From: awe@pimms.mit.edu (Ari Epstein)
Subject: Re: Who's next? Mormons and Jews?
Organization: CMPO at MIT
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Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: pimms.mit.edu

In article <viking.735373292@ponderous.cc.iastate.edu>, viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson) writes:
> In <mcclaryC5snpq.KB1@netcom.com> mcclary@netcom.com (Michael McClary) writes:
> 
> 	
>                                         
> 	
> 	  LDS and RLDS
> philosophy is that all other religions have strayed from the true
> Church as set down by Jesus, but that God will judge each on his
> own merits.  In addition, the RLDS also contend (and the LDS may
> as well) that ignorance of the True Way (tm) is an excuse.  You
> can only be condemned if you had been tought the way and rejected
> it.  In short, LDS and RLDS suffer everybody from Lutherans to
> Buddhists, secure in the knowledge that though they are wrong they
> will not be penalized for ignorance.  


I believe that this is not quite correct. My understanding is that LDS is
engaged on a project to "convert" the souls of deceased persons of other
religions, in order to spare them from damnation and gain them entrance into
heaven. To this end, the Church has compiled extensive genaeological records, so
that they will know the names of people to convert. A long article in the New
Yorker a few years ago described the LDS research methods in some detail (for
example, some researchers pay visits to local native storytellers to learn the
names of people long dead). This sounds like just the sort of lie that would be
made up about any unusual religion, but the New Yorker story convinced me that
there is some truth to it (the New Yorker used to do extensive fact-checking, and
the story was quite detailed).

Ari


