Manchester, this morning. Consumption a-plenty. Christmas shopping: a new form of national service. Fashionable people everywhere with small phones, small handbags, and small imaginations. But then there’s these Mormon girls. They’re smartly dressed and smiling innocently. They wear long skirts. They’re attractive in a completely sexless way. Which is of course their job.
They asked me if I’d heard of The Book of Mormon. I had. They didn’t ask me if I’d read it. I haven’t. I bet they haven’t read all of it either. No-one has, although a lot of people say they have. In this respect it’s rather like The Critique of Pure Reason. In no other respects.
I said I knew the story of Joseph Smith, but didn’t find it very plausible. I said I was a Christian, though. “Do you believe the Bible?” they asked. I said I believed in God. This stumped them for a moment. (Many Christians apparently get God and the Bible mixed up. This is odd, given that one is an invisible, omnipresent being, eternally existent in three persons as one God – and the other is a book. OK, it’s a book about this God – among other things – but all the same, aren’t the differences sufficiently clear not to mistake one for the other? Apparently not).
It wasn’t really a conversation. Not really. I threw in a few jokes, the occasional self-deprecating comment, even a compliment about the always nicely presentable, conservative appearance of Mormon missionaries (especially, as it turns out, the female ones. I’m such a charmer). They asked me about prophets, apostles and so on. They didn’t really seem to understand what these were. I tried to explain that apostles were people who’d seen the risen Christ, therefore there weren’t any apostles any more, because people don’t see the risen Christ anymore. Even Paul didn’t, in quite the same way as the disciples. Of course they’d have it that Joseph Smith saw the risen Christ when he was alone in the woods, but I think they’d sensed by now I’d have responded that people see talking horses when they’re alone in the woods, or UFOs, all the time, so they steered clear.
Then they said that if I sincerely prayed to God about The Book of Mormon, I would feel in my heart that it was true. I said well you would say that wouldn’t you, or words to that effect. I wanted to add that ninjas are sweet and flip out and kill people all the time – and that I know this is true because of the way I feel inside my heart, but I restrained myself.
The clock struck 11:26am, and I went to buy a hot dog. Maybe you’d like me tell you about the things that I know are true. I hope we meet again tomorrow. They were pretty.
20 Comments
December 13, 2005 at 6:10 am
You love them and want to marry them.
Actually because they are mormons you can probably marry as many of them as you want to.
December 13, 2005 at 2:27 pm
Ah the convincing convinced. Not overly convincing, actually.
I’m convinced of their sexless beauty. I have seen it of mine own eyes in other mormons. What a job that must be.
Your perspective makes me laugh and nod, alternatively, Jonnypoo.
July 14, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Turns out, that Mormons don’t practice polygamy anymore. Sorry, you’ll have to go to Arabic countries for that. Or southern Utah where the psychos live.
August 25, 2006 at 1:02 am
No more polygamy hun, you won’t get to marry 3-4 of them. Jesus Christ is the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the apostles in the Church are special witnesses of Christ. To say that most haven’t read the Book of Mormon is false. I’ve been a member for 1 year and I’ve read it 3 times. You’d be surprised by how well members of the church and missionaries know their scriptures
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January 23, 2008 at 2:52 am
Well I was once a Mormon Missionary. And I completely loved it. As to you writing, I found it really amusing becuase that is how most people tend to look at thing. But if you will open your mind and heart just slightly, I know you will be surprised to find somethings a little more than just words to the Book of Mormon. Alot of people just laugh when they hear about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. But I promise if you will pray about the the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, you will come to find that it is truly a given to us by the Lord. Just try it!
February 13, 2008 at 5:07 am
hahahahahah
I wonder, have you ever read the book “The Godmakers” cowritten by Dave Hunt and Ed Decker… It’s highly interesting…
And, I also agree about the sexless attraction. There’s something about purity that’s really attractive.
And not quite in the Catholic Schoolgirl gone bad… kind-of way.
March 23, 2008 at 8:04 pm
What Mitt Romney did yesterday is right out of the Mormon playbook. They are taught to tap- dance around the truth with the ferocity of a Busby Berkley chorus line when asked about their actual beliefs. Of course, once you realize what those beliefs are, who could blame them? On some level, Mormons secretly know that some of the more ludicrous tenets of their pyramid scheme are hard to swallow. That is way, just like the sister faith (Amway), they try to wow you with how pretty everything is before they ask…
May 10, 2008 at 8:44 am
CTR
July 12, 2008 at 11:52 pm
I enjoy your writing and your ideas, Johnny. I will keep reading!
October 5, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Wow, you can certainly tell who the members are. I’m sorry. What I say is usually very harsh. Don’t waste time on people who think they know more about our beliefs and religion than we do. The field is ready for harvest, but some of the weeds just need to get plucked and put aside. Now, if the writer of these “opinions” would actually put forth some effort to find the truth of the matter, maybe he might find something. Maybe he might become an honorable, true Christian. It’s more than just saying I believe in God.
November 16, 2008 at 7:37 am
The Godmakers , and many subtly crafted pieces of hate like it are often written by ex-members of the Church who have motive to misrepresent the LDS Church. If you really believe everything you read , and hear about LDS beliefs,without investigating the doctrine first,or attending Sunday service, or even reading Moroni’s challenge, then how do you really know anything about it or them?
I for one think it’s commendable that these young women are willing to give their service to those who need it. LDS missionaries not only preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, but they also cherish opportunities to perform acts of love and kindness wether you are interested in their church or not.
Was it Hank Jr. who said, ” you’re the only one that you are screwing when you put down what you don’t understand”?
even if you have no desire to join, or read the Book of Mormon, you might be surprised what you find out about “Moromons”
that for the most part they are good , and kind people who are trying to make the world a better place. Did you know that LDS church operates a lay ministry? Did you know that the family is the central focus of the Church? I have been to a mormon church, and I have read some of the Book Of Mormon, and while I am not a member, I have always been impressed with the humility and kindess shown to me by these Latter Day Saints.
November 6, 2009 at 6:11 am
what is the i.q. needed to engineer the wings on a butterfly? if god can do that why can’t he answer your heartfealt question… is the book of mormon true? perhaps the answer will feel like the fluttering wings of a butterfly on your heart. and then, you to, will know.
November 6, 2009 at 6:27 am
My heart doesn’t ask questions, it pumps blood.
I think if there was a butterfly flapping its wings on my heart, I’d call an ambulance.
Also, I did actually once ask God if the Book of Mormon was true and I was immediately overcome with the profound feeling that it wasn’t.
Ever heard of the power of suggestion? Apparently Joseph Smith had too!
November 18, 2009 at 8:40 pm
In the original Star Wars movie, Luke Skywalker is faced with a seemingly impossible task. Destroy a Death Star and save the Universe, or fail, and have the Universe succumb to the horable tyrany of the darkside. So what did Luke do?…. Did he rely on machinery and flawed human reasoning only??? (That is what his limited human I.Q. was telling him to do.) Instead Luke Skywalker listened to a still small voice that spoke directly to Luke’s heart, that said, “Luke,… use the force”. In quite probably the most famous scene in the most famous movie series of all time, Luke Skywalker followed the still small voice, not his arrogant preconceived inclinations. As a result Luke was able to gain supernatural power, and make the perfect shot, and this destroyed the internal nuclear reactor, causing a chain reaction, that destroyed the Death Star. A great shot that was one in a million, to say the least. The producer of the original Star Wars movies was a person named Gary Kurtz who served as a soldier in Vietnam. Kurtz was a consciensous objector who was drafted into the Marine Corpse and served for three years and served in the Marines as a frontline war film-documenter in some of the most horrific fighting in that war. Kurtz did this bravely, without having any sort of weapon, because of his special objector status. Gary Kurtz went on to produce the special effects filled Star Wars original for 10 million dollars. Gary did this when the average non-special-effects movie cost was over 20 million to produce, twice as much! Kurtz had learned for himself the power of the still small voice, as he survived intensive combat, and went on to become a topnotch movie producer. Would it suprise you to find out, Gary Kurtz grew up in a Mormon family? Might you therefore reconsider relying on your own wisdom, and instead rely on Gods wisdom, using the Holy Ghost?
November 19, 2009 at 8:59 am
You’re really giving an argument based on Star Wars? Should I really bother dignifying it with a response?
Alright then. Firstly, ‘reasoning’ and ‘I.Q.’ (or intelligence) are completely different things that you seem to have conflated. All conscious beings are rational, but intelligence comes by degrees. Some people are more intelligent than others, but a person is either rational or not.
Secondly, there is nothing ‘preconceived’ or ‘arrogant’ (or for that matter, exclusively human) about the use of logic. Logic is the prerequisite for all forms of communication and argument, not merely another form of it. You’re using an argument based on logic just as ‘arrogantly’ as I am. Except it really isn’t arrogant, because there’s no other way to communicate differences of opinion or even to express them.
But mostly, orthodox Christianity is based on an unbroken tradition dating back to its founder and is based on credible, historically (and independently) verifiable evidence. Mormonism is based on the claims that one man made about a book he translated from plates nobody else was ever allowed to see, which have never been found since, were putatively written in a language that there is no evidence even existed, and which makes grossly anachronistic claims about people, places and events for which there is no other historical evidence whatsoever. It is just for this reason that Mormons place so much emphasis on the ’still small voice’ in their attempts to convert people, because if they encouraged people to look at the facts, nobody would ever convert to a religion so patently ridiculous and corrupt. Obviously, if you tell people to pray about the truth of a book at the same time as planting the idea in their mind that God will tell them it is true, a certain number of those people will submit to that suggestion and go on to interpret any twinge of conscience, physiological change or irrelevant synchronicity as ‘proof’. But then of course, nobody can ever prove them wrong, because God has spoken to them personally, so what they have come believe must be true. And if that isn’t arrogant, I don’t know what is.