subgenius wrote:canpakes wrote:... I'd wager that most individuals - until comparatively recent times - lived their lives relatively anonymously and have passed without written record of their name...
first of all we are speaking about "documentation" not a specific written record of a name (a point for later discussion, perhaps)
Unless I an ill-informed, I believe that the ordinance, when practiced, uses elements of a 'written record' - in other words, a name, at the very least. Otherwise, what would be the purpose of spending so much effort on family history when one could merely do ordinances for, as example, "my great-great-great-grandmother, who's name, birthdate and circumstances I know nothing about"?
second, the glaring hole in your argument is found in how, though you may wager, you can not prove the above statement by you.
You can not point to a single person, living or dead, and claim "that person is completely unknown".
OK, you can call it a 'glaring hole'. I tend to see it as a realistic assessment, since very little can be definitively 'proven' (perhaps
nothing in the existential sense! :) ). As example, if I remove you from your surroundings and relatives and destroy all records of your birth,
you cannot 'prove' your family history or connection to anyone. Nor (as another example) can I, to rephrase your statement above, prove that a unicorn does
not exist, or that you cannot fly by merely flapping your arms in just the precise sort of way that would be required. We can argue with these parameters, but I don't see it as effective or practical.
For by your very exclamation you have provided them with an identity, with a basis for record...you have, in fact, documented them. Granted not the most elaborate method, but it illustrates a point that you have yet to resolve.
Not quite correct. Within my exclamation, I have acknowledged that they exist, but this is not what we mean by 'documenting' them, if we are to accept the traditional definitions of 'document'.
As example - I know that I have a logical line of existence from myself that stretches all of the way back to the very inception of the simplest elements of my genetic material. There can be no other way to explain why I am here - regardless of if the genesis of that material was arrived at by a process of evolution or via Adam and Eve. Stating this fact does not 'document' the entire chain of my relatives that I know must exist. It merely acknowledges their existence.
Thus, you seem to want to go down a rabbit hole that does not really relate to the question at hand. If the method used to do baptism for the dead requires more information than to simply know that those people existed, then we need documentation, or identification, or whatever you wish to term it. Otherwise, baptism for the dead can be streamlined into one visit to cover all individuals along the genealogical trail. Correct?
You "assume" that there is a person(s) which will be forever unknown and forever unknowable....and i assume otherwise.
all i am asking for is the evidence by which you make your assumption....or is it just a gut feeling?
Seems like a 'gut feeling' - some call it faith - is sufficient to hold a conclusion as truthful' for a great many folks, yes?
