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February 15, 2012 12:42 AM UTC

Not Mormon? No Problem. You will be Once you Die...Like it or Not.

  • 73 Comments
  • by: Middle of the Road

Nobel Prize winner Eli Wiesel reacted with disgust and outrage today in response to a recent article by the Huffington Post that claimed,

“according to a formerly-Mormon researcher, Helen Radkey, some members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had submitted Wiesel’s name to a restricted genealogy website as “ready” for posthumous proxy baptism.”

Former Mormon researcher Radkey discovered last week that both Wiesel’s father, Chlomo Wiesel, who died during the Holocaust in Buchenwald’s crematorium, as well as Wiesel’s grandfather, had been “proposed” for a proxy baptism, as had Eli Wiesel. This practice has been carried on for nearly 100 years, since 1918 when the President of the Church had the genius idea that the entire human race should be posthumously baptized into the Mormon Church.

Nice thought on behalf of the Mormons but a couple of little problems with their latest magnanimous gesture towards Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel (a gesture they are now blatantly denying)–Wiesel isn’t dead yet and he isn’t remotely interested in himself or anyone in his family being posthumously baptized into the Mormon faith.

When asked for comment, Eli Wiesel vehemently objected,

“I think it’s scandalous. Not only objectionable, it’s scandalous.”

Worse, the ongoing practice is in direct violation of a 1995 agreement forged between the Mormon church and outraged Jewish leaders to discontinue the practice–an agreement that was promptly and conveniently ignored for another 15 years. The practice continued until 2010 when the Church finally agreed to at least cease and desist from proxy baptisms for Holocaust victims.

The Mormon Church has conducted posthumous proxy baptisms on over 650,000 Holocaust victims.

Worse,

Radkey also discovered last month in this restricted Mormon database that church members in Utah, Arizona and Idaho had baptized the long-dead parents of famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, whose mother was murdered in the Belzec death camp.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced the practice in no uncertain terms, declaring,

“Throughout his life, Simon Wiesenthal especially revered his beloved mother who was deported and murdered at Belzec death camp in 1942. Such actions make a mockery of the many meetings with the top leadership of the Mormon Church dating back to 1995 that focused on the unwanted and unwarranted posthumous baptisms of Jewish Victims of the Nazi Holocaust.”

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, in an interview with The Daily Beast, admitted he personally performed posthumous proxy baptisms in the past.

When asked by NEWSWEEK if he has done baptisms for the dead–in which Mormons find the names of dead people of all faiths and baptize them, as an LDS spokesperson says, to “open the door” to the highest heaven–he looked slightly startled and answered, “I have in my life, but I haven’t recently.”

Huffington Post contacted Romney’s campaign spokeswoman Gail Gitcho for comment on this breaking story.

Instead of an official reply from the campaign, in a rather large oopsie moment, Gitcho accidentally sent the HuffPost’s reporter an internal email suggesting the campaign ignore the request for comment on this story.

Good thinking since ignoring an issue always makes it immediately go away, doncha know, and particularly a story with the gravitas that Eli Wiesel and the Simon Wiesenthal Center bring to the subject of the Holocaust.

Can I just go on the record now and publicly state that I do not wish to be posthumously baptized into the Mormon faith after my eventual demise? I realize, based on the evidence of the last 100 years, that my request will be completely ignored but it’s worth a shot, none the less.  

Comments

73 thoughts on “Not Mormon? No Problem. You will be Once you Die…Like it or Not.

    1. EXTREMELY offensive.  There was a big effort to do this for Jewish seniors in Florida years ago and my mother and all of her friends were OUTRAGED.  I don’t care if they mean well.  Who the hell do they think they are? Anybody who takes the liberty of baptizing me or mine by proxy better hope I never find out. Really, really hope.

      1. particularly his mother, I just felt sick to my stomach.

        This is beyond disrespectful. Everyone is welcome to their personal beliefs. They are not welcome to foist them off on dead people, over 650,000 of which died in gas chambers simply for being Jewish.  

      1. CBS News, Associated Press–all are running with the story. Obama had to answer to questions as to his beliefs after some of Jeremiah Wright’s comments from the pulpit were made public. I think Wiesel’s request that Romney comment on this is no different. The guy is running for President of the United States, has admitted personally performing posthumous baptisms on people, including his own agnostic/atheist father in law.

        Why should this subject be “beneath” the public’s interest?

    1. The issue of “religious tolerance” is front page news across the country.  Old white men want to tell everyone how to behave on Earth and whatever planet they inherit after their demise.

  1. But, honestly, unless the Mormons are really right, who really cares – it’s just a bunch of mumbo jumbo, and if the Mormons were right, it might actually be a good thing.

    When it comes to non-disruptive religious activity, it is hard to go below the threshold missionaries who try to convert you after you are already dead.  The more missionaries the Mormons devote to converting people after they are dead, the fewer resources there are to come knocking on my door, I reckon.

      1. the outrage coming from the Jewish community. From one of the linked articles.

        Previous discoveries of proxy baptisms of Jews over the past 18 years have outraged Jewish leaders. Such baptisms are especially problematic since so many Jewish people over the centuries had been forced to convert to Christianity against their will and murdered or expelled from countries when they did not.

        Does that at least help explain to you why this is so upsetting for so many people?

        1. it is nothing short of a theft of a dead persons faith and religious identity. I am by no means religious but this is really beyond the pale. Sick, and wrong.  Totally wrong.

      2. and religious self-conception is no way to live.  Taking what the Mormons are doing seriously is a case of feeding the trolls.  Better to mock their weirdness than to let it get to you.  

        Being outraged requires one to give these posthumous baptisms more credibility than they deserve.  It is only theft of a dead person’s faith and religious identity if one is willing to acknowledge that it has any meaning at all, and acknowledging it has meaning is stupid, especially coming from someone who has their own answers based on their own religious convictions.

        1. others without their consent. It has nothing to do giving them credibility. It has everything to do with the lack of respect this shows for people of other faiths.

          If this aggressive, intrusive, offensive, uninvited meddling is part of Mormonism then I’m sorry. It’s completely unacceptable and despicable, just as their former institutionalized racism was.  They officially changed that in the 70s. Before that they officially changed their stance on polygamy so there is plenty of precedent for change. They now need to change this.

          As with former official racism, the Mormon Church needs to renounce this practice except in connection  with their own damn ancestors, not mine, and promise to cease and desist in order to be welcome members of the community of respectable and respectful American religions.

          1. I’m sort of stunned at one poster in particular in this thread who just does not get how insulting this is. And I’m saying this as an ATHEIST. This isn’t about “giving credibility” to a ridiculous practice that I clearly don’t believe it or a religion I don’t believe in. It’s spiritual grave robbing and it’s a vile and disgusting practice that needs to end. Now.

            How hard is that to grasp, truly?  

        2. when my brother-in-law and sister baptised my mother into the Mormon “faith” after her death. A lifelong Methodist, she held no truck with Mormonism. My sister, whose soul rotted well before her entrance into any possible hell, took over the funeral service and turned it into the exact opposite of my mother’s well-known wishes– Mormon preacher, open-casket viewing, burial instead of cremation, etc. — because of her geographical proximity, and the occasion became one of the milestones in our family’s often fractious history.

          Luckily I recovered before making my remarks during the ceremony and was able to rankle a few Mormon and other “Christian” sensibilities before yielding the mike, including inviting everyone to an open bar at he motel where a brother and I were staying. It was well attended.

          Why should I have given more credibility to this buffonery than it deserved? Indeed, I didn’t and don’t. Ignoring them won’t make them go away, but it enables us to stay on the minimum dosage of blood pressure regulator.

    1. But after the inquisition (which incidentally sent many secret Jews eventually to Colorado where generations later some Catholic families were still lighting candles in cellars on Friday night, not remembering why), the pogroms (both of my grandmothers survived the last great pogrom as little girls by being hidden, along with all of their families, by ballsier than hell Ukrainian gentile neighbors) and the holocaust, it’s a very big deal to us, insulting, offensive and completely unacceptable, mumbo jumbo or not.

      It’s a very visceral thing and has nothing to do with being observant or secular or some of each. If I found out someone had baptized me or my son or my mother by proxy, my rage would know no bounds and I’d make damn sure the guilty party wished they had never messed with me.

       

      1. only without the palm trees.

        (Besides some future relative can always rebaptize back into the one true faith . . . and you still get to keep the money — hehe.   And really, does anyone want a President who paid one dime more in contributions than he was absolutely required to?)

      2. I have heard that one of the newer sects of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is practicing a new form of induction into the faith which does not require waiting until the unwilling are deceased and, in fact, is effective for all of one’s immediate future offspring as well. This is why they currently claim their membership at 17.2 billion.

        1. Why should they change it as long as it doesn’t really change reality for the rest of us? Somewhere along the line it must cost money — recordkeeping, etc. — that they can’t put into another Prop 8 campaign or some other bullshit attempt for religious domination. Now that did try to change reality for the rest of us, and that sort of shit they and the Conference of Catholic Bishops and others do have to change. Or we’ll have to just beat them down, time after time. And we can and must do it (with relish).

          1. You’re right.  They don’t have to change.  And I don’t have to view their practices as those of a religion worthy of respect. I find it despicable.  

            If this is something they really do, then  approval of a practice which demonstrates such profound disrespect and insensitivity to others would indeed be a deal breaker for me just as it would be a deal breaker if they still practiced racism as part of their religion.

            Once again, they’re free to have any beliefs and practices they wish, so long as they are within the law (no sacrificing humans, etc.) and I’m free to find them abhorrent.  I believe voters have the right to know if this is indeed Mormon religious policy and practice and if Romney, a high ranking Mormon, approves of it.  For some. like you, it will be unimportant.  To others it will be very important.  It is not irrelevant anymore than their former official racism was.  

  2. (I’ve heard people identify both ways, so they can self-identify anyway they like) why they do this. I’ve heard non-Mormons give various explanations, but I’d like to hear it directly. If it is out of genuine concern for the person, I wouldn’t care if they baptised every ancestor I ever had. (Who cares, since to me, it doesn’t mean a thing?)  If it is to get brownie points in Heaven for something, I might be put off.

    In any event, I am sorry to hear Mr. Wiesel is upset by it. He is a hero to many, and he does not deserve further persecution in his life.

        1. I wouldn’t lift a finger to defend but at least it’s not a proselytizing religion, and we certainly don’t, say, posthumously unbaptize people to save them from the “error” of being Christians.

          Grown ups should know that all organized religions are wacky in their own ways and that’s fine as long as they don’t cram their wackiness down other people’s throats.

    1. Conversion requires a rejection of previous beliefs, and converts may be concerned about the fate of their forebears–i.e., how are you going to meet Grandma in heaven if she died without the benefit of converting to Mormonism?  Posthumous baptism solves that problem.

      It’s pure marketing genius.  I don’t know of another sect that does it.

        1. A statement released by the Mormon Church today states that the individuals who are making a fit about this were not posthumously baptized, they were simply entered into the genealogical database maintained by the Mormons.  If their account is true, then this seems to be making a mountain out of molehill.  Further, the news release also states that Mormons are only allowed to do proxy work for their own ancestors.  

          I can see why someone might be upset about posthumous religious ordinances, but simply being listed on the largest genealogy database in the world is hardly something to get your undies in a bunch about.

          http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/

          1. I might agree. But that’s not what the general understanding has been and that’s not the story my mom and other Jews in Florida were getting on this subject years ago. If the Mormon Church will clarify this and state categorically that it never does baptism into the church by proxy except for forebears of Church members with the knowledge of the living descendents, I could see my way clear to having no problem.  

            Still, I question why they feel the need for the data of non-church members’ ancestors. In the absence of an official and very public clarification I don’t feel inclined to simply accept that there is no intention to use the genealogical data in inappropriate ways in light of the widespread perception about high handed baptism by proxy of non-Mormons without descendents in the church.  After all, Obama did produce his birth certificate several times over on the basis of a whole lot less than this.

          2. a practice performed for their own ancestors. After 1918, the President of the Mormon Church decided the entire human race deserved the same quick route to the afterlife.

            Why the hell do you think the Jewish community was up in arms over it for decades?

            Why do you think well known Jewish leaders and organizations spent years of negotiations with the Mormon Church to force them to agree in 1995 to cease and desist? (An agreement the Mormon Church promptly neglected and continued to ignore for another 15 years until 2010 when they finally relented and agreed to at least stop doing posthumous baptisms on Holocaust victims.)

            Only, once again, it appears they didn’t quite keep their word as Eli Wiesel’s name as well as his father (who died in Buchenwald) and grandfather showed up on the “list for consideration.” Whoops. Time to cover the old Mormon ass, I guess. Thus the statement released today.

            Please do more research or follow the links in this diary. The Simon Wiesenthal Center isn’t making this up. Neither is the researcher who uncovered Wiesel’s name on a list for consideration nor are Jewish leaders fabricating the nearly 15 years they have spent trying to get the Mormon church to cease and desist from posthumous proxy baptisms on Holocaust victims.

            Please do forgive me for believing my own eyes over the Mormon church’s official backpedaling and Romney’s stonewalling.  

          3. there have been several tmes in past decades that the Mormon Church has agreed to stop doing this to non-Mormons but that members of the church have continued the practice and they have not been sanctioned by the church. in other words, the Mormon Church says the right placating things when people complain about this but allow it to continue.    

    2. So they’ll outnumber Catholics and Muslims in heaven. Here’s some news for them, though: Unbelievers will outnumber them all, and our KStreet will so own god’s ear.

  3. The bigger political story, I think, is how many Romney volunteers are Mormon, or rather, how many are non-Mormon.  I’ve heard that the Romney campaign uses lots of students from BYU, sending them to the early primary/caucus states.  Other students have also been deployed, and I would like to know how many of those students are also Mormon.  

    Given the unprecedented lack of enthusiasm generated by the Romney campaign with the GOP base, it’s possible that the only true believers willing to work the phones, etc. are fellow Mormons.  In other words, the Romney campaign could be just a shell, funded by a handful of wealthy donors and staffed by members of his cultish religion.  Watch for this story to develop.

  4. (yes, it is possible)

    . . . I have no doubt that this practice stems from a sincere and reasonably altruistic, at least as altruistic as any religion can be (ok, sincerity is hard work), belief by the Mormon church, not unlike their missionary work. (Then too, I don’t know for certain, members probably earn some kind of heavenly brownie points or merit badges for adding to the eternal flock).

    I do know that one of the practical benefits, as least in so far as most people see it, of this practice and belief is that the Mormon church is now the repository of what are probably the most reliable and indisputably most extensive archive of genealogical records on this planet.  

    1. that I was much too young to be given a choice the first time I was baptized — at least, I sure don’t remember anyone asking my permission — I’m personally not to worried about not being asked after I’m dead.

      Personal considerations or lack thereof aside, I do understand why this is a problem for others who may not be as fully agnostic as I am.

        1. read a “not” where one is not.  “I do understand . . . ”

          Just noting that isn’t a problem for me personally, but I know why it would be for many, many others.  We’re good.  Shalom.

  5. This is a disgusting characteristic of religions gone wild. Don’t want to be Mormon, screw you, you will be after you are dead.

    The equality is the “evangelical religions” that kidnap little children to hide them and perform some version of baptism.

    That these “religions”, I cannot consider them in any form a religion, just a business opportunity for some smart talking guy in a clean white linens to make a lot of money, will offend people is astounding. And, extremely creepy too.

    Another reason to be Democratic, not freakin’ weird and slimey.

  6. … now or in the afterlife.

    I don’t want to be listed as a Mormon, now or in the afterlife.

    And if you believe as a matter of faith in the power of ceremony (i.e. that ceremonies have effects in the spiritual world), then being baptized as a Mormon could be tantamount to losing your standing, spiritually, among those of your own faith.  (Think of someone in one of those Christian sects that think Mormonism is of Satan; the Mormon church performing a proxy baptism on someone would be tantamount to invoking Satan to come for that person’s soul!)

    It’s not really a “nothing” matter to some people of faith.

  7. First of all, BlueCat, I completely get why this practice is offensive. This practice was a little peculiar originally but when they started making a point of baptizing victims of the Holocaust, it went far beyond peculiar.

    That said, here is the theology behind this practice. (Nancy, I am not a Mormon but my major study in college and graduate school was American Religion – and more particularly I focused on religious practices with their roots in America with an added focus on the LDS and African American religious experience. And frankly, not many Mormons could tell you the origins of some of their practices. For many, it just IS.)

    The LDS movement was influenced by, among other things, the Universalists. And while the Universalists debated the particular number of angels on the head of pin, the general view was that God’s love was greater than any human condition or behavior. Therefore, God’s love would reconcile all of us to Him regardless of anything else. When asked why anyone would be motivated to be good if there was no reward for “being good,” the Universalists response was essentially “We’re good for nothing.” That is, we are called to be good, do good out of gratitude for the grace that is extended to all of us. This theology be came so well-recieved, in contrast to the doctrine of the elect (the select few), that it was absorbed into a significant portion of mainline Christianity today. The Mormons, the UCC, and a large portion of Methodism, generally hold that God’s love will embrace all. The Universalists themselves nearly became extinct by the middle of the 20th century because their primary theology had been so adopted into the mainstream. They now exist as part of the Unitarian Universalist Association, a merger of two denominations in the ’60s.

    I often hear from people about their own religious journeys. For those who came out of a Christian tradition that held that only those who professed a faith in Christ would be saved, the most obvious question was “What about all those people who have never even HEARD of Christ? Will they be condemned to hell JUST because they live (fill in the blank – on an island in the South Pacific, the jungles of South America, etc.)?

    As Mormons, who had come to a new understanding and faith in Christ through this new witness, they asked the same question of their own ancestors. Will we not see them in heaven simply because they did not have the opportuntity to hear Joseph Smith’s revelation of Christ’s presence in the New World?

    With their universalist theology in hand, they came up with a solution – baptism of those ancestors. Like my grandmother who benevolently worried about my eternal soul because I left the church of my family, the Mormons benevolently worried about their ancestors and arrived at this solution.

    But, like so many religious practices, it evolved beyond this initial motivation and turned into an odd, if potentially benign and unrequested, baptism for people who had the thinnest connection or no ties at all to the Mormons.

    Enter the Holocaust, the most horrific genocide perpetrated on the main stage of the western European world in the modern era. Only a small group of deniers were not moved by this monstrous tragedy. And each responded to it in different ways. One of the Mormon responses was to reach out to these people with the same benevolence that they had extended to their own ancestors. That the Jews had been executed under the distorted logic of the “blood libel” view within Matthew was probably not part of the consideration for this practice. However, if it was given any consideration at all, the baptism was offered as an atonement for those who had so distorted the Christian message. The Book of Mormon contains at least one passage that specifically refutes mistreatment of the Jews. (3 Nephi 29:8) and it is stated in such a way that makes it clear that the author is aware that Jews have been mistreated in the past.

    So the baptism of the victims of the Holocaust follows from an initially benevolent theology of concern for their own ancestors which grew to a concern for those outside their own ancestry and eventually touched the victims of the Holocaust. There is no benefit to the Mormons or any particular Mormon for this practice. They don’t gain credits in heaven for having turned in the names of people who were later baptized.

    As to the practice of baptism itself, it is often mistaken as a confession of faith or a refutation of other beliefs. This an understandable misconception since often the two DO coincide in adults. However, baptism and confession are TWO separate things. The most obvious example of this is the fact that Catholics and most Protestants baptize infants. Clearly, infants do not have the ability to confess or refute anything. And this is fine because baptism is nothing more than an ordinance that welcomes one into the community. Not “community of believers” but simply into the community.

    So, when the Mormons baptize the dead and among them are an atheist, a Catholic, a Jew, and an ancestor of a current Mormon, this baptism simply embraces them as welcomed into the community. But none of them are understood to have refuted (or have had refuted for them) their identities, their values, or their own beliefs by virtue of this baptism. They are now considered an atheist who has been welcomed into the Mormon community, a Catholic who has been welcomed into the Mormon community, etc.

    This does not excuse the error in thinking that (as universalists) they should understand that God’s love has already embraced the atheist, the Catholic, the Jew, and the ancestor. It is a peculiar combination of superstition and primacy that calls Mormons to baptize those who, in the LDS’ own theology,  are ALREADY embraced by God. That arrogance, if you will, is what I would suggest is most offensive, particularly to the Jewish people who have had 2000 years of being told that their covenant with God has been supplanted by a new covenant.

    So, my point is that this practice has a benevolent root. But in the end it is a patronizing benevolence and that they continue to do it over the clear protestations of leaders in the Jewish community and that they believe that only their ordinance of baptism has authority (when so much else of what they proclaim points to an undertanding of God’s ultimate authority) is the greatest offense.

    1. But Mormons in general (admitedly this is from my own personal experience) believe Mother’s damned soul (theologically speaking) is now a Mormon soul (religiously speaking) and has been saved from Methodism’s error and her own earthly negligence. Now, finally, God can accept her into that “community”.

      As far as religious arrogance goes, Mormons don’t own it. (See Conference of Catholic Bishops, Focus on the Family, Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachman, Rick Perry, Billy Graham, etc. Find Glen Beck under “Mormon”.)

      1. In any religion, there is the official doctrine and theology and then there is how it is understood among the laity. The theology and doctrine is that baptism is an ordinance that is not connected to faith (which is a question of conscience) and, in the case of the baptism of the dead, does not alter their faith any more than being baptized alters the conscious “faith” of an infant. That the laity understands it has “converted” them to the Mormon “faith” is an error of understanding.

        It is also an error for anyone following Mormon doctrine to say that your mother’s soul was damned until she was baptized. That a huge portion of the laity believe this (and I don’t suspect that your experience is unique) is damning to the religion. It is already a peculiar enough practice to begin with before it becomes distorted. But I understand that the intention of the doctrine is of little comfort to someone when the practitioners are standing over your loved one’s body and proclaiming the distortion. I’m glad to hear you honored your mother’s intentions as best you could under those circumstances.

      1. and in no way condoning it.  I did note he mentioned that it was patronizing and that he understood why it is offensive.

        I think we all agree it is arrogant and completely offensive though.  He writes an interesting perspective as to the why, but it does have to stop.

        1. and irrelevant excuses. I am particularly uninterested in the finer points of baptism theology as it relates to this issue. I’m under no obligation to go out of my way to learn the specifics of somebody else’s mumbo jumbo as long as I’m tolerant of their right to indulge in it as long as they bear in mind that their right ends where the rights of others begin.

          Other people are free to believe whatever magical formulas strike their fancy, though I’m mystified by adults taking such things overly seriously. The only obligation involved here is theirs to refrain from presuming the right to impose their beliefs without permission,  an outrageous violation no matter their motives. So I guess my position is… spare me the “they mean well” garbage.  I don’t care what they mean as long as they leave me and mine out of it.  

          1. In case you didn’t read the subject line the first time. These are not excuses made up post outrage to excuse the behavior. This is the history and theology.

            You can insult and broad brush all religious people as much as you want. It doesn’t change the fact that pure evil is rare. Most of the time, people start with good intentions.

            If you don’t want to take the time to understand the practices of other human beings, it is obviously your prerogative. But that is the same argument that the religious right takes to our “faith” in science. (They don’t want to understand that our “faith” is based in strong reason and observation) They just bury their head in the sand and claim that we can believe our “mumbo jumbo” all we want as long as we don’t teach it to their kids. Where does this argument get any of us?

            You can still be offended by the practice. I know I am (even if you have your head so buried in the sand that you keep missing that.)

            P.S. You can probably find out who I am with a minimal amount of sleuthing. If you want to take this conversation offline and communicate person to person instead of allowing this conversation devolve into insults between anonymous posters, I am glad to do that. I’m sure we have more respect for each other than this testy exchange might indicate.

            1. from a historical perspective mostly.  I agree it dosen’t excuse anything, and I think all 3 of us find this practice reprehensible as well.

              Cheers.

              1. I found Todd’s insight really interesting and helpful for filling in some context for me.

                And yeah, I’m still disgusted by the practice and would very much like Romney to comment on this, just as I expected Obama to comment on Reverend Wright’s comments.  

              2. And, yes, it’s nice to understand other people’s theology.  My best friends as a little girl through grade school were an Episcopalian and a Catholic and we exchanged info on our religions without any attempts on anybody’s part to convert anyone, just as a matter of interest.

                As a result, even as a Jewish grade schooler I understood the distinction between the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth, understood the Christian concept of trinity and where Protestants and Catholics differed on transubstantiation. I enjoy knowing stuff like that. And I understand Todd isn’t offering excuses.  

                I guess I just feel that having every little detail of Mormon theology wouldn’t change my view that this particular practice of theirs is an outrage and completely beyond the pail, regardless, and I don’t think people being so ignorant and arrogant as to presume it is their place to save others from “error”, whether they want to be saved or not, is in any way excused because in their insufferable take on the superiority of their magical beliefs to anyone else’s, they are “well meaning”.   Don’t mean to take it out on Todd.

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