The Plain Message -- Mamusz' Restoration Forum

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Date Posted: 11:40:15 11/27/11 Sun
Author: George
Subject: The Plain Message
In reply to: Mamusz 's message, "Deceptive? " on 09:32:02 11/18/11 Fri

>>and no matter how many times things are explained to
>>you Lois you still bring up the same things over and
>>over and over and over and over and over again...
>>
>>are you trying to be deceptive?
>>
>>john
>>
>
>My
>goodness, John, how can you call something deceptive
>that the Community of Christ has clearly said?
>
>Mamusz
>
>

Mamusz, the Community of Christ plainly says many things.

Here is a list:

1. The Book of Mormon is not historically true, and it is a human production of the 19th century, not a preColumbian Christian text.

I agree with this, after having typeset the Book of Mormon and looked up the cross references to the Bible.

2. Joseph Smith, Jr, and Oliver Cowdery were not visited by John the Baptist, and were neither baptized by any historical Biblical prophet, nor ordained by one.

I agree with this.

3. The Community of Christ says that the Bible is a human production written between 1200 BC and 100 AD, and compiled in its final form shortly before the 3rd to 4th century AD.

I don't agree with the core insinuation of this one. It appears that because the Community of Christ was burned by Josph Smith, Jr., and feels foolish that it ever believed that the Book of Mormon was historically correct, it extends this perception of pious (or otherwise) fraud to the Bible. Thus, the doctrine of the virgin birth, the divinity of Christ, the substitutionary atonement, etc. all are considered disposable human ideas that can be jettisoned when they no longer satisfy required EPA standards for spiritual emissions.

It's the "Cat and the Hot Stove Lid" fallacy. A cat that sits on a hot stove lid will never sit on a hot stove lid again. In fact it will never again sit on any flat object that looks remotely round. The CofC has been burned, and it will not trust scripture ever again. It intends to scrupulously avoid the hot stove lid while paying no attention to the fact that it is walking into a nuclear reactor core.

Everything else that the Community of Christ proclaims is predicated on the above 3 propositions. After all, if the Bible is not much better than the Book of Mormon as far as absolute truth and accuracy goes, then nothing in the Bible is reliable, either. That gives freedom to simply recreate the faith all over from nothing, which is pretty much what the Community of Christ believes that Joseph Smith, Jr. did. After all, if he wrote the Book of Mormon himself, he had no reason to consult it for divine guidance. He could just consult himself and find out what he found useful and spiritual that particular week, and write new revelations that had little or no connection with the teachings of the Book of Mormon. The constant recreation prevents any of the new designs from ever making it off the drafting table, because even before the new design or concept (or paradigm, LOL) can be finished and put into service, the plans immediately get redrawn. The new design's specifications are affected by whatever interest group controls the church at the time of drafting; and unsaved humans, being constantly in a turmoil of dissatisfaction and discomfort with reality, always want something different.

This "evolutionary" view of religion also draws on modern liberal thinking. Modern liberals believe that all organic life is the product of evolution, which works by random recombination of DNA to produce an occasional lottery- winning trait every 100 to 300 thousand years. However, rather than leave the random process alone (which process is the sole reason that evolution and survival of the fittest works,) the liberals propose to deliberately tamper with evolution and force it to go where they want it to. This is a mistake, because forcibly driven evolution could lead to the creation of organisms that have all the attributes desired by their scientist creators, except the ability to survive. Slow random evolution simply leaves these damaged goods by the side of the road, but forcible evolution would create massive numbers of such organisms. If the organism in question were human, all human life might come to an end because of the inability of slow natural evolution to reverse the damage. Imagine an entire generation of women genetically designed to look good in a strip club, but physically incapable of reproducing. The human mind is fully capable of knowing what it wants, but is impaired when it comes to knowing what it needs.

But that is exactly what the conclusions of the Community of Christ regarding its origins has led to theologically. If the restored church is merely a fabrication drawn up to human specifications, and then deliberately remodeled rapidly to suit changing human desires and concerns, it may very well kill itself off. After all, if all previous versions of the faith are fallible and wrong because they were cobbled together by fallible and wrong human beings, why would the Community of Christ, being composed of fallile and wrong human beings, be able to do any better? All it can do is revision the faith to suit the secular fad of the month.

The three propositions above, if all taken together (as I have written them out) as a foundation for faith, lead only to disaster. It's funny that all three are exactly what I believe myself, with the notable exception of the subtly expressed proposition that Bible is as fallible as the Book of Mormon. That subtle DNA difference between the CofC and orthodox Christianity represents an evolutionary dead end. Just get the ship off course a half of a degree, and you are lost.

I've seen it posted here many times that what a person believes makes absolutely no difference. It's supposed to be what he does that counts. But due to the fact that a person's beliefs directly affect his actions, the above statement that belief is irrelevant is a paradigma.

A person who lacks money, knows that there is money at the bank, and believes that he won't get caught may very well rob the bank. The paradigmatic observation would be that it is not the potential crime suspect's belief that he won't get caught or punished that affects the outcome, it is only what the person decides to do -- as if his beliefs have nothing to do with what is surely going to happen.

That's the danger I see in the CofC's current theological position. Its position can only be defined in terms of the above three propositions, because everything else is changing like the channels on my TV when my son is watching.

George

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