As you scoot along reading 1 Cor. 15:29 that phrase jumps out: THEY do which are baptized for the dead...
Paul is writing to the Corinthian church...if there was either anybody there in Corinth as part of the church -- or part of Paul's traveling entourage -- who were being baptized for the dead, he would have used the pronoun "we" -- not "they"...who are "they"???
In 1 Cor. 15:30, it's quite clear (in NIV, for example), that Paul THEN transitions to us, starting off: "And as for US...
YOU should talk!
I open up my "handy-dandy" Book of Mormon, to the Book of Moroni, chapter 8, which discusses baptism of children...
As I scroll my eyes down to Moroni 8:14, what do I find here?
"Behold I say unto you, that he that supposeth that little children need baptism is in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity, for he hath neither faith, hope, nor charity; wherefore, should be be cut off while in the thought, he MUST go down to hell."
Here you, Luke, talk about Mormon "compassion & comfort" in some supposed "contrast" to a few Christian sects who consign the baptized-less to hell...yet what do YOU & all Mormons (like Grig & Mitt) who embrace the Book of Mormon do to people who might be off-base on this teaching??? You & all Mormons accuse them -- via Moroni 8:14-- of...
...having the "gall of bitterness"...
...stuck in the "bonds of iniquity" [wicked sinners in bondage]...
...you judge them to have have ZERO faith...
...you judge them to have ZERO hope...
...you declare these complete strangers as being void of charity (love)...
...and then you & all Mormons send such folks to hell...
Why??? Because they're simply off-base on a doctrine of baptism toward children!!!
And you call the Mormon belief on children & baptism compassionate????
So, yes, or no, do you believe Moroni 8:14 to be THE word of God, as proclaimed to all Mormons???
(I will take a non-answer as "yes," you do)
What? Do you reject the Bible...verses like...John 8:34... Romans 6:17-20...Eph. 2:1 which talks about being servants/slaves of sin?
Do you claim to have more authority than Jesus when He said: 34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. (John 8:34)
Jesus plainly said there that sin-committers were sin-servants! Mitt's father-in-law was an atheist in this life -- hardly "free" from any sin! What kind of implied "free" "agency" is there for slaves???????
Romans 6:17-20 twice talks about "servants of sin..."...What do you do Luke with that passage? Just ignore it all your life?
Or how about Eph. 2:1? 2 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
[See also Luke 9, where Jesus mentioned how the (spiritually) dead could bury the (physically) dead...Being spiritually dead is hardly "free agency..." 'tis bondage!!!]
What? You don't believe your own Book of Mormon, which clearly elucidates that there's NO 2nd chance post-death (as in NONE)???:
Alma 42:16 says that eternal punishment is as eternal as the life of the soul. [It's not temporary] Alma 34:32-35 says there's no second chance: For behold THIS LIFE is the time for men to prepare to meet God...do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life...then cometh the night of darkness wherein THERE CAN BE NO LABOR PERFORMED. Ye CANNOT say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye CANNOT say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world. (I cited parts of vv. 32-34)
What are you, Luke? Tattered by the wind? Scattered by every wind of doctrinal change made by a single man? (Joseph Smith)
So Smith was "right" on the "no second chance" doctrine when the Book of Mormon came out in 1829-1830...but then, when Smith had a change of thought 'bout baptizing the dead due to a death in his family...'twas suddenly a-OK by 1840???
So Alma had it right from 74 B.C. all the way for 1900 years...and then Joe decided he was all washed up...
What do you do, then, Luke...take scissors, then, to Alma 34???
And what do you do, Luke with 2 Nephi 9:38???
And, in fine, wo unto ALL [not SOME] who die in their sins; for they shall return to God, and behold his face, and REMAIN IN THEIR SINS.
That teaching was supposedly handed down on gold plates between 559 and 545 B.C...so that teaching then, you're telling us, stuck around for almost 2400 years...and then, poof, Smith rejects it and trumps it with something that's only been 'round less than 175 years???
Smith REPEATEDLY said in the D&C that the BoM was the "fulness of the Everlasting gospel"...yet it mentions NOTHING about baptisms of the dead...so that means Mormons don't need baptisms of the dead -- at least as far as the narrow Mormon 'gospel' goes...
And if it's not even part of the Mormon 'gospel,' then it's take it or leave it religious ritualism doesn't touch upon "salvation" in any real sense of the term.