries, maybe 50 might be new submissions.

And that's one reason why so many names have been proxied a dozen times or more. Even if it were all true, it would still be a colossal waste of time. Mormons can't do anything right.

Joseph Smith’s older brother Alvin got sick and died at 25. Joe and the family were naturally devastated. To make things worse, they had a local Presbyterian minister speak at the funeral and he, with all the compassion and tact of a startled rattlesnake, stated that Alvin was a lost soul since he hadn’t become a member of the minister's congregation.

That’s all it took for Joe to include “Baptism for the Dead” as part of his grand scheme of reinventing Christianity. He conveniently misread and perverted the verse in 1 Corinthians 15 to assuage the remorse for his “lost” brother, and now Mormons are saddled with the costliest form of useless busywork ever devised—all because of one cretinous sermon at a funeral.

“On any given day, in more than 150 Mormon temples around the world, thousands of faithful Mormons are baptized vicariously for the dead. Most non-Mormons are dimly aware that the Mormons are interested in genealogy, but they are not sure why. While there is nothing wrong with being interested in genealogy as a hobby, this is far from a hobby for Mormons.”

https://www.catholic.com/tract/mormonisms-baptism-for-the-dead

Odd thing about LDS Dead Dunkin’, not only does the Bible not support it, the Book of Mormon plainly refutes it:

"For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he does seal you his. Therefore, the spirit of the Lord has withdrawn from you and hath no place in you; the power of the devil is over you, and this is the final state of the wicked." -- Alma 34:35-36

But, I suppose it’s not all bad—well, it is bad, but at least some enterprising young people such as the creator of the StoryWorth app, are smart enough to make a buck or two off it; kinda like the money made selling those dust-collecting Book of Mormon/Bible animated story books that were once so popular with those less literate parents who hoped their unruly kids might look at them eventually… someday… maybe, but never did.

https://www.standard.net/lifestyle/faith/lds-church-reportedly-makes-adjustments-to-temple-endowment-ceremony/article_fca5b637-55f5-599c-a24d-19246e9d9d95.html

If Jesus can do a "one-time-does-all" atonement ordinance that catches in its net everyone who ever lived or ever will live, in the past, present and future, this establishes a "principle" (for lack of a better word) that is completely contrary to the idea that all disembodied spirits will be damned until some Mormon Norbert or Nancy can find their real name and date of birth and then some other Mormon schlub or schlubina can find the time to go snorkeling in a Mormon baptismal font long enough for a Mormon priesthood guy to mumble the magic words that will...FINALLY...allow the poor disembodied spirit to get the "physically baptized" box checked off on his or her salvation application form in heaven.

It makes as much sense as setting up a system where somebody living in Tibet can qualify for a Pennsylvania drivers license by having someone living in Pennsylvania take the driving test for them. "Hi, I'm here as proxy to take the driving test for Phuntsok Namdol who lives on the other side of the planet. My driving ability will magically transfer to her when I pass the test."

Nobody can explain how Mormon Nancy getting dunked in the year 2019 for and on behalf of Livia Drusilla who died in Rome in 29 AD can or should be necessary for anything. It's not Livia's body that got dunked. It's Nancy's body. If the symbolism is what's important, why not just handle the symbolism in the spirit world?

"Hey, Livia, just imagine that you could have been baptized into the LSD Church when you were alive. Would you have chosen to do so? Yes? Okay, look at this picture of a stick figure going under water. Do you accept that as symbolizing your own baptism? Yes? Okay. We're done. You're officially checked off on that."

And nobody can explain why you can't just have one person get dunked to symbolically represent everyone who ever lived without having a chance to get dunked.

Even worse, nobody can really explain why it's absolutely necessary for anyone to get dunked. Is Jesus really so OCD that he can't forgive someone who didn't get dunked?

Supposedly, Jesus set the example by getting dunked himself. But that didn't make any sense either. Even according to the theology, he was the ONE person in existence who had no need to be dunked. By getting dunked he was symbolically saying that he accepted himself as his personal savior and was committing himself to follow himself and be obedient to himself. Whoop-dee-forkin-doo! And round and round and round we go in the circular reasoning ro-dee-o!

And of course 90% of everyone who ever lived died without leaving any permanent record that can be accessed by anyone today, so most of the disembodied spirits are just out of luck...unless an effective alternative is available to them in the spirit world, which...of course...means that there really is no need for Mormons to do dead dunkings in this world for anyone.

I'm convinced that the typical TBM has never thought about it beyond simply thinking "well it's just so special to do nice things for dead people".

all the temple ordinances that they "do for the dead" is that it often appears that they forget that it's always only for the dead.

After they've done their own temple ordinance (each of which is only required one time in a lifetime), everything else they do in the temple, month after month, year after year, decade after decade in their many, many temple "sessions" is all for dead people.

BUT...when you hear them talking about their temple activity they often speak of it as though its all for themselves.
--They're "renewing" their covenants. (No they're not. It's not their covenants when they're doing it for a dead person.)

--They're learning new things every time they go. (No they're not. They may fantasize about various possibilities of what the inane rituals "really" mean. But that's not really learning anything new. It's just mental masturbation.)

--Going to the temple often is a sign of righteous living. (No it's not. Theoretically, you only do it because a disembodies spirit needs you to do it. If you're just going through the motions using a recycled name, you're wasting precious time.)

For each individual, repeat trips to the temple are no more necessary than getting baptized in one's own name every month.

But they talk about it as though it is.

I've heard on numerous occasions that the Church actually recycles many names because they don't have enough valid newly researched and discovered names of dead people to keep the temples operating at full capacity, half capacity or even a third capacity. So it really is just pointless busy work.

If you can't be with the one you dunk, why then, dunk the one you're with.