If a person goes up to a vending machine, drops their $0.50 in, gets a cross or Virgin icon, and starts wearing it around, does that automatically make them a Christian?
Hasn't this already been answered a million times by every type of Christian on this website who frequents this subforum? The answer is no, and I think you already know that it's no. Please come up with a new argument. This one is old and done. Time to put it out to pasture.
No, I'm not exaggerating. These things show up at least once a year where I live. I've gotten a couple as evidence of this.
I never claimed you were exaggerating, though the number of times you have brought up the "cross out of a vending machine" scenario makes me wonder if this isn't in some sense a pre-rehearsed/pre-programmed pseudo-answer. The fact that others may blaspheme against Christ our Lord in this or that way for money is really not any kind of indicator of the faith of the people who engage in religion-based commerce overall. If I buy a book from a Coptic-owned bookstore, am I being a bad Christian? Should I not have gladly received the rosary that my godmother once gave me that she had blessed by Pope John Paul II because clearly she must've bought it somewhere first? (I don't think Roman Popes just carry around thousands of extra rosaries on their persons to give out for free.)
The way you're framing things makes it seem like the cheapness of the item itself indicates a kind of insincere faith, but there's no way you can possibly know that, and that's also the most judgmental thing I've seen on here in a long time. What about the widow with her two mites in Luke 21? She was the greatest example of faith among all who gave, yet she gave little. What if a sincere Christian has only 50 cents and decides to spend it on a cheap plastic cross? I suppose you could make the argument, if you wanted to, that she should've given it to the nearest poor person instead, but in terms of
commercial transactions (not charity), what exactly is wrong with owning a cheap cross if you wear it proudly, with faith in our Lord's resurrection and His returning in His glory to judge the living and the dead? That's what it means. That's why it matters. With respect, when you make it about this other stuff all it shows me is that you don't understand why any of this is important to Christians -- i.e., as I wrote earlier (and as Mormons such as yourself show whenever this topic comes up),
Mormonism has no theology of the cross.
IP law's a darn fickle beast, and an amateur at the subject like JS was didn't stand much of a chance at working with it. It got bungled badly, and caused some issues.
Nice sidestepping of the hypocrisy shown by pointing out
everyone else's commercial ventures as though that invalidates their religion (even though there's nothing that says the people who make or even the people who buy the items are professed Christians, so the entire premise is wrong and dumb), while the leader of your own religion was told in a failed 'revelation' to sell what your religion considers
God-inspired scripture for money. Do you want to address the ethics of that, or keep wallowing in hypocrisy?
Thing is, even though you yourself admit that it's a legitimate symbol, we're still being told "But where's your cross?" and that's the end of it. It's that one symbol people are so fixated on that some days we're left wondering if that's all people are looking at / for.
Yeah, gee...It's almost like
it's the one symbol that summarizes the entire point of our religion or something. How weird that people would be so 'fixated' on that.
All the while the builders of your religion keep building the Moroni statues to sit atop the most special of special buildings. Good. Keep doing that. They show who you serve and what you believe in, and it's not Christ or Christianity.
