If you don't know what a cargo cult is, basically primitive people, in the Pacific during WWII, noticed that airplanes dropping cargo to troops, would occasionally drop packages in the wrong place. Often these were retrieved by the tribesmen. They began to associate the planes as being Gods, and the dropped cargo as being gifts from the Gods. They even began building idols in the shape of American cargo planes, in the hope of attracting gifts.

Some natives were employed as CoastWatchers and scouts for the allied forces. These guys occasionally got to witness the allied troops wearing headsets, and speaking into funnels in a funny manner, and soon realized that they were directing the planes. So the natives built their own copies of headsets and funnels, and started mimicking the air traffic controllers, in an attempt to communicate with their new Gods.

Primitive people living in upstate New York, noticed that the English used in their magic book, the Bible, was different then the way English was spoken in an everyday manner in their village. They began mimicking this strange English, ignorant of its origins, but associating it with the magical language of their God.

Some of these primitive New Yorkers created their own new cult, and they wrote a brand new magic book. Instead of writing it in their regular English, they attempted to copy the magical English of Elizabethan England. Their imitations worked about as well, as the C-17 that the natives of the Solomon Islands built out in the jungle. You could tell what it was supposed to be, but you could also tell it was no C-17.

As these Mormon Cargo Cult enthusiast migrated out of Utah, and across the country, eventually settling in Utah, they began to even mimic their crappy mock-shakespearean style English whenever they attempted to cast their magic spells, known as prayers, because to this day, they still believe it is how God talks.

Well, to be technically correct, you meant to say C-47, but the C-17 is an awesome plane.

I say, verily....

Good points, forbidden. The language you're talking about is early modern English, and it was Shakespeare's tongue. The Mormon obsession with the language stems from ignorance. Instead of seeing early modern English as a part of the spectrum of our language as it evolves, they imagine it to be fixed and attached to God. To them it's Bible English, the language of Jesus and God. They tell each other to use it for prayer, as it shows respect for God(?)

To compare the Book of Mormon to a cargo cult plane is brilliant. Thanks for thinking of it.

Yep - Instead of middle English they should pray in Old English (now that would be fun to hear as they mispronounced most of the words).

This made me laugh-- and so true--

Brilliant!

When a young cult builds its made-up theology around the mistranslations of one volume of scripture, the "King James Bible", the cult is then stuck with using that version only, forever. So they glorify this Bible and its style, and bring it into their worship services, in an effort to keep their flock from reading any other translation of the Bible that may not agree with their theology.

Excellent concept. May I also add: the Cargo Cults have their own literature of revelation from the heavens, usually through the ministrations of John Frum, who is the Savior of the World and has appeared to many, thereby confirming his reality. So the believers all have firm testimonies of all this, in the name of John Frum, amen.

Be careful with the term "primitive people".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2014 03:33AM by slskipper.

If only JS had just used that Shakespearean English to write a play. He could have included plenty of wenches and a ghost or two. He would have cast himself as the king with plenty of underlings to order about. By the end of the play the stage would have been littered with produce and JS would have left town with the cash box, leaving the theatre and the actors unpaid.

We, of course, would have lived very different lives and we'd be writing on some other forum.

Awe, if only.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2014 03:49AM by releve.

I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic, but if not, I think I understand your point.

But I also see that your description of Smith and his "play" are really not far off the reality of his life and works.

Consider Kirtland---Joe wrote a "gospel" (BOM, "gathering of saints to Zion", Kirtland Safety Society), convinced (or promised to pay) "actors" to play key roles on his stage, convinced folks to pay him for admission to his "play" (by lies and subterfuge), and then, as the tomatoes started to fly, he grabbed the swag and bolted town.

Sums up his whole life, actually. He was a puppet master, delighting in pulling the strings of every unwary Punch and Judy he could find.

And we all, for a time, made ourselves willing (some less willing of course) actors in the ongoing tragi-comedy that is LDSInc..

And we woke up, saw that the strings of LDSInc. were fake, harmful and despotic, and we cut them. We walked out of the playhouse.

Many folks are still tied to the COB master, blindly acting out their appointed roles as dupes and foils, lost behind their masks of delusion.

Yes, yes and yes!

They're waiting for John Frum to return with more plays and sonnets?

A cult where one ran around in circles making airplane-noises would be less damaging to people.

forbiddencokedrinker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Instead of writing it in their regular
> English, they attempted to copy the magical
> English of Elizabethan England. Their imitations
> worked about as well, as the C-17 that the natives
> of the Solomon Islands built out in the jungle.

This idea intrigues me to no end.

The huge major difference between imitating scientific "magic" and religious "magic" makes all the difference.

Mormonism is a Shakespearean Cargo Cult replete with its own Elizabethan speaking American gods and its deified leader named Smith who made himself into an Old Testament prophet and created a bunch of Jesus groupies with names like Timothy to be in his book.

Smith & Co. found Old Tyme Religion and saw it working in the revivals of their day. They saw the real affects and effects of the machinery of Protestant Revivals and Catholic movements and they made a folk magic/religious model after what gave the Protestants their power - language and stories.

The Jaredites are the prime example of crafting Old Testament myths and stories in trying to make planes to fly or barges float which never could.

Smith & Co. analyzed the old and tried to craft the new "strikingly akin to ancient suggestions." (Harold Bloom)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Moses

They just will never make their cargo cult light bulbs really light up, no matter how many fingers of God get involved.