Temple Baptisms And Math

[Tacenda]

I did hear about the millennium (although not in church, surprisingly). Of course, the plan for doing 99.9999% of the work in the millennium seems a pretty good argument against spending the massive amounts of time that we currently spend doing such a tiny fraction of the work; unless, of course, there is something the work does for US. Or, unless you want to have a really good stick to ensure compliance with the rules and regulations (i.e., "pay your tithes or you'll be sitting outside the temple drinking a Diet Snaffle during your daughter's wedding").

And someone explained to me that living the thousand years will be plenty time for young adults to pursue their dreams and that it's good to pray for the second coming to come sooner. Or something like that. Sounds like they'll be far to busy to do anything but temple work. Work, work, work based. When the Lord said it was finished.

[thesometimesaint]

Recently, my mind drifted to the numbers involved in doing Temple baptisms.  Specifically, my current ward sends the youth to the local Temple several times a year, which is much more often then I went when I was a teenager.  There are also many, many more Temples now than there were then.

 

So, assuming that other wards are also regularly sending their youth to do Temple baptisms, is it possible that we would ever run out of names for them to do?  And if so, what happens?

 

Here is a rough estimation of the math as I see it:

 

There are about 12,000 wards in the USA.

http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/statistics/units/

Let's say the average ward has 25 youth, and they do a Temple baptism trip twice a year. At each trip, each youth does 25 baptisms.

So, that would be 1250 per ward per year, * 12000 wards. That's 15 million names per year. 150 million names per decade.

Add in the 10,000 international wards, and it could be quite a bit more.

PBS says the granite mountain vaults had ~ 2 Billion names (mostly inaccessible on microfilm), with 35 million in the Ancestral File.

http://www.pbs.org/Mormons/etc/genealogy.html

I don't know how many actual names the Church has access to for temple work, or the exact number of youth baptisms that are done each year.  The biggest variable would be how many names each youth does on a Temple trip; that could be decreased to slow the pace.

 

But is it possible that we could run out?

 

It also appears there are about 50 million people dying each year worldwide, so that would be plenty if there were a mechanism in place to get them into the system.  Does anyone know if that is set up?

 

Theoretically it is possible, but there have been some 100 billion people who have lived on this earth. So it might take a while to get all those people baptized.

[mfbukowski]

Being crassly cynical is my "thing." ....

Seriously, I think there might be something to temple service and when the Church recognizes that HF finds women as valuable as 12 yo boys, I might find out what that is.  Sorry, I couldn't help myself.  Crassly cynical is my "thing."

OK it's your thing, but at least get your facts right. In the temple women officiate in ordinances of the Melchizedek priesthood, not the Aaronic.

But somehow I think heavenly father finds both women and boys to be valuable.

Go figure.

I guess there's no way to account for taste.

[Brian 2.0]

When I think of all the proxy temple ordinances that need to be done, my first question is... why?

 

I sort of get the idea of justice being an eternal law to God simply can't absolve without a sacrifice... yada yada yada... but temple ordinances as well?  Is it an absolute necessity to be performed by an embodied person by eternal law?  Or is it Heavenly Father's desire?  

[mormonnewb]

When I think of all the proxy temple ordinances that need to be done, my first question is... why?

I sort of get the idea of justice being an eternal law to God simply can't absolve without a sacrifice... yada yada yada... but temple ordinances as well? Is it an absolute necessity to be performed by an embodied person by eternal law? Or is it Heavenly Father's desire?

I struggled with that quite a bit myself. It all seemed limited for such a big God. "If somebody, somewhere doesn't get wet, then I'm powerless to save my blessed children."

I've come to the belief that HF CAN save us without the ordinance, but that He might be allowing us to help, in much the way I do with my young sons in putting up the Xmas lights. I'm certainly capable of doing it without them, but it gives them a thrill to think they helped. Also, I hope it teaches them something when it's time for them to hang the lights on their houses. Maybe the same thing is true here: By performing the ordinances, we learn something about what it will take to redeem our creation.

[Brian 2.0]

I've come to the belief that HF CAN save us without the ordinance...

 

That's the question right there.  Where do ordinances fall:

 

1)  God is the lawgiver and could theoretically give exceptions

2)  God is not the lawgiver and cannot grant exceptions

[cinepro]

I struggled with that quite a bit myself. It all seemed limited for such a big God. "If somebody, somewhere doesn't get wet, then I'm powerless to save my blessed children."

I've come to the belief that HF CAN save us without the ordinance, but that He might be allowing us to help, in much the way I do with my young sons in putting up the Xmas lights. I'm certainly capable of doing it without them, but it gives them a thrill to think they helped. Also, I hope it teaches them something when it's time for them to hang the lights on their houses. Maybe the same thing is true here: By performing the ordinances, we learn something about what it will take to redeem our creation.

 

Based on what I've seen here in Los Angeles, God requires us to help put up the Christmas lights at the Temple too.

Edited June 10, 2015 by cinepro

[mfbukowski]

I struggled with that quite a bit myself. It all seemed limited for such a big God. "If somebody, somewhere doesn't get wet, then I'm powerless to save my blessed children."

I've come to the belief that HF CAN save us without the ordinance, but that He might be allowing us to help, in much the way I do with my young sons in putting up the Xmas lights. I'm certainly capable of doing it without them, but it gives them a thrill to think they helped. Also, I hope it teaches them something when it's time for them to hang the lights on their houses. Maybe the same thing is true here: By performing the ordinances, we learn something about what it will take to redeem our creation.

Dang.

 

Forget all the rotten things I have been saying about you.     +1

[mfbukowski]

When I think of all the proxy temple ordinances that need to be done, my first question is... why?

 

I sort of get the idea of justice being an eternal law to God simply can't absolve without a sacrifice... yada yada yada... but temple ordinances as well?  Is it an absolute necessity to be performed by an embodied person by eternal law?  Or is it Heavenly Father's desire?  

It teaches us

that

each

member

of

the

human

family

is

important

to God.

And

must

be

to

us.

 

AND MUST BE TO US!!

 

It's not some guy over in India who got hit by a bus, or starved or whatever- what was his name anyway and who cares??

 

He is THIS PERSON

 

He had a name.

He had parents, and here are their names.

 

He lived a life, loved took care of people, he was born on this date and died on this one, but the importance of his life is found in the dash between those two numbers.

 

He was a son of God.  God knew him.  His life is worth something.  Worth a couple of hours of our time just to see that he was a human and had a name.

 

We get to spend a couple of hours with random human beings who were just like us, and we get to think we are helping them to be in God's presence.

 

If you want to learn the importance of EACH human being on this planet there is absolutely NO BETTER WAY.

 

I try to visualize them and you would be surprised to see what I see.

[Brian 2.0]

It teaches us

that

each

member

of

the

human

family

is

important

to God.

And

must

be

to

us.

 

AND MUST BE TO US!!

 

It's not some guy over in India who got hit by a bus, or starved or whatever- what was his name anyway and who cares??

 

He is THIS PERSON

 

He had a name.

He had parents, and here are their names.

 

He lived a life, loved took care of people, he was born on this date and died on this one, but the importance of his life is found in the dash between those two numbers.

 

He was a son of God.  God knew him.  His life is worth something.  Worth a couple of hours of our time just to see that he was a human and had a name.

 

We get to spend a couple of hours with random human beings who were just like us, and we get to think we are helping them to be in God's presence.

 

If you want to learn the importance of EACH human being on this planet there is absolutely NO BETTER WAY.

 

I try to visualize them and you would be surprised to see what I see.

 

I completely agree with you here.  And I always enjoyed this aspect of temple work when I was active.  I have no beef with the benefit temple work performs to a person acting as proxy.  All sorts of respect there.

 

My question is of a different vein and focuses on the (admittedly probably less important) question of literal eternal necessity of ordinances and the source of the law.  

[mfbukowski]

If you saw some random homeless person dead on the street, would you do anything?

 

Would you think "Oh- that poor soul! What he must have gone through!  I wonder if he had a family?  At the very least he deserves some kind of remembrance service or funeral or something!  It's the least we can do!"

 

But if you see that "name" in the temple, does it have the same importance to you as a dead person on the street would?

 

Should it not even mean MORE to you??

[Brian 2.0]

...and we get to think we are helping them to be in God's presence.

 

This is the part that changed when I lost belief.  The power of going to the temple lost it's power when I no longer believed I was actually doing the thing you said.  

[mfbukowski]

I completely agree with you here.  And I always enjoyed this aspect of temple work when I was active.  I have no beef with the benefit temple work performs to a person acting as proxy.  All sorts of respect there.

 

My question is of a different vein and focuses on the (admittedly probably less important) question of literal eternal necessity of ordinances and the source of the law.  

Oh heck I don't even know what that means.  Neither does anyone else either.

[mfbukowski]

This is the part that changed when I lost belief.  The power of going to the temple lost it's power when I no longer believed I was actually doing the thing you said.  

Of course.

 

The question in your mind, (pardon me for saying so) is what prompted you to "no longer believe"?

 

I can guarantee it was a confusion about words, maybe something like "where is the eternal law that makes this happen"?

 

The fact that it is an eternal law that we must turn our hearts to our fathers or the earth will lose its purpose in our lives is just that- eternal law

 

You stop believing the earth has a "purpose" and for you, it doesn't any more.  If the earth does not have a purpose, we don't have a purpose.

 

I can tell you the purpose of us believing we have a purpose and that is that life sucks without it.

 

Been there done that.   And yes, that "purpose" is non-falsifiable.

 

Why does mankind seem to be programmed to believe that we have a purpose to begin with?

 

Call it evolution, call it God designing us according to his will- that's semantics.

 

The bottom line is that it makes life worth living.  Alma 32 says such a belief is "sweet" to us.

 

Does such a belief "correspond to scientific data"?  Of course not.   The entire idea of "purpose" cannot be shown through scientific data.

 

What is the "purpose" of morality?  To keep us happy and live peacefully.  No data available on what constitutes right or wrong.  Such beliefs bring us "peace".

 

So is your life better for questioning "eternal law"?   Are you a happier person than you were?

 

I can tell you right now I am much happier now that I have redefined "eternal law" for myself.  You should read Sartre's novel "Nausea" about an existential dilemma and the loss of faith.

 

Written in the form of journal entries, it follows 30-year-old Antoine Roquentin who, returned from years of travel, settles in the fictional French seaport town of Bouville to finish his research on the life of an 18th-century political figure. But during the winter of 1932 a "sweetish sickness," as he calls nausea, increasingly impinges on almost everything he does or enjoys: his research project, the company of an autodidact who is reading all the books in the local library alphabetically, a physical relationship with a café owner named Françoise, his memories of Anny, an English girl he once loved, even his own hands and the beauty of nature.

Over time, his disgust towards existence forces him into self-hatred and near-insanity. He embodies Sartre's theories of existential angst, and he searches anxiously for meaning in all the things that had filled and fulfilled his life up to that point. But finally Antoine comes to a revelation into the nature of his being when he faces the troublesomely provisional and limited nature of existence itself.

In his resolution at the end of the book he accepts the indifference of the physical world to man's aspirations. He is able to see that realization not only as a regret but also as an opportunity. People are free to make their own meaning: a freedom that is also a responsibility, because without that commitment there will be no meaning.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausea_%28novel%29

 

Guess what?  Mormonism says the same thing.  We are gods in embryo and godlets learn how to construct worlds from matter unorganized.

 

We are free to make our own meaning- to have a will to believe and construct our own model of reality.

 

And a big part of my model includes the belief that we are all important and have a purpose.  I pulled it out of the air, but a lot of people find that that belief works for them as well. 

Edited June 10, 2015 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

But then I get into the temple and God tells me I am doing what he wants, and I can't leave the place.

 

All those ideas and excuses and rational stuff goes out the window and I am buried in a flood of pure love.

 

So much for all that talk.