The thing I almost did...

As a practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons), I felt a responsibility to respond to recent discussion of baptism for the dead. After a few hours spent writing a response and researching the issue, I've decided that a long, drawn out response is simply unnecessary. Suffice it to say I believe that this is a good practice that makes sense to me and the others who participate in this ordinance. If you don't believe in the doctrine, certainly you can't think that our performing it amounts to more than the curious antics of a peculiar people. At no point in our doctrine do we believe that performing such baptism "guarantees" that the person who's been baptised is "automatically" a Mormon. We believe that the recipient has been given the opportunity to accept or reject the ordinance performed in his or her behalf. (We also believe that the Gospel will be preached in the next life, so everyone will know what's going on - and recognize the opportunity that they are being offered). The choice is up to them to do what they will with it once it's been done.
At any rate, the curious can go to the LDS website, and read up on it here, here, and here. (The whole chapter on the last two).
At no point do we do this out of a desire to insult the memory of anyone's ancestors. At no point do we do this out of a desire to prove our superiority over others. We do it out of a sense of love, service, and duty to those who have gone before. We do this because we believe it is a commandment of God.
If anyone's still curious, I'm more than happy to discuss the issue in e-mail - just click on my name, it's under the Creative Commons notice. I agree not to post any e-mails without express permission first, and they'd be anonymous at any rate.