DiscussMormonism.com

Gunnar wrote:

My understanding is that the Church has listened (finally) to what groups have said and have made procedural changes to try and maintain a system whereby members only submit names of their own ancestors. Of course, along with that, the Church has gone hell for leather in harvesting names from every ancestry and census database it can lay it's hands on whilst simultaneously blocking external scrutiny of the names being submitted for proxy processing.

But I'm sure they can be trusted to keep their public word on the matter....

Let's hope you're right about that and that it solves the problem. I can still see the possibility that non-members who share the same ancestors as the members submitting the names might still raise a stink over the issue (if they somehow find out about it).

I have a question wrote:I agree.
But there is a fool proof way round it. If, as Holland stated, the proxy ordinance is simply the creation of an offer, then it can be done anonymously because God will know who it is intended for. An Apostle and his wife can attend the temple weekly and do all the rituals "for and in behalf of everyone who is dead". Meaning the symbolic offer is created for every dead person every week, leaving the dead people free to accept it or not. Problem solved.

That's brilliant Idea! But, I'm sure that LDS authorities would insist that would be contrary to God's wishes.

I have a question wrote:Of course, whilst that is a robust and efficiently effective method of creating a process for the dead and ensuring nobody gets missed out, it's not going to work out so well for getting members to the temple and therefore handing over their cash - which is what temple work is really all about. The names of dead people simply coat the blatant cash collection vehicle with a veneer of legitimacy.

Which is, of course, precisely why church leadership would never go along with it.

Gunnar wrote:One has to admit, though, that warranted or not, there are hurt feelings and resentment on both sides of this issue. The faithful LDS who participate in proxy work for the dead sincerely believe that what they are doing is or can be of genuine benefit to the dead who died before having had any opportunity to learn the "True Gospel" and be baptized. Many of them are genuinely hurt and offended over being accused of somehow dishonoring the dead for whom proxy work is done.

Good try at trying to make the situation seem symmetrical. But it isn't, not by a long, long way.

Chap wrote:

Gunnar wrote:One has to admit, though, that warranted or not, there are hurt feelings and resentment on both sides of this issue. The faithful LDS who participate in proxy work for the dead sincerely believe that what they are doing is or can be of genuine benefit to the dead who died before having had any opportunity to learn the "True Gospel" and be baptized. Many of them are genuinely hurt and offended over being accused of somehow dishonoring the dead for whom proxy work is done.

Good try at trying to make the situation seem symmetrical. But it isn't, not by a long, long way.

Maybe it's not symmetrical, but my point is that those who participate in proxy baptism are not doing it out of malice or any desire to dishonor the dead for whom they do that work. They are not criminals! Most (if not all) of them are merely deluded and sincerely believe they are doing God's work. One can easily think of much more horrible things that have been committed by religious zealots carrying out what they sincerely believed to be the will of God. It is still an unassailable fact that no real or substantive harm is done to anyone, whether living or dead, by the practice. Nevertheless, I do acknowledge that that fact alone doesn't excuse any insensitivity on the Church's part to the intense, emotional objections of some of the non-members whose ancestors for whom the proxy work is done.

Gunnar wrote:Nevertheless, I do acknowledge that that fact alone doesn't justify excuse any insensitivity on the Church's part to the intense, emotional objections of some of the non-members whose ancestors for whom the proxy work is done.

Yes. That is the bottom line. Leave our dead alone. We don't like it. We don't want it. No. No. No.

No more excuses. Find something real to do that actually helps living people instead of fulfilling some occult obsession.

Gunnar wrote:... my point is that those who participate in proxy baptism are not doing it out of malice or any desire to dishonor the dead for whom they do that work. They are not criminals--most of them are merely deluded and sincerely believe they are doing God's work.

"Deluded": yes, I'll go with that. I like to add "with an arrogant sense of entitlement to cross boundaries that the family of the deceased person often feels very strongly about, and asks them to respect".

Gunnar wrote:One can easily think of much more horrible things that have been committed by religious zealots carrying out what they sincerely believed to be the will of God.

Yup. And there was Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Genghis Khan too. Can you spell "irrelevant distraction from the point under discussion"?

Gunnar wrote:It still an unassailable fact that no real or substantive harm is done to anyone, whether living or dead, by the practice.

I'm beginning to think that it's not that you don't get it, more that you do get it but are determined not to admit that you do get it.

You know that the issue is not whether the dead are harmed - nobody has suggested that - but whether the living can reasonably object to actions performed in connection with their dead relations.

We've been through that before, and you admitted that there are some actions, such as a deliberate insult to the grave of a dead family member, that the living may reasonably complain of, because of the distress caused. Insult causing real distress is definitely "real or substantive harm".

The CoJCoLDS finally, after a lot of pressure, conceded that it was reasonable for the families of Jewish holocaust victims to ask for their boundaries to be respected, and for their murdered relations to be left off the proxy baptism lists. But it took a long time to get there, and it is still not certain that the practice has actually ceased, since the lists of those being proxy-baptized are no longer open for scrutiny. (That's the way the CoJCoLDS always reacts to any kind of criticism if it possibly can - remember when the accounts went secret?)

The long and devious resistance to making that change was true arrogance on the Mormon side. That's a lack of a sense of boundaries. That's insulting by any criterion. And I think 99% of reasonable persons would agree that the people involved suffered real and substantial harm by the distress they were caused by that Mormon arrogance. And there are a lot of us who feel the same way, as has been demonstrated on this thread.

Maksutov wrote:

Gunnar wrote:Nevertheless, I do acknowledge that that fact alone doesn't justify excuse any insensitivity on the Church's part to the intense, emotional objections of some of the non-members whose ancestors for whom the proxy work is done.

Yes. That is the bottom line. Leave our dead alone. We don't like it. We don't want it. No. No. No.

No more excuses. Find something real to do that actually helps living people instead of fulfilling some occult obsession.

+ a lot.

Intellectually we know that that proxy work for the dead cannot possibly have any effect on the dead, either good or bad, unless Mormon doctrine on this really were true, nor was any actual slight or dishonor ever intended by such proxy work. It cannot in any way tarnish the reputations or cherished memories of those dead. Non-members whose ancestors might have had proxy work done for them surely must realize this at least as well as anyone, if they look at it dispassionately. Why then, should anyone choose to become so seriously distressed over this matter? I'm sorry, but that just doesn't seem rational to me. It really seems to me that the harm is purely emotional and entirely due to their choosing to take offense when none was intended. Nevertheless, I applaud the Church finally agreeing to acknowledge and accommodate the deeply felt emotions of those who objected, and I certainly would not object to seeing the practice halted altogether, whether or not it caused anyone to be emotionally distressed over it.

Gunnar wrote:Intellectually we know that that proxy work for the dead cannot possibly have any effect on the dead, either good or bad, unless Mormon doctrine on this really were true, nor was any actual slight or dishonor ever intended by such proxy work. It cannot in any way tarnish the reputations or cherished memories of those dead.

Of course it can.

It does.

Hence the outcry about it.

The relatives see it as tarnishing the reputation and/or cherished memory of their deceased loved one. If that is their perception (which it obviously is in a lot of cases) then your assertion is simply wrong.

I have a question wrote:

Gunnar wrote:Intellectually we know that that proxy work for the dead cannot possibly have any effect on the dead, either good or bad, unless Mormon doctrine on this really were true, nor was any actual slight or dishonor ever intended by such proxy work. It cannot in any way tarnish the reputations or cherished memories of those dead.

Of course it can.

It does.

Hence the outcry about it.

The relatives see it as tarnishing the reputation and/or cherished memory of their deceased loved one. If that is their perception (which it obviously is in a lot of cases) then your assertion is simply wrong.

I'm sorry, I just don't agree with their perception, but they are entitled to hold it if they want to. Is it really rational to believe that the actual reputation and cherished memories of their ancestors can be so easily tarnished by this irrational practice?

Gunnar wrote: ... we know that that proxy work for the dead cannot possibly have any effect on the dead, either good or bad ...

Yes, of course. You've said that a lot of times. However you have already conceded that there are actions in relation to dead persons to which their family members may reasonably object. So why keep on and on coming back to this point. as if repeating the 'can't harm the dead' line was relevant? The only thing that matters is what the living relatives feel.

Gunnar wrote: It really seems to me that the harm is purely emotional and entirely due to their choosing to take offense when none was intended.

They don't choose to be offended. They are offended. Deeply offended and in many cases quite emotionally distressed. You keep on trying to turn the relatives' distress into a choice, despite it having been pointed out to you just how stupid this kind of rhetoric is.

Gunnar wrote:Nevertheless, I applaud the Church finally agreeing to acknowledge and accommodate the deeply felt emotions of those who objected, and I certainly would not object to seeing the practice halted altogether, whether or not it caused anyone to be emotionally distressed over it.

Oh yeah.

We applaud them ever so much, and really, really loudly for finally realizing that going on and on with this practice despite repeated requests to stop it was just getting too embarrassing. Just like we applaud them for finally realizing how deeply shaming the priesthood ban on black men was, after years of insisting that it was God's will.

(We do not of course applaud the relatives in any way for their persistence in trying to make the CoJCoLDS behave in a minimally decent manner towards their families. Instead we smile and nod patronizingly in their direction, and regret their failure to understand the obvious fact that their supposed emotional distress was entirely irrational, and was their choice rather than the church's fault.)

Do you work for the public relations department of the CoJCoLDS? There is something so weirdly robotic and repetitive about these continuous attempts by you to get a least a little bit of whitewash on your church's arrogant and boundary-ignoring treatment of Jewish people over the years.