How do Mormons fix this self-created problem? By baptizing Holocaust victims, of course.DP wrote:One of the great achievements of the twentieth century was the application of industrial methods to the systematic extermination of mass numbers of humans. Monumental effort and even ingenuity were devoted to the systematic transformation of persons — unique individuals, with complex personalities and minds and non-reproducible biographies — into non-persons.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... kness.htmlDP wrote:In the temples of the Latter-day Saints, however, their names have been spoken again. They’ve been remembered. Valued. Served.
It's worth remembering Daniel's consistent pattern of crass blatant disregard for the dignity and wishes of Jews, especially those who died in the Holocaust:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... -jews.htmlDP in 2018 wrote:From an outsider’s unbelieving perspective, all we’re doing is quietly mentioning a dead person’s name in connection with a few other words, and then plunging somebody else into a water tank located in a very private place. It takes approximately half a minute. I find it extremely difficult to see how the practice really harms anybody, if one assumes that it has no effect on the dead. And one can only assume that it has actual effect on the dead if one assumes that Mormon beliefs are true, that Mormon priesthood authority is efficacious in the next life, and that Mormon temple rituals are divinely ordained. In which case, again, it’s difficult to see how offering the gift of vicarious baptism actually hurts anybody.
https://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/ldsagree.htmlBernard I. Kouchel wrote:The wrongful baptism of Jewish dead, which disparages the memory of a deceased person is a brazen act which will obscure the historical record for future generations. It has been bitterly opposed by many Jews for a number of years. Others say they will never stop being Jews, simply because there is a paper saying they had been baptized, that the act of posthumous baptism is unimportant and should be ignored. We think this to be a narrow, parochial, and shallow view. We will continue opposing this wrongful act which assimilates our dead to the point where it will not be possible to know who was Jewish in their lifetimes.
This author was among the first genealogists to discover the names of thousands of Jewish Holocaust victims in the International Genealogical Index (the "IGI") 1, the official Mormon index of proxy baptisms for the dead, and quickly exposed this misguided practice.
Names are placed in the IGI by individual Mormon researchers or through Church name extraction programs. The names were extracted 2 mainly from two Holocaust memorial books. Gedenkbuch was extracted by individuals; the Memorbuch was part of the Church's 'Extraction Program', an ongoing program that acquired records and distributed them to trained Church member volunteers who then extracted the names and submitted them for posthumous baptism.3
A protest drive initiated by Jewish genealogists escalated it to a nationally publicized issue that was followed by public outcry. American Jewish leaders considered it an insult and a major setback for interfaith relations. They initiated discussions with the Mormon Church that culminated in a voluntary 1995 agreement by the Church to remove the inappropriate names. Activists continue to monitor Mormon baptismal lists, seeking removal of inappropriate entries.
It's strange that Mormons rely on the tired excuse, "God will figure it out in the afterlife" for everything except Jewish baptisms. Apparently that is a bridge too far for the Mormon god.