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Ep. 214 – The Book of Mormon: Ammon’s God-Given Right to Bare Arms Shall Not Be Infringed
274 Plays21 days ago
This week we’re finally doing it: we’re beginning our in-depth study of the Book of Mormon! For those of you following along in your own unBible, we’ll be in Alma Chapters 17 & 18. We’ll be discussing the inspiring story of Ammon, a Nephite (the good guys) missionary intent on sharing the good news of the yet unborn Lord Jesus Christ with the Lamanites (naughty, wicked, murder-y fellas) across the Land of Ishmael. Where is the Land of Ishmael you ask? Well our scholarly best guess puts it somewhere in the Kentucky/Illinois/Indiana/Ohio region, and this story supposedly takes place around 90 BC. Unlike many of the stories we’ve covered from the Bible, we’ve never read these ones. So come explore Joseph Smith’s divine chronical of Midwest pseudo history with us!
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Transcript
Humor in Scripture and Politics
00:00:00
Speaker
Nevertheless, they departed out of the land of Zerahemla and took their swords and their spears and their bows and their arrows and their slings, all of it, and this they gave- Apparently, run-on sentences are a huge part of writing like you're part of the Old Testament. I don't think we've had a period anywhere in here so far. I think it's all one sentence. If you're forging scripture, run-on sentences are super important. Yeah, you can definitely tell that whoever was doing this was dictating it out of a hat.
00:00:29
Speaker
yeah
00:00:50
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to an episode of Growing Up Christian. I'm Sam. I'm Casey. And my god, Casey. i Look, man, you heard it from me. i'm gonna I'm here to... Is this an apology? I don't know. We'll find out. We have had a lot of things to say about Donald J. Trump on this podcast.
00:01:10
Speaker
And I was terrified going in to the new year knowing that ah we're doing out with the very, very, very, very, very old and in with the very, very old. And I was, you know, i I could have I could have rambled off a list of things that I was worried about. And we probably did for the past couple of weeks. I you know, I feel like I'm I'm getting real excited for America again. Did you catch the spirit?
US Expansion and Foreign Policy
00:01:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Stay in the Pensacola College like promo videos. They'd be like, catch the spirit.
00:01:48
Speaker
Dude, so look, as far as I can tell right now, it's not even, ah ah j what wait, when's the inauguration? I don't even know. That's how not patriotic I've been. Like two weeks. Yeah. January's 20 something. I don't know. um But all right. As of right now, as of now, we're getting Canada. We're getting Mexico. We're getting Greenland.
00:02:13
Speaker
We're getting the Panama Canal and we're getting the Gulf of Mexico. but Excuse me. yeah The Gulf of America. And this is not only, it's not only that it's Canada, United States of America, Mexico, which some might say come the United States, the United, the United come. I don't know what to see you. I'm not sure ah we can work on that. We can workshop that. But, uh, the acronym is for Canada, United States, Mexico. Do that what you will. We are, ah that's crazy. that That's a lot of things to talk about taking over before you're even president. And i I don't know if I'm exactly along for the ride, but I'm not not along for the ride. Yeah, it's definitely an unusual approach.
00:03:06
Speaker
I mean, ah you know, the tried and true method that prior presidents have used is just to like destabilize a country's government and then install a puppet after everyone's dead. Yeah, puppet regimes. You do a coup, the CIA gets involved. It's a little thing. It's really cute. They make a movie about a sniper who was part of that process later. Beautiful American stories. And we're doing a different this time.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, we're just saying like, hey, we'd like you to be a state. In fact, ah you should do it or else we're going to punish you economically. I have a little um a little clip here pulled. I don't have the power like you do to pump clips in, to dump clips, dude. I can't dump clips like you do, ah but I can um ah could play it through my microphone and that's the best we're going to get. but i'm I heard this literally like 10 minutes before we jumped on here and i I felt like after all the news of how much America is going to expand come February, I thought, why not listen to the man himself explain some of his plan?
00:04:17
Speaker
No economic force. because Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like. He's finally learning what borders are. financial security i don't forget We basically protect Canada. But here's the problem with Canada. So many friends up there. Tons of friends. I love the Canadian people. They're great.
00:04:42
Speaker
but We're spending hundreds of billions a year to protect it. We're spending hundreds of billions a year to take care of Canada. We we lose in trade deficits. We're losing mass. We don't need their cars. You know, they make 20 percent of our cars. We don't need that. I'd rather make them in Detroit. You don't say. Well,
00:05:01
Speaker
well we need Greenland for. national security purposes. I've been told that for a long time, long before I even ran. I mean, people have been talking about it for a long time. That's it. Everyone's talking about it. Approximately 45,000 people there. People really don't even know if Denmark has any legal right to it. But if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security. That's for the free world. I'm talking about protecting the free world.
00:05:27
Speaker
you look at You don't even need binoculars. You look outside, you have China ships. You can see China with binoculars. You have Russian ships all over the place. We're not letting that happen. We're not letting it happen. And if Denmark wants to get to a conclusion, but nobody knows if they even have any right title or interest, the people are going to probably vote for independence or to come into the United States. But if they did if they did do that,
00:05:54
Speaker
Then I would tariff Denmark at a very high level. Oh, more tariffs! What a conclusion. I didn't even see tariffs coming. I can't believe it. What is Denmark doing? Oh my God, what the... They make like chocolate covered pieces of wood or something. Is that their main factor?
00:06:11
Speaker
It's it's chocolate covered something I'm sure and maybe edible underwear. I don't know but it's gonna be tariffed to fuck I love it I love he just I love that he snuck in tariffs at the end because that's one of the things that we're all really excited about is finally learning what tariffs are and how they impact our economy like I've I think that's the school that most people have been waiting for and ah To just sneak him in on Greenland. Yeah, dude this savvy fuck. I love it. I can't we're dude America's coming back. Yeah I think we're in good shape, man. I feel like the black pill, cynical look at some of this stuff is that like, you kind of want to be like, Hey, Greenland, your days of being like somewhat autonomous and independent are probably
00:06:56
Speaker
They're probably about done. Somebody's going to take that. It's either going to be us or it's going to be China, like one or the other. Somebody's probably going to take it. What's definitely not going to happen if somebody decides they want it is the the the Greenlanders. Is that what they are? greenlanders ah The The Greenlanders, I think.
00:07:16
Speaker
yeah Our cycles are synced. Yeah, I think I think their motto is going to chase anybody off so there's that their country motto They're gonna rip from the alien versus predator franchise But is whoever wins we lose pretty much that's That's pretty much every country without a nuclear weapon
00:07:46
Speaker
This is what's hilarious about some of it like it's it's yeah like it's an ugly cynical look at things, I guess, but it's like people arguing over like, you know, what else do we have now? Ukraine needs to be free and independent. It's like, buddy, Ukraine hasn't been free and independent probably in our lifetime. I mean, they've been a vassal state of one side or the other up until the other side challenged it, you know, or whatever. I mean,
00:08:14
Speaker
I don't know. What whole thing free um it's like who who is free? You know, those are the questions I
Debates on Free Will and Intelligence
00:08:20
Speaker
ask. That's a great question. Yeah. Questions. There's two of them. did Do you ah when when some smarty pants starts going off on how there's no such thing as free will, does it make you just want to punch him in the belly?
00:08:35
Speaker
Yeah, it that that one is, um God, I think, I feel like that's probably a more interesting conversation if you didn't grow up evangelical Christian. like I feel like most people enter that conversation maybe in an AP science class or ah maybe not science but you know you do philosophy for the first time in high school people are like oh you don't really have free will you're like bitch I chose frosted flakes over lucky charms this morning the fuck are you talking about like mind blown they've never heard of this idea and then uh But we've been talking about it since we were fucking six years old, dude. 30 years later, yeah, it's the worst when people when people want to have that conversation. It's like it's like that typical, like you know ah the same response that you want to have to someone who's like, let me read your palms on the street. And you're like, oh, I bet you didn't see it coming that I was going to murder your family later. or it's like ah It's like a Sam Harris thing.
00:09:38
Speaker
Like yeah he's like, I just, you know, can't do a side effect that, you know, people have free will. And it's like, I get what you're saying. And then he has a talk show where he goes off on his opinions. Yeah. Fuck off. If you're going to if your argument is going to be that you that no one has free will and then you're going to make the majority of your money in this decade as a a podcaster and writer sharing their opinions and beliefs. And what do you win? Oh, I convinced you that you don't have free will. It impacts your life in no form, no fashion, no way. Yeah, it's like kneeled across Tyson telling you you don't have free will. And it's like, is this an elaborate argument for why you're not responsible for the fact that girls had to watch their drinks around you in college?
00:10:23
Speaker
ah nel from the guy who spends all of his spare time intentionally choosing to study places he'll never be able to go like you know You, you, they, oh yeah, dude, it's annoying. I'm getting, I'm getting, getting worked up. It's like he didn't choose. Like I didn't choose to ah make my life more difficult going back to school and taking out $50,000 in student loans only for Trump to raise the minimum payment to 10% of my annual income. As soon as he hits office, like no, I mean, I was miserable. I didn't want to be. I thought of about my options. I made a choice.
00:11:03
Speaker
Here we are and then you get to argue that like what because that's what happened. That's what would always happen That is the dumbest fucking bullshit. It's like that reminds me that argument from silence shit It's like well, you don't know that something else would know that something else didn't happen only one thing can happen with each choice in my life and you don't get to just Like belittle me by saying that well that was always gonna happen. You didn't have a choice How do you there's no real is that no way to know that I? It's an interesting case of Schrodinger's animal abuse. Schrodinger's cat is kind of dumb. It's like what every time I've ever heard it and and smart people will talk about it, which might mean I'm not smart. I might not be smart. Well, yeah, I mean, um I hear it and I go, this is kind of stupid. and Like it just seems to have to play a along. This stuff feels like it feels like the endless doctrinal arguments that you had in church back in the days where it's like
00:12:02
Speaker
You know, there is no conclusive way to end this discussion. And like, it doesn't matter the beauty of Christian in no matter what. I feel like people like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Sam Harris is Neil deGrasse Tyson a no free will guy.
00:12:19
Speaker
i I don't know I might be a I might be glomming that on to him I at least find him endearing you know you hear his voice you go can you read me a bedtime story mr. Neil like voice yeah I I find him endearing other like I'll set him aside types other atheist types are um abrasive and annoying like sam Sam Harris is just like the one that sticks out in my mind is like one of the most annoying it's like he got an atomic wedgie in sixth grade and like Emotionally, he never pulled those underwear back out of his back. That's like Bill Barr is the Sam Harris of politics It's kind a swirly in junior high and his hair never dried metaphysically speaking Metaphysically speaking
00:13:08
Speaker
Oh, man. Sometimes people get like too smart for their own good. Yeah. Yeah. And like even having a kind as sentient beings who can think about our thinking and have actual cognition to say that none of that matters is is pretty wild. Like as the only like, well, maybe not the only species, but like one of five maybe that's that might be able to think outside of instinct and then look you spend enough time around people and you go I don't know that a lot of people are really thinking outside of instinct I don't know that they are for real what animals thinking outside of instinct the first ones that come to my mind octopus dolphin crow uh octopus dolphin crow that's kind of the only ones I can come up with
00:13:56
Speaker
chimpanzee? Oh, yeah, obviously. Yeah, there sure most people would go to first, I think. Yeah, I went to octopus is a way better choice, though. No octopus are basically like that. I think there's no better case for alien life form than just the cephalopods that we have in our our world. Like the fact that octopus like do the thing that they do and they think and they like I remember reading this story about an octopus that was like and an aquarium.
00:14:25
Speaker
And one of the aquarium people who worked the night shift was like, every day, like people would cut, like the people who worked in the morning, sorry, they would come in and be like, we're losing some fish from this tank. Like what's going on? And then it was like, they checked the security feeds and octopus would wait for the night guard to pass and he would come up out of his tank and go into another tank and eat a fish and then go back into his tank when the coast was clear.
00:14:54
Speaker
And like, that is so cool. And then a friend of mine just told me this story, actually, an animal you would never expect because they have the dumbest looking eyes you've ever seen. A cow, a cow of all creatures. We know how I feel about cows. It's definitely come up. Most people find them endearing cute. I hate the way they shit all over their hind legs. I hate everything about cows, not into cows.
Animal Intelligence and Adaptation
00:15:17
Speaker
i They shit down their balls, they shit down their vagina. I hate cows, they're gross. ah yeah They got a real log flume built in. yeah it's not good But my friend was telling me the story of these cow of this cow like who was in ah like a factory type farm.
00:15:34
Speaker
um And it was like, the cow would have the, the cats, uh, they would take the males. They might take, they would take all the babies. Um, of eventually, uh, this cat, they didn't know the cow got pregnant. The cow had a litter. Um, and it hid, it like would go, it would, you know, they go, they have like the roaming area. It it hid one of the calves.
00:16:00
Speaker
um that it hit It went off, no, I'm recalling this as I go, it it went off and had the calves in the woods after like three or four times of its cal of all of its calves being taken. um Got pregnant, went off and had the calves in the woods and then like hid them there for a while and they started to follow the calf and the cow and they found the calves.
00:16:21
Speaker
um but I'm assuming this is a true story. My friend who I trust, who reads a lot and likes to learn as much as the rest of us ah was the one telling the story. And we go, that's cool. yeah We just, there is an example of an animal thinking about How the my past few calves have been taken and I went and had this one in secret to save it like that's crazy that a cow even has the ability over time to like make that adaptation.
00:16:53
Speaker
Um, not typically an animal that would farm animals are, you know, farm animals for reason. They're like, ah, this fence. I'm stuck until I'm shot in the forehead. Like any other species would be like, I'm going to get the fuck out of here. Farm animals are just like, I guess I just eat grain in these walls until I get shot in the forehead. Uh, but this cow made some moves and that's cool. Maybe like that's some evolution shit. I don't know.
00:17:18
Speaker
But I think of like stuff like that where you go, there is not there is very few animals. and And when you hear of instances of animals seemingly having a any form of cognition and making a choice based on past experiences, I don't want to just be like, that cow didn't have a choice. It was always destined to walk into the woods and have its calf and hopefully didn't see its child's throat get slit.
00:17:45
Speaker
No, i think I think it had experiences and made a choice to do that for whatever reason. Of course, there's some instinct to keep your children alive involved in that, whatever. All I'm saying is I totally agree with you ah that it's annoying when people just act like everything just happens the way it was going to always and there was nothing you can do about it and that no cognition matters.
00:18:07
Speaker
two, two animal points. One, if you've never seen it, go look up a video of the flamboyant cuttlefish. You can find them online. That sounds like a children's book. It is. It is an unbelievable thing to see. So it's a it's a cuttlefish. So it's like a squid, you know, kind of a big mantle squid with little arms. And they're in the South, the Asian Pacific.
00:18:32
Speaker
I don't remember what a cuttlefish is. I'm looking it up. Yeah. They look like, they look like a squid or maybe between a squid and an octopus. What are the, oh, I'm thinking not, what are the ones that are like squids in the shell? Is that a nautilus? Nautilus, yeah. Okay. They're really cool shells. Those are weird. Like watching those swim is really strange. Wow. Yeah. Cuttlefish. They're like supposedly like one of the oldest species on the planet. Those, uh, those nautilus are. Yeah. Are cuttlefish cephalopods too?
00:19:01
Speaker
Yeah and so this flamboyant cuttlefish it does this thing where like when it's when it's approaching prey it like fans out it faces it directly head on and it fans itself out a little bit and it does this like weird like ripply shimmery color changing, like rapid color change pattern that like hypnotizes its prey and then it so grabs it with its little sticky arms and swallows it. That's it's the coolest looking thing you've ever seen is really incredible. It's like the active camouflage from the predators. It is. Yes. That's done. So oh the other animal thing. So
00:19:46
Speaker
We had a deer that got hit in front of the house, like, I don't know, a month ago or something like that. It's like if it's close by, we try to run out as fast as you can and then like skin it and see if you can salvage the meat. Yeah. You like you literally like have cameras on your road waiting to see if people hit deer. And then it's just like up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. You and like a group of people run out and try to get it. It's like the the adult equivalent of dumpster diving for hot and readies.
00:20:15
Speaker
Yeah. At the stroke of midnight. Dude, I, did you ever dumpster? I'm going to, we'll get back to animals. When we were in college, did you ever do that? I had, we had friends, we had friends that dumpster dove behind. Was it Kroger? I don't know if we ever actually did it, but I heard it like at certain time every night, they would take all the hot and readies out of little Caesars and just throw them boxes and all into the trash.
00:20:42
Speaker
That's crazy. I don't I didn't know about that. I had friends that would would go out at closing from the local grocery store. This shows you like I'll never I'll never claim that I've experienced poverty because in some way like I was I felt like I was too young and I always could just go back home.
00:21:02
Speaker
You know like so I don't feel like I experienced real like poverty because I never feared The next day I was just like yeah if this shit goes south I'm just gonna get in my car and fucking go back home like this And then I'll live there until I'm 46, who gives a shit? Like I'm not too, I was never that worried. So I'm not making any like serious claims here, but I do, like when I made 5.55 an hour, but working 20 hours a week, going to college, like things were tight, ate a lot of ramen, never tried dumpster diving. ah But i i we we've talked about this house with some of our former guests, Ben Soy being one of them, ah this yearly house I would go over.
00:21:43
Speaker
And they were all like college dropouts, mostly work dropouts. Like when you pile 15 to 18 boys, ah boys, men, arguably not men, but biologically legally men into a old Victorian home where people are squatting in the basement and the attic. Yeah. Everyone's paying like a couple hundred bucks a month. Uh, so.
00:22:10
Speaker
there were people who barely worked lost their jobs all the time and then they would just like go to the local grocery stores and like uh wait till they threw stuff out and now you're not they weren't stores weren't really supposed to throw stuff out so it could be taken i guess uh because they wanted to disincentivize people from doing dumpster diving and actually buying groceries uh this is what i would hear but dude we knew they would just like oh this this is all the stuff that's expiring tomorrow and even including meat dude it was like the the expiration date is the next day when people would go shopping it would be the packaged meat they would just go out they would put it all in a box bring it out and throw it out and then those guys
00:22:54
Speaker
would run over and grab it, bring it home, and either freeze it or cook it. And I believe it. It was it's it was kind of wild to go over and just see like cardboard boxes full of shit. And they're like, Yeah, do you want this? I'm like, I don't know. Do I? And they're like, Yeah, I mean, we just We took it from the the dumpster area of Kroger. I'd scumbag white hipsters choosing a life of poverty over working a mini job. Literally a choice. That was crazy. That's what was crazy. That's why it's not real poverty. it's not That's exactly why it's not. And I love that you brought that up because ah ah voluntarily entering into poverty so you can play Super Smash Brothers for 18 hours a day doesn't count. Yeah, 100 percent.
00:23:42
Speaker
Anyway, ah the second animal. What's the second? animal Oh, yeah. Oh, so this deer gets hit. It's too close to the house. It's going to stink. It's going to be a problem with the dogs and stuff. So we put it. We hooked up the trailer and like went in April night. First off, it had gotten hit like two days beforehand by the time we got out there. And I was like, well I shouldn't stink yet. Did you rope it to the end of your truck like the old gladiator games so you could just watch it bounce off the pavement behind you?
00:24:11
Speaker
but like Give it the old spaghetti western drag. String them up, boys. That kind of. Yeah, hell yeah. No, we're like trying to lift it onto the back of the trailer and it is so hard to lift something like that. Like there's no handles. There's no good way to grab it. So it's the horns. Oh, it's a deer.
00:24:32
Speaker
Somebody had cut him off. Oh, fuck that person. What's what's the is there an average an average weight of a deer? I think probably for a buck, probably like 200 pounds. Maybe that's a line is 30 or 40. 200 pounds dead weight, though. I mean, 150 pounds dead weight is nuts. Yeah. And plus you're like, there's you're You don't really have any place to grab it, and you're trying not to touch it. You know, you don't want to- It's like those cylinders that are filled with liquid, but you hold it. It's almost like a butthole you can fuck if you want to. Sure. Yes. It's a kids toy. Discovery Channel stores. It's a kids toy that also teaches a lot of grown-up life lessons. You-
00:25:21
Speaker
it's from It's probably like five inches long, and it's got usually glitter and shit in it, and it's like a cylinder liquid tube, so when you grab it, it'll slip through your hands. It's all wiggly and weird. They sold them at the Discovery Channel store. Yeah. that is I know I made it sexual, but I do think that like try picking up a deer or a buck is like picking up a 200-pound giant version of that.
00:25:46
Speaker
Yeah. So I got one in and I'm trying to pull it up into the trailer. ah e was um
00:25:56
Speaker
But trying to like screw, like pull it up in there. And at one point, like, I think I kind of like pushed up against it and it was like a green cloud came out. Like I, it's the first time in a long time that I've like physically gagged, like done that. Yeah. yeah That sounds horrendous. yeah It also sounds like a cartoon fart. yeah It kind of, yeah, kind of was. So we we haul it up in the back and we put it down to like, we set up a couple of game cameras on it. And it's it's so weird, the kind of stuff that comes in and just like munches on something like that. Oh, okay. They're like motion capture. Yeah, no, I know what game cameras are. I didn't know why you set them up. You wanted to see what would happen to the carcass.
00:26:40
Speaker
Yeah, like, and it's funny because there's coyotes. I mean, there's tons of coyotes. There's tons of, you know, crows and buzzards and stuff that come in over the course of the time, but, um, possum came in. Yo, I talked about possums recently. Munch on the open, like stuck his whole head into the cavity and was like pulling off chunks and No, that's gross. Skunk did the same thing. He's up there just tugging off pieces of it and stuff. Raccoon. I mean, it's like everything will eat a little piece of it if it's out there. Did the skunk... I didn't realize that they were... um ah What's the word for eating dead things? They eat carrion. Sure. Scavengers. Skunks are scavengers? Yeah, apparently so. Damn. I don't think an armadillo will eat.
00:27:33
Speaker
me dude armadillos animated always cute i saw an armadillo in real life recently ugly as shit those things are hideous they are such a weird animal they're not cute i thought they were cute until recently they're surprisingly fast like you can usually get pretty close to them because they're not very aware i think they have bad vision but like when they finally finally see you, they they usually like freeze and then they bolt off and they have like this rocking horse sort of motion when they run. They're super fast and they swim. No way. Yeah.
00:28:09
Speaker
watched one swim across the creek like last summer that's crazy it's funny when you see animals swim because you have to teach humans how to swim and if they don't learn like you could throw an adult in the water that never learned how to swim and they're like well I'm dead now there isn't an animal in the world you can't toss in the water that isn't like I got this Yeah, in state figure it out. I mean, not great. I've seen dead squirrels in pools. I've seen like several dead squirrels in pools. They might suck at it. It might not be in their future. But there's a lot of a lot of animals that like they their first experience of with water. They're like, Yeah, this is pretty close to land. um ah I'm doing okay. Dude, the other thing I didn't post it, I guess now that I'm thinking about it. But April, I found
00:28:58
Speaker
Another couple of bucks dead, locked together. Oh, that's your favorite dude. You guys go home and have sex right after you see that. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Especially if it they got a little, they get a little ah stank on them, you know.
00:29:12
Speaker
Yeah, that musk dude. It's crazy to see that because you're like, like trying to look like it. These ones were really tangled up in a weird way. So like, it was hard to tell what you were looking at until you were like right up close to it, you know? And I don't know exactly how that fight went, but it was brutal.
00:29:32
Speaker
like they're like one box face is just like jammed down into the dirt like that's where he croaked and the other one is like he's like twisted around with his head kind of facing upward tangled in the horns you know and his mouth is just packed full of mud whoa oof this was a bad way to go Dude, it's actually crazy to think about them dying that way because imagine if you and I were fucking around with like 10 Chinese finger traps, right? and And we got all of our fingers stuck together and we couldn't, and and we were stuck in muck or our legs were broken or something. And we're just stuck there. And we just have to wait it out, looking at each other, eating mud, like,
00:30:21
Speaker
You think if we were there long enough, we'd eventually kiss? We might. And we might work together to get out of the situation. It's possible we'd be like, look, we'll both push in and then I'll put my face on it and then and we'll pull out. Like there's options because we have communication skills, but I'm just thinking about like, it takes a really, really long time to die just laying there doing nothing.
00:30:48
Speaker
Like how long did they lay interlocked? And did they at ever at any point ever, as we've been talking about animal cognition, did they ever think about the fact that they could have just not smashed their fucking skulls together and got stuck forever until they were dead? Maybe. like Maybe not. Bad decision, but me so horny.
00:31:14
Speaker
All I know is that I want to find a buck and I want to put a Chinese finger trap on every point and I want to see if we ever find that buck stuck to another buck by Chinese finger trap in dead dude. That would be sick. I don't but I don't love the idea of slowly killing animals, but I do. I would. That was such a long shot that like destin it's destiny at that point. it's fate And I would actually go full, full ass Sam Harris after that. I would just be like, that's not my fault. I didn't have a choice and neither did that buck. And now I co-sign just predestination in all forms. You know, technically, if you think about it, there are infinite realities and there is a reality. The multiverse bro. This same buck.
00:32:06
Speaker
finds another bug just like him covered in Chinese finger traps and they get stuck together. I mean, theoretically, it's totally possible. ah Infinite's such a big number, dude. We can't even comprehend it. I want to hit myself just saying that. Like I overdid the bit and now I want to punch myself in the stomach. Dude, infinite realities.
00:32:30
Speaker
a multiverse baby dude speaking of multiverse uh we the christian multiverse we are gonna dive into the christian multiverse today hell yeah and it's gonna be fun we're doing this one a little different um because uh we're we're talking about the book of mormon and since sam and i have never it's look we know it's not christian but they think they are so we're gonna give them the light of day yeah and You know, being that we haven't read the Book of Mormon much, you know, our our our criticisms may be undue. And ah because of that, so we're going to read a story from the Book of Mormon together. And I've kind of glazed over it here, but we're going to kind of discover this as we go and just have some fun. So if you're following along at home, ah take out your Book of Mormon and turn to the Book of Alma chapter 17.
00:33:26
Speaker
How did you look at how many books are in the Book of Mormon? I didn't. I don't know. But it was more than one, which I didn't know. You said the Book of Alma, which means there's a book of something else at least. I think there's like a book of like splendid. What about Splenda? What? I mean, maybe. be I thought that... woman book i i Yeah, I didn't know there were multiple books. I did try reading Oh, yeah, let's say
Book of Mormon Origins and Narratives
00:34:05
Speaker
Jesus Christ, we're all written by the same person Oh, dude, we got third and fourths in here, but they were all written by the same person Are we talking lore or actuality?
00:34:17
Speaker
i ah Because in actuality yes, they were absolutely were they're all written by Joseph Smith But if but the lore is that they were written by angels is that is that it? I don't know exactly They're golden tests with all of the scholarly analysis. That's for sure all of no we don't do that here I'm just this is layman shit I'm just saying, we know they were written by Joseph Smith who found them. And I'm guessing he's saying he found them and they were all just like written by some angels or some shit for him to find.
00:34:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think they were all on the gold tablets that he kept inside his secret hat. ah So you got first, second, third, and fourth Nephi, a book of Jacob, a book of Enos, a book of Jerom, a book of Omni, words of Mormon, a book of Mosiah, a book of Alma, a book of Helaman, a book of Mormon, a book of Mormon. Maybe I'm misinterpreting some of this, but a book of Ether, a book of Moroni.
00:35:21
Speaker
So this story caught my attention because I watched a video by some, some lady that was like, here's some of the crazier stories that are in the book of Mormon. This one is not like as shockingly crazy as some of the others that we've covered from like the, uh, the Apocrypha and stuff like that.
00:35:39
Speaker
But it's fun. And what I really like about this that was it was occurring to me as I was like reading through this earlier is the fact that it's written by Joseph Smith means that like when you're reading this and it's like all begat and thou art and blah, blah, blah, blah, it's like basically just a guy 150 years ago appropriating King James like sentence structure grammar words.
00:36:04
Speaker
and all of that in an attempt to sound like screechery because because at that time they it's like he didn't know that there were like there was like a long history of Bible translation he's like oh King James language that's what they said in the time of Jesus I'm gonna copy that which shows you how good of a job the Catholic church did that, you know, quelling expectations of how people talked at certain points in history. Priming psychopaths for a laugh life of con. Dude, it's so funny. It's funny that you mess that you you texted me earlier that you like had found something from the Book of Mormon that you wanted to listen to, ah that you wanted to talk about. And I was listening to something literally at that exact same time. ah
00:36:58
Speaker
From I was bringing I will my daughter does like this ninja warrior class. It's great. It's great for her. I love it. I think it's awesome. ah Shout out the the black metal ninja, you know. ah Yeah, Josh wag. It's a I like every time I'm there, I think of him.
00:37:20
Speaker
And I think if I moved to Florida, that guy would whip me into shape and I would love it. And I kind of need that. And I kind of wish I lived near him. Such a cool guy. Yeah. Such a wonderful man. um I was listening to a podcast. ah Dan McClellan.
00:37:37
Speaker
is he blew up on TikTok. He's all over Instagram. He's a scholar of the Bible. um And he is very like, it's very like this is what the majority of biblical scholars think it's it's very academic. I love it. It's academia in layman's terms. It's great. ah One of my favorite people I would love to get him on the podcast someday, but he he kind of sticks to academia and ah we don't, we kind of fuck off a little bit here. ah So I haven't really been able to make it work yet to get him as a guest. um But part of that is because he is a Mormon. And if you listen to his content, none of it would make you assume he's a Mormon.
00:38:24
Speaker
It's all very academic. um he It sounds to me like he grew up in that world. He found a community. He's a very progressive person. He believes that the Bible is mostly used to treat people poorly at this point. It's like, or is often used that way. Great guy, love his work, everything about him. But you know, the ad hominin attacks roll in whenever he says something that people don't like to go,
00:38:47
Speaker
Fuck you, you're a Mormon. You don't know what you're talking about. And he's like, well, i I write scholarly papers. I do the work. It's just literally like my understanding of his experience is that it was similar to mine, which was that I felt comfortable in that space for a very long time. I i I'm still in it. I still have friends who are in it, but it's a progressive version of it and of Christianity. And I'm comfortable there. And I don't have to quell any of my thoughts or experiences in order to fit in. That's my understanding of where he's at. But either way, long story, I little too much preface listening to his podcast. And ah he told this story about how he was doing a podcast on Cain, the curse of Cain and Ham. We've talked about that, Casey, and how I had a Bible professor at Liberty say that the
00:39:44
Speaker
The curse of Cain ah was that Cain was made black. uh and yeah that'll never not be uncomfortable to say out loud it feels racist explaining a racist idea i feel like i need to shower now so sorry but that is an idea um and then so this podcast episode was talking about that and the origins of it in the history and then how that after it was applied to cane but then they had to deal with the fact that everybody died in the flood so then they're like now it's the curse of ham
00:40:19
Speaker
but the curse of ham was really the curse of Canaan which was represented the Canaanites blah blah blah blah blah blah blah he snuck in this little tidbit about ah Mormons that believe that The Mark of Cain, ah God promised that no one would kill him. And they apparently believed that meant that he would live forever. And he grew a bunch of hair. Long hair, never shaved, never did any shit. And, you know, the Mormons like to believe that everything ended up transpiring in America because they don't like to make sense about things.
00:40:56
Speaker
Uh, so that would make sense that they thought Bigfoot was Kane. And I love that, that there was a Bigfoot sighting in Utah, uh, Mormon Mecca. Uh, and they were like,
00:41:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's Kane. I was going to read more about it because I found some shit on it, but I'm going to stop and I'm going to let you continue your story. All you need to know is just Google it. Just Google a quick goog for Mormon Kane Bigfoot. You'll find some cool shit ah where the lore started. What happened?
00:41:29
Speaker
ah Any variation of that, you can find some fun information on why the Mormons believe that Bigfoot sightings could possibly have been the son of Adam, the murder of his brother Abel. I watched a very funny video on the way home today about ah it was a Mormon lady in a very official like Mormon church video explanation um explaining how the Book of Mormon wasn't racist and that There are many different ways of looking at the the the curse that they outline in such and such that is a skin of blackness. I heard about that too. I feel like if you have to go out of your way.
00:42:13
Speaker
you have to use If you have to use more words to explain why, if the thing you're explaining away that people assume is racist, if you have to use like a lot more words to explain why it's not racist than the original author used to say something racist, you're probably just just doing theological gymnastics. They pull in like the Maya, they pull in like all these like different examples like, well, it could mean this. And if we look at the historical record from this, culture like just use whatever you want. Just take everybody's thing and make it yours. That's fine.
00:42:50
Speaker
Again, it's just another Rorschach test. I keep, that's my thing lately is that the Bible, the Bible is just a religious Rorschach test. Like it just, oh, I have these ideas and now I need to go back and find them into this thing that I told, that I was told is infallible, it matters. And if I can find my ideas in a book that's supposedly infallible, now I can justify them indefinitely. Everyone's doing it in every religion and it's played out as fuck.
00:43:20
Speaker
Well, so jumping into the book of Alma chapter 17, uh, this starts out, it's like, uh, the fellowship of the ring where you got a bunch of douche bags, all kind of walking together towards who knows what. It says now it came to pass that as Alma was turning from the land of Gideon southward away to the land of Monty, uh, to his astonishment.
00:43:48
Speaker
he met with the sons of Mosiah journeying towards the land of Zarahemla. so a hemla Now, for context, I was looking up some of the stuff that's mentioned in here. And so this is all supposedly takes place in like the Midwest or the East Coast of the United States. Kind of like Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Georgia, like that whole crescent there. None of, are any of these names rooted in places that actually existed by that day. They rooted right here, Sam, in the Book of Alma. When'd she shut up? What was it? They went to Zendaya? Where'd they go? They're on their way to Zarahemla. Zarahemla. I love just seeing these names. Zarahemla pencil man.
00:44:37
Speaker
This is Joseph Smith like trying to think up an old sounding name and he came up with Sarah Hemla. This was me and my brother and my friend when i we were fifteen between 13 and 15 creating our own our own world. We drew maps and shit. I feel like I talked about this like when we first started the podcast.
00:45:00
Speaker
but ah My brother and my friend and I were very into like creating our own like you our own world. and we ah yo We went so hard. We had like a massive-ass poster board and we went hard on the map. We tried we like did ancient history, current conflict. yeah we We did this for years. We would talk on the phone three to five times a week to flesh out this story. My brother wrote a lot of it down.
00:45:29
Speaker
um I don't think any of it exists anymore. It probably doesn't hold up, but it was a great exercise. And I feel like I caught it. I said it doesn't hold up, but it might hold up slightly better than the Book of Mormon. It was all and and for time context, it supposedly like this king that we're going to talk about ruled somewhere around 90 B.C. in the in in modern day America. Yes.
00:45:59
Speaker
United States of America. Yes, before the United States of America at that point, I think. um Now, these sons of Mosiah were the Alma, were with Alma, and at the time the angel first appeared unto him, therefore Alma did rejoice exceedingly to see his brethren. And what added more to his joy, they were still his brethren in the Lord. Yea, and they had whacked strong in the knowledge of the truth, for they were men of sound understanding, and they had searched the scripture diligently that they might know the word of God.
00:46:33
Speaker
But this is not all. They had given themselves to much prayer. They had the scripture. They had, and wait, backtrack. This took place when? 90 B.C. 90 B.C. That's when it's taking place. I don't know when they're technically supposed to have like crossed the Atlantic Ocean and I don't know, rowboats or whatever. That's what crazy. But the scriptures.
00:47:00
Speaker
like I guess 90 BC, they had scriptures together. So this is, we're talking Old Testament scriptures. Okay. No, carry on. I'm just trying to think, I'm trying to, I'm just trying to track is all. Okay, go ahead. This is not all. They had given themselves to much prayer and fasting. Therefore they had the spirit of prophecy and the spirit of revelation. And when they taught, they taught with power and authority of God. And they had been teaching the word of God for the space of 14 years among the Lamanites.
00:47:30
Speaker
And the laminates are like the orcs of the Mormon, the Book of Mormon. Like they're the orcs. And I think they're technically supposed to be Native Americans. Are you talking urakai? Maybe. They create a lot of havoc for the good, clean knee fights. Maybe they're more like the trolls then. Could be.
00:47:55
Speaker
That's as much delineation between species as you're gonna get from me regarding Lord of the Rings. I'm done after that. I'm gonna tap out. So they've been teaching the word of God for the space of 14 years among the Lamanites, having had much success in bringing many to the knowledge of the truth. Yea, by the power of their words, many were brought before the altar of God to call on his name and confess their sins before him.
00:48:20
Speaker
Um, so kind of skipping ahead here. They basically, they're walking, they're journeying, they're fasting and they're all full of the spirit and everything's great. Dude, if any, you're right. This is a lot like Lord of the Rings in that it takes forever to get to anything interesting.
00:48:38
Speaker
It's true. Having taken I quit reading Fellowship of the Rings so fast, dude. I tried reading that. I was like, I should be a Lord of the Rings guy. I'm a homeschooled Christian boy. There's no reason not to be. And after like 100 pages of reading about people fucking with big ass feet walking through fields and feeling the fucking blades of grass grass through their toes, I was like, I'm out on this shit. I don't need to know.
00:49:03
Speaker
what this shit smells like, what it feels like, for 45 fucking pages straight. Yeah, it's a brutal. Sorry, Jeremiah. But you can't defend yourself, because you fucking cucked out hard. You're never coming back to the podcast, you useless bitch.
00:49:19
Speaker
I hope he listens to that. You have an open invitation, Jeremiah. You do. You can always come back. Come back on and defend yourself. I do love you, and I would like you to argue with me again. Now, these were their journeyings, their journeyings. Having taken leave of their father, Messiah, in the first year of the judges, having refused the kingdom, which their father was desirous to confer upon them, and also this was the minds of the people.
00:49:44
Speaker
Nevertheless, they departed out of the land of Zerahemla and took their swords and their spears and their bows and their arrows and their slings, all of it, and this they gave- Apparently run-on sentences are a huge part of writing like you're part of the Old Testament. I don't think we've had a period anywhere in here so far. I think it's all one sentence. If you're forging scripture, run-on sentences are super important. Yeah, you can definitely tell that whoever was doing this was dictating it out of a hat.
00:50:16
Speaker
Okay, so they thus departed into the wilderness with their numbers Which they had selected to go up to the land of Nephi to preach the word of God unto the laminates They basically like oh, well, here's some context for the laminates and it came to pass that they journeyed many days in the wilderness How many times does it come to pass? Oh it comes it always comes to pass.
00:50:40
Speaker
It never stops coming to pass. So they pray much that the Lord would grant unto them a portion of His Spirit to go with them and abide with them, that they might be an instrument in the hands of God to bring, if it were possible, their brethren the Lamanites, to the knowledge a lot of the truth, to the knowledge of the baseness of the traditions of their fathers, which were not correct.
00:51:07
Speaker
This is the hardest qualified set run on sentence I've ever heard in my life. He ends it with, which were not correct. It was not correct. Everything I said was meaningless. And it came to pass that the Lord did visit them with the Spirit. It came to pass again, dude. It came to pass. It never stops coming to pass.
00:51:30
Speaker
and like this is a great verse here okay because this is worth this is worth memorizing and it came to pass that the Lord did visit them with his spirit and said unto them be comforted and you know what happened and they were comforted
00:51:47
Speaker
Dude, I've never believed so hard in the scriptures in my life. I hear that, and I go, that resonates. I get it. Mm-hmm. So basically, God confers unto them that they need to go out to the Lamanites and preach the gospel to them. And if they did that, they would see many souls led to him and stuff. So long story short, they all decide to like you know go team in a circle, and then everybody goes their own direction.
00:52:14
Speaker
to preach. Now here's where it gets more fun. um And assuredly it was great for they had undertaken to preach the word of God to a wild and a hardened and a ferocious people. A people who delighted in murdering the Nephites and robbing and plundering them and their hearts were set upon riches or upon gold and silver and precious stones yet they sought to obtain these things by murdering and plundering.
00:52:42
Speaker
that they may not that might not labor for them with their own hands. Thus they were a very indolent people, many of whom did worship idols and the curse of God had fallen upon them because of the traditions of their fathers, notwithstanding the promises of the Lord were extended unto them on the condition of repentance." So they're bad. This feels like, it this has the vibe of like asking AI to narrate a conflict between people using the words and voice of Donald Trump. That's all I'm hearing. Just so a lot of repetitive like, and it came to pass and they were bad and these people weren't great and everything was tough. Like it just, everything about what you read felt silly. It felt silly. The knee fights, the knee fights. No, the laminates.
00:53:38
Speaker
It's laminates are the naughties. Who are the goodies? Again, the knee fights. The knee fights are the goodies. Those are the white people and the knee fights or the laminates are the black people. I think is the context that it's. Are they black or are they.
00:53:53
Speaker
Are they Indian? Excuse me, Native American. American Indian, Native American. You know what? You pig, you pig, you pig. Oh no, it's on Infinite. You you can't stop. You gotta to stop. Oh, poor Alex. All right. But I don't know any, the knee fights and the laminates. I don't, we don't know anything really about them though.
00:54:18
Speaker
Well, the Nephites are the descendants of the Jews that made the journey across the Atlantic. And the Lamanites are basically Native Americans. I don't know if they if they're suggesting that the Lamanites also came from the U, I think they that's their lore, right? That the Lamanites are also from you know Jerusalem and they just like got here and did their own thing. They followed them?
00:54:45
Speaker
It was like they all came together and those were the ones that split off and, you know, got fond of murder and plunder. Dude, it's great. It's, I don't, I don't even, I don't, I don't um it's so i just disparage the religion I'm a part of, but like to read the, like.
00:55:07
Speaker
I, we know what we grew up in was white. We know what we grew up in was so like made up around so many turns and corners. But when you think of like the major historic religions, you have Judaism, you have Islam, you have Christianity, Buddhism, you have like Krishna. Yeah. shout out uli gabbard like there look There's ah only a handful and they're all fraught with problems. there's all you know If you're going to be like a textual literal literalist, you have to explain plenty of things away. um so I've come to terms with the fact that the things we grew up hearing in the way it was communicated
00:55:50
Speaker
ah from a perspective of literalism was insane. it's It's goofy. We know it's goofy. But the Mormons crank it to 11. They crank it to 11. At least what we're basing our goofiness on was written couple thousand a few thousand years ago. Give me something a few thousand years ago. It has the mystique of an ancient text, at least.
00:56:16
Speaker
you know right right and even even Islam is like it's post it's post Christ enough to be like it has the experience of a person who is trying to establish and a ah nation under persecution. Like there's things you can get and there are snippets in there that you can resonate with because that's human experience. The Book of Mormon, dude, it's all just fanciful lore. It's all fanfare. Well, we're about to get to our hero's journey here. Okay, I'm maybe reserved. I spoke too soon. Okay, good folklore.
00:56:56
Speaker
Let's go. Let's go. Prove me wrong. Make me regret. I want to feel regret so bad. That's the only way I feel anything. So when the boys split, it says that an amen went to the land of Ishmael, the land being called after the sons of Ishmael, who also became laminates. Are you talking? I guess that is it. Is it Ishmael and Isaac Ishmael? Yeah. Yep. The land of Ishmael is like Appalachia. Dude, of course it is.
00:57:27
Speaker
Dude, you know what? Honestly, mad respect to the Mormons engaging in like ah xenophobia and racism the way that American Christians did. ah You know what? I get it. Yeah, you should get some. They did it. They did it the same.
00:57:44
Speaker
It actually helps, it helps me to see the cultural significance of placing yourself in a certain position in in historical context. You just go, look, we were, I don't know to tell you, like I didn't ask for this. God wanted it this way. And it just so happens that God wanted me and my whiteness to be the best. I don't know. I look, it's just God. I'm here for God. I love God.
00:58:14
Speaker
And I'm going to follow God and you go, okay, cool. So at least like they fall in the tradition of American Christianity in that everything other than whenever this was written, when was, do we, do you have that off ah the top of your noggin on when, uh, Joseph Smith was doing this actually communicated, I think in the, wasn't it like the 1830s? That feels right. Yeah.
00:58:40
Speaker
I can't remember exactly. so Yeah. Somewhere in there. Prime time for racism and to write a racist book. Exactly. So here's here's where we start to actually get into some events here. And this is fun because I just think about this from the context of like everything that your life experience has told you about people in charge and how they act. OK, whether they're just like God and we need to blindly obey them. Yeah, sure.
00:59:10
Speaker
like How does a person in power react to outside threats or things that are mysterious or you know unknown quantities?
00:59:21
Speaker
Right? And it doesn't have to be a king. This can be the manager of Applebee's. All right? yeah And as Aemon entered the land of Ishmael, the Lamanites took him and bound him, as was their custom, to bind all the Nephites who fell into their hands and carry them before the king. And thus it was left to the pleasure of the king to slay them or to restrain them in captivity or to cast them into prison or to cast them out of his land according to his will and pleasure.
00:59:50
Speaker
So the kings thought like he has an open schedule enough to wear like any of the laminates that they happen to stumble across. They like handcuff them and then bring them before the king so he can decide on their each individual case like what happens to them. And thus Aemon was carried before the king who was over the land of Ishmael and his name was Lamoni and he was obscenant of Ishmael.
01:00:16
Speaker
And the king inquired of Aemon if it were his desire to dwell in the land among the laminates or among his people. And Aemon said unto him, Yeah, i that is another thing that's fun about this is that they use the word Yeah. Yeah. it's Yeah, boss. Yeah, whatever you say, boss. Inspired word of God is the lackey of the bully in a Christmas story. Yeah.
01:00:41
Speaker
The kid with the yellow eyes. No, that the kid with the yellow eyes, Scott Farkas, was the bully. And then... And he was the other one, the little the little squatty kid. The one that was... ah that that There was a whole thing going around the internet this holiday season that it was that it was the original singer for Guns N' Roses, I think, is what I kept hearing. It looks like him, but it's not him. It was just like a little... you know The internet's full of fake bullshit, but... Yeah, Scott Farkas and his little toady, uh, whatever his name was, but yeah, boss. And Amen said unto him, yeah, I desire to dwell among this people for a time. Yeah. And perhaps until the day, right. And I i hear him saying it like Creed, you know, I think he's saying it like Scott Stapp that I'm only hearing. Sure. I'll take that. This man is Scott Stapp.
01:01:37
Speaker
He's got a warrior's ah you know connotation. A jarrl a warrior's yarl? Yeah, there we go. yeah Yeah! Like that? So he tells the king that, that, yeah, I desire to live among people or bung your people, blah, blah, blah. And it came to pass that King Lamoni was much pleased with Aemon and caused that his bands should be loosed. And he was that Aemon should take one of his daughters to life.
01:02:06
Speaker
yeah god It's so Old Testament. Literally like three seconds into their first interaction. And he's already been like, this lemonade pleases me, cut off his bindings and have him marry my daughter.
01:02:23
Speaker
Have a marry my 13 year old. yeah yeah My youngest of daughters were the ripest. No. Uh, he says, uh, but Amen said unto him, nay, but I will be thy servant. Therefore Amen became a servant to King Lamoni. And it came to pass that he was set among other servants to watch the flocks of Lamoni, according to the custom of the laminates.
01:02:52
Speaker
So it's like, I, it all has the, like some of these characters in these stories, you just get the feeling that like, oh, this guy, like there was no effort to like understand what the motives of this guy might be. He meets the dude, he gives him a snarky answer. He says, he pleases me. marry I think you're a snark good sir.
01:03:17
Speaker
And he goes from like offering him to be a you know honorary prince to Putting him out with the shepherds to watch his flocks. This is like nothing about it makes any eagles you know what I do love this. I do love this for a couple of reasons It makes me feel like what we grew up with was was less wild like yeah Like you said the miss the the mystique of ancient lore literature, whatever like they're I'll always have a soft spot for the Bible, particularly the Hebrew scriptures. I'll always have that. I'll always be interested in it. I ah like to learn about why and how.
01:04:03
Speaker
things are interpreted the way they were, like the historical aspect of it is always going to be just like armchair hobby ish for me. Like I don't, and it's not a scholarly pursuit. It never will be. I don't want to invest myself in academia, but I do feel that about the book of Mormon. is that i I hear this and I go, this is dog shit. This is so fucking stupid.
01:04:28
Speaker
like ancient ancient literature in regard to religion on religious practices or what religions are built on always interesting i would like to learn like well i'm i'm on the fence about some things but like but it's always interesting really like the the development of some of the major world religions and how far back they go. Basically if it dates like BC, I'm like, that's interesting. ah Early AD is still interesting because they're grappling with some major
01:05:01
Speaker
ah major shifts in world powers you know that's yeah there's a window where it's not though there's a window from like you know where it's like don't care don't care about any of it so what happened after 1948 kc where you think it's interesting again Oh, because that's when it's like, uh, you know, it's an MK ultra victim. That's okay well yeah no totally back in MK ultra changed my life. When you learn about that in your like mid twenties, you go, holy fuck. Like.
01:05:46
Speaker
You just pulled the wool off my eyes. I can see it all. Yeah. Dude, when you learn about NK Ultra for the first time, run it's an amazing, it's literally an epiphany. It is pretty wild. Like that happened. there's theres There's actual documented reports, even like in that era of people being given LSD acid to see how they'd react they fucking jump out windows in skyscrapers of the fucking but FBI headquarters I don't know like there's just so many stories of like crazy shit happening ah around the MK ultra time period that you go that I think I feel like that is the catalyst for so many conspiracy theories
01:06:35
Speaker
Yeah. Well, as soon as you open your mind to that, you go to the more legitimate ones. Yeah. Like what else? What was going on? It's crazy. ah But yeah. So, OK. Nine from from two hundred eighty d to nineteen forty eight horseshit. Nineteen forty eight to twenty twenty five. Yeah. Post Marshall. That's right. Shows up. I'm back. Everything. Everything's back on the table.
01:07:01
Speaker
Okay, so he gets put out with the flocks, right? and And to give you an idea of the timeline of events that we've gone through so far, the story here starts, it says, and after he had been in the service of the king three days, so this is all very quick, you know? ah As he was with the lamentish servants going forth with their flocks to the place of water, which was called the water of Cebas,
01:07:30
Speaker
and all the laminates bribed their flocks, possibly, that they might have water. Therefore, as Aemon and the servants of the king were driving forth their flocks to this place of water, behold, a certain number of the laminates." This is pretty funny, I think.
01:07:50
Speaker
It's funny when you start thinking about it because it's like you can imagine yourself just lazing over it as a kid and being like, okay, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened. I memorized these. That's my lesson for today or whatever. But also the Bible was very specific.
01:08:07
Speaker
A hundred thousand plus. Yeah. Like 50,000. It was always specific and enough with numbers. And then what does this book say? A certain number of people. And the laminates are fun because they're bad. Like that's really all they really tell us about them is like the laminates are bad. They just do wild things for no reason because they're bad.
01:08:34
Speaker
They're naughty people. It's Disney Channel Villainships. Disney Channel Villains are always just like, I'm evil because evil is cool. So a certain number of the laminates who had been with their flocks to water stood and scattered the flocks of Aemon and the servants of the king, and they scattered them in so much that they fled in many ways. Now my thought was like, oh, they're stealing the sheep.
01:09:01
Speaker
Mm-hmm, but it really I don't think that's what the story is saying I think it's just like a bunch of doofuses that were also at the watering hole when they came up with their sheep were just like I Just scared them away Like they just ruined their day, like scattered the sheep all over the place. Because it doesn't make any mention of like them trying to scrounge them up afterwards and steal them. It's just like they scattered them. And they showed up and provided a minor inconvenience.
01:09:32
Speaker
So they fled in many ways. Now the servants of the king began to murmur, saying, Now the king will slay us as he has our brethren, because their flocks were scattered by the wickedness of these men. And they began to weep exceedingly, saying, Behold, our flocks are scattered already.
01:09:51
Speaker
um And now that they wept because of the fear of being slain, now when Aemon saw this, his heart was swollen within him with joy.
01:10:11
Speaker
For he for said he I will show forth my power unto these my fellow servants or the power which is in me in Restoring these flocks unto the king that I might I may win the hearts of these my fellow servants that I may lead them to believe in my words So it's all a big tool of spreading the gospel, right? Dum-dums make scary sheep Everybody thinks they're about to get killed and you go guys it's all good. Let's just go pick the sheep up.
01:10:45
Speaker
yeah Guys, it's not a deal. Let's just it's like changing a flat tire. Like, yeah, it feels awful. The moment you hear that pop, and people are like look, it's not a big deal. 15 minutes, we're out of here. We'll just jack it up together. Work together. We're done, dude. That's not a big deal. Yeah, it felt like the worst thing that could have happened in that moment. But we're moving on.
01:11:09
Speaker
Well, the naughty laminates, they did not like that. Says, and now these were the thoughts of Aemon, when he saw the afflictions of those who term whom he termed to be his brethren. And it came to pass that he flattered them by his words, saying, my brethren, be of good cheer and let us go in search of the flocks, and we will gather them together and bring them back unto the place of water. And thus we will preserve the flocks unto the king, and he will not slay us.
01:11:36
Speaker
and it came to pass that they went ins search of the flux it did its every paragraph is itin v it came to pass and they did what but what a what a narrative like ah shortcut right like i don't know what happened next i don't really want into details so
01:11:57
Speaker
It's like the the old timey word that he or like ah idiom that he knew. And if you do more than five, it came to passes in one story. It means you didn't think it through enough. ah I don't. You're trying to get 250 word essay and you did. It came to pass instead of then. I mean, that's it that like bonus four words. It came to pass as the equivalent of double spacing after a period when you are all done.
01:12:26
Speaker
like I've got nothing left to say I got a double space all these and see if I can make that like five pager that I need And it came to pass that they went in search of the flocks and they did follow a man and they rushed forth with much Swiftness and did head the flocks of the king and did gather them together again to the place of the water. Oh The laminates are not happy and those men against her their flocks. Oh scared those sheep on purpose. tote in the neighborhood Dude, they're in the business of scattering flocks. They can't get enough of it. It's a huge problem. It's all they want to do. They don't want to like steal them. They're not flock rustlers. They just like. take
01:13:12
Speaker
They don't take shit anymore. They're like bank robbers that just like to see people hit the floor after they fire a gun into the ceiling and then they leave. They just need they don't need to take anything, they just need to watch everybody freak out. Some people just want to watch the world burn Master Wayne.
01:13:31
Speaker
ah And those men again stood to scatter their flocks, but Ammon said unto his brethren, Encircle the flocks round about, that they flee not, and I go and contend with these men who do scatter our flocks. Who do scatterings.
01:13:46
Speaker
Therefore they did his aim and commanded and he went forth and stood to contend with those who stood by the waters of sevis And they were in number not a few the stupidest phrase ever look they were in number but This is why feeling it's written by and or at least narrated by Trump. It was written by a number It's a big number lots of people not a few not a few and Behold, he went forth and he stood to contend with those who stood by the Waters of Sea. And more than the Democrats. They all loved the Waters of Sea, this wonderful place. They could number the Democrats. And they were in number not a few. There was a lot of them, many, many more than a few. Lots of people, lots of sheep.
01:14:33
Speaker
The most sheep, more sheep than anyone's ever seen. Not because of the few. It's not the Democrats. It's the Republicans with the sheep, the sheep and the Republicans.
01:14:44
Speaker
Dude, so I love the next part. I love thinking about this in the context of like the laminates were just like practical jokers that enjoyed like ruining the the Shepherd's Day and like scaring off sheep because this is where all of a sudden everything goes to hell. and They're just like big dumb bullies or something. It says, therefore they did not fear Ammon. For they suppose that one of their men could slay him according to their pleasure. For they knew not that the Lord had promised Messiah that he would deliver his sons out of their hands. Neither did they know anything concerning the Lord. Therefore they delighted in the destruction of their brethren, and for this cause they stood to scatter the flocks of the king.
01:15:31
Speaker
But Aemon stood forth and began to cast stones at them with his sling. So he just starts whipping rocks at the guys. Which, hey, that's not a bad punishment for scaring your sheep, except that it somehow whipping rocks at them kills them. It's like ingra crazy that we have that that part of their Their major book, the the pinnacle of religious writings is a tit for tat sheep scaring contest. Like. So he just takes his sleep. I love the the idea of them just like looking up and be like, hey, don't throw rocks.
01:16:23
Speaker
yeah yeah With mighty power did he sling stones amongst them, and thus he slew a certain number of them in so much that they began to be astonished at his power. It's never specific. ah certain number. Probably lots, not a little. It came to pass that more than a few. Oh my god dude, this book is written like shit. Look, I love that this book has dictated that the the direction of people's religious leanings for a couple centuries they're persecuted for this and it wouldn't it would not get a passing grade
01:17:07
Speaker
in any English class from the 1800s. Like college in the 1800s would not have passed this as legitimate writing. No. And they literally like Missouri had like a no bag limit hunting season on Mormons. Because they're defending this. This is what they had to die for. yeah I had to, dude. I mean, you have no choice. yeah Honestly, I could see why it would be insulting that people like us would belittle how serious it is to scare your sheep because I've never had sheep and I don't know what it's like. And they're like, no, dude, you never experienced poverty and you've never had your sheep scared away. Never been a sheep herder. What a cushy, nerfy life. you've I've had it easy, which makes it easy for me for my
01:17:55
Speaker
My high horse, my college educated high horse to just shit on these religious peasants. hey a I'm a freakin' my choice. i My dad has a trust fund for me.
01:18:07
Speaker
ah Okay, so they're astonished at his power. He's whipping rocks at him and they're just falling like flies. ah They're like, hey, don't throw rocks. Nevertheless, they were angry because of the slain of their brethren and they were determined angry because they ripped the entire story from David and Goliath. Oh, cool.
01:18:28
Speaker
So he's killing a bunch of their brothers and they're like, dude, if you don't stop throwing rocks, I'm coming over there. Then they come up there. ah Seeing that they could not hit him with their stones, they came forth with clubs to slay him. So he's about to get a beating. I think this is another interesting note because I don't know where metallurgy was at this point in history in the Americas, but I doubt there was many storie metal swords and spear tips around.
01:18:57
Speaker
You know, i'm I'm guessing we don't have a big archeological record of them. So if this guy actually does have like the only sword in the country, it's like a lightsaber.
01:19:08
Speaker
i mean he he made sure that that crossed the sea from ju from Jerusalem to the Americas. He's about to go full Anakin on the sand people here. ah But behold, every man that lifted his club to smite Aemon, he smote off their arms with his sword. Smote! He smote them. He just cut their arms off.
01:19:34
Speaker
He smote off their arms with his sword, for he did withstand their blows by smiting their arms with the edge of his sword, insomuch that they began to be astonished and began to flee before him. oh my god they were not They were not few in number, and he caused them to flee. It's never numbers. It's always they were not a lot. They were not few. He smote their arms off and they were running smoted. And the smoting never stopped smoting. And it smoted them to smote. And now they're few, but not too few, but not a lot got it. This is seriously like the Black Knight in Money Python. He just starts yeah whacking their arms off.
01:20:16
Speaker
by the strength of his arm. Now six of them had fallen by the sling but he slew none save it were their leader with his sword and he smote off as many of their arms as were lifted against him and they were not a few. I said smote off jokingly and then this book used it seriously I do appreciate that.
01:20:38
Speaker
<unk>
01:20:40
Speaker
When he had driven them afar off, he returned and they watered their flocks and returned them to the pasture of the king, and then went in unto the king, bearing the arms which had been smitten off by the sword of Aemon, and of those who sought to slay him. I look like they're concerned with grammar at that point.
01:21:00
Speaker
like they had been smote so many times but now you're going with smitten like you don't care whoever wrote this doesn't even know so they literally just bring in like a bale of severed arms to show the king be like yeah look the Granted, granted, we do have a story in our Old Testament about someone bringing in a basket of foreskin. That's more space efficient. It is way more efficient. I do. I appreciate it more. But is it less or more wild? I mean, it's not that much different. Like when you're talking story, right? Foreskins arms.
01:21:46
Speaker
Well, it's like, since we're in nonsense land, like why not step it up a notch and be like, and then behold, he picked up the slain arms and he stuck them and they fused onto his back and he became known as Dr. Octavius. easily He's like like a pudgy white Shiva.
01:22:08
Speaker
What's the guy on Mortal Kombat with like forearms? Goro? Goro. Dude, Moro. Mormino. Mormino.
01:22:20
Speaker
ah Yeah, so I feel like we probably can't get into the next section here because of time, but... I feel like we should keep reading through the Book of Mormon. Let's just go through it, dude. Who cares? Yeah, well, I mean, we could keep going here um because this is where we get into the spiritual warfare side of things. ah That's my favorite, dude. That's what gets me hard at night.
Ammon's Exploits and King Lamoni
01:22:44
Speaker
So the servants bring in the big bundle of severed arms to the king, and it came to pass that King Lamoni caused that his servants should stand forth and testify to all the things which they had seen concerning the matter about this guy who's been there three days.
01:23:01
Speaker
And when they had all testified to the to the things which they had seen, and he had learned of the faithfulness of Ammon in preserving his flocks, and also of his great power in contending against those who sought to slay him, he was astonished exceedingly and said, surely this is more than a man. Behold, is not this the great spirit who doth send such great punishments upon his people because of their murders?
01:23:27
Speaker
ah You know, I think that's the first time that ah just frivolous killings have been referred to as murders. Yeah, that's that's deviating from King James language. It is. And I don't I can't think of any time in the Bible where a mass killing of people from a different group was ever referred to as murder. Murders. Yeah, it's not coming up. So the word murder alone being dropped here shows me this is uh this is post that this is extra biblical this is horse shit well i think this is meant to show to us that they have some understanding of a god they just call him the great spirit and they know him as the god who doth send such great punishments upon his people because of their murders
01:24:24
Speaker
So he is somewhat aware of God and the fact that, like, their murderings are why they are punished. Too murdery. Their murderings are too murdery. And God's not cool with that. Despite the fact that if you read, you know, a lot of the books ah in the Old Testament, you get a lot of, like, God-murdery shit.
01:24:47
Speaker
A lot of murderings. of murderings. It's what makes it so relatable to today. And they answered the king and said, whether he be the great spirit or a man, we know not. But this much we do know that he cannot be slain by the enemies of the king. Neither can they scatter the king's flocks when he is with us because of his expertness and great strength expertness. Dude, what's the fucking point of this book? on but There's no point to this book.
01:25:17
Speaker
Well, therefore we know that he is a friend to the king and now, oh king, we do not believe that a man has such great power for we know he cannot be slain. Everything's said four times in this too. It's like they they restate the same crap over and over. God's on our side. He kills the people we don't like. He's protecting us. This and this reinforces the idea that God's on our, like it's it's literally,
01:25:46
Speaker
Useless it means nothing. but There's no spiritual there There's no spiritual gleaning from this. You don't go Wow, this isn't something I haven't heard before in the and the other 66 is it 66 books of the Bible? I think it's like that. It's like what is this adding? What is this telling us about your understanding of God that has not already?
01:26:15
Speaker
just been around for 3000 years. It's really fucking awesome. Smith knows very cool stories that we've never heard before. These people showed up. Oh, God killed more people. God was on the side of people who were being this or that. And then they killed like, you know, we've all we don't need more of these stories. We have plenty. ah You either believe it or you don't. You glean from it with you. Don't you? Uh,
01:26:45
Speaker
work within the context of human history to understand the evolution of the way people understood god or you don't like we don't need this in the 1800s we really don't everything about this is utterly useless it's like one man's vanity project basically yeah it's gross it was like he wanted to be a famous musician and he couldn't so he just made up a religion but wanted like get into art school but he couldn't so yeah they turned to hitler she yeah
01:27:18
Speaker
All right, so when the king heard these words, he said unto them, now I know that it is the great spirit, and he has come down at this time to preserve your lives, that I might not slay you as I did your brethren. Now this is the great spirit of whom our fathers have spoken." It's it's funny because it's like you think about it, and what has he actually done so far? ah He didn't marry the king's daughter, even though he was offered her after three minutes of time in the palace.
01:27:46
Speaker
He gets put out with the sheep, some moron scarum. He starts throwing rocks at them and cutting their arms off. And now everybody's enamored with him and he must be the great spirit. Now, this was the tradition of Lamoni, which had been, who had received from his father and there was a great spirit. Notwithstanding, they believed in a great spirit. They suppose that whatsoever they did was right.
01:28:12
Speaker
Nevertheless, Lamoni began to fear exceedingly, with fear lest he- Dude, how many- how many adverbs can they use? I don't- I- It's crazy to me that whoever- that Joseph Smith- was like, you know, how do I sound biblical and smart? Adverbs, tons of them, never stop. They suppose that whatsoever they did was right. Nevertheless, Lamoni began to fear exceedingly with fear lest he had done wrong in slaying his servants. So he's suddenly wondering if maybe he shouldn't have killed his servants so when the the sheep got spooked.
01:28:57
Speaker
but for He had slain many of them because their brethren had scattered their flocks at the place of the water and Thus because they had their flocks scattered they were slain if you didn't catch it the first time No, my god. I gotta tell you dude. I lost the plot like Probably 45 verses ago Basically, like he, but it's still sheet up the scared sheeps s lane people rocks Adam cut their arms off. And because of that, the King is now like, maybe this is the great spirit. Maybe I shouldn't have killed my servants for getting the sheep scared. And, uh, and that's pretty much where we've gotten this far. Now he's converting to follow the Lord.
01:29:38
Speaker
The keeper of Sheba. Well, okay, so here this might shed a little light on why. Now it was the practice of these laminates to stand by the waters of Sebas to scatter the flocks of the people that thereby they might drive them away, many that were scattered onto their own land, it being a practice of plunder among them. So they were stealing some of them. All right, I'll give them that. There's also a weird, the practice of plunder. I keep hearing alliteration. I keep hearing alliteration, I think.
01:30:08
Speaker
Gonna keep a closer eye out for that going forward. And it came to pass that King Lamoni inquired of his servants saying, where is this man? That has such great power. And they said, behold, he is feeding thy horses. Now the king commanded his servants previous to the time of watering of their flocks, that they should prepare his horses and chariot and conduct him forth to the land of Nephi. For there had been a great feast appointed at the land of Nephi by the father of Lamoni, who was the king over all the land.
01:30:38
Speaker
Now there's two lemonies, I don't know.
01:30:44
Speaker
of
01:30:49
Speaker
we're skipping ahead this is just saying the same things over and over again okay so blah blah blah I think he might be the great spirit blah blah blah oh my god and it came to pass that when Eamon had made ready the horses and the chariot for the king and his servants he went in unto the king and he saw that the countenance of the king was changed therefore he was about to return out of his presence he was like oh this guy's off his rocker time to get out of here One of the king's servants said under him, Rebana, which is being interpreted power interpreted, powerful or great king, considering their kings to be powerful, and thus i appreciate i appreciate them be like this is the interpretation that it means powerful considering the kingins to be powerful like god damn and thus he said unto him, Rebana, the king desireth thee to stay.
01:31:42
Speaker
Therefore, Aemon turned himself unto the king and said unto him, What will thou that I should do for thee, O king? And the king answered to him, Not for the space of an hour, according to their time. For he knew not what he should stand to him." I like the specifics in numerology at this point. We've been dealing with like more than a few, plenty, lots, and now we get a very specific hour. That's nice.
01:32:07
Speaker
And it came to pass that Ammon said unto him again, What desirest thou of me? But the king answered him not. And it came to pass that Ammon, being filled with the Spirit of God, therefore he perceived the thoughts of the king, and he said unto to him, Is it because thou hast heard that I defended thy servants and thy flocks, and slew seven of their brethren with the sling and with the sword, and smote off the arms of others, in order to defend thy flocks and thy servants, because it is It is this that thou causeth thy marvelings. God, I say unto you, what is it that thy marvelings are so great? Thy marvelings. What is it that thy marvelings are so great?
01:32:53
Speaker
tell me What dost preoccupy thy marvelings? Behold, I am a man, and am thy servant. Therefore whatsoever thou desirous, which is right, that will I do. Now when the king- I'm I'm marvelling! Now when the king heard these words, he marveled again? Marvel me, daddy! Marvel me!
01:33:20
Speaker
ah For he beheld that Aemon could discern his thoughts. Dude, what are we talking about? He's like, this is in the space of
Critique of Book of Mormon and Music Industry
01:33:30
Speaker
two hours. He cut off a bunch of dude's arms. They bring in a bundle of arms and into the king. He calls Aemon in and he's like, does this have something to do with arms I cut off? like ah how many um many though our wizard like How many of those arms do you think could jerk me off in under 10 seconds?
01:33:52
Speaker
it Who are you that is so wise in the ways of science? ah And the king said, How knowest thou the thoughts of my heart, thou mayest speak boldly, and tell me concerning these things.
01:34:09
Speaker
And also tell me by what power ye slew and smote off the arms of my brethren, and that scattered my flocks. And now, if thou wilt tell me concerning these things, whatsoever thou desirest I will give unto thee. And if it were needed, I would guard thee with my armies, but I know that thou art more powerful than all they. Nevertheless, whatsoever, whatever, so ever thou desirest of me, I will grant it unto thee.
01:34:36
Speaker
see he killed this is why I regret not seeing the Book of Mormon from the under watch like this is this is dumb this is fucking dumb you nailed it dude earlier when you said it it feels like a one long Monty Python sketch this is this is how you would make fun of the thing like I this is this is the screenplay for rings of power season three oh damn dude that must suck you must really hate rings of power dude holy shit I haven't watched any season of it I probably won't because ah I just don't care and I
01:35:19
Speaker
yeah the lower of the rings guy but it's not bad enough to be fun but it's not good enough to be enjoyable in the least yeah that's a bummer it made is like being made these days in age is the worst it is probably the worst thing you can be uh okay so where are we at now amen being wise yet harmless he said oh oh he's basically like that's like 1800s
01:35:50
Speaker
It's so funny that he supposedly killed like 10 guys. And he's like, I would guard thee with my armies, but I know they are more powerful than all they. All my army is so pitiful in your presence. I know you could smote me with a great smiting. That is why I marvel. That is the source of my marvelings. Oh my God, dude.
01:36:18
Speaker
Wilt thou hearken unto my words, if I tell thee by what power I do these things? And this is the thing that I desire of thee. And the king answered him and said, yeah, yeah, it gets me every time. Yeah, I will believe all thy words. bra that's it's like That's like the 1800s of, brah, brah, come on, brah.
01:36:39
Speaker
but Yeah, I'm gonna start reading it like that. Yeah, I will believe all thy words and thus he was caught with the guile. Ooh, not the guile. And Amen began to speak unto him with boldness and said unto him, Believeth thou that there is a God?
01:37:00
Speaker
So I am bold. What a Sunday school. Do you believe in God? I'm so bold with my faith. Do you like how bold I am? God. He asked him like he was like a Columbine shooter. oh And he answered and said it to him.
01:37:18
Speaker
it's the same thing he just he's using he was gonna cut his arms off with a sword right yes actually probably not as bad that's what's crazy it's crazy when you read when you read biblical or extra biblical text and you go this isn't as bad as Columbine
01:37:36
Speaker
ah Okay, I think we we need this in context here because this is this is a perfect like Sunday school roleplay of how evangelism should go, okay? Okay, and Eamon began to speak unto him with boldness and said unto him, Believeth thou that there is a God? And he answered and said unto him, I do not know what that meaneth.
01:37:58
Speaker
Meneth. And then Ammon said, Tereth, I believe it says there that there is a great spirit. And he said, yeah. He said, brah. said And Ammon said, this is God. And Ammon said unto him again, believe us thou that this great spirit who is God created all things which are in heaven and in earth. And he said, stolen all your arms.
01:38:27
Speaker
ah This God has stolen your arms and will give them back if you say he is God. Believe us that God bestoweth upon me the right to bear these arms. I will bear the arms appropriately with the will of the spirit and the love of the Father, and I will bestow them upon you. I will bequeath them and bequeath them. I will bequeath them upon your ladies.
01:38:52
Speaker
oh So many marvelings. And he said, yeah, I believe that he created all the things that are in the earth, but I do not know the heavens.
01:39:03
Speaker
And Ammon said unto him, the heavens is a place where God dwells and all his holy angels. And King Lamoni said, is it above the earth? And Ammon said, yeah. And he looketh down upon all the children of men, and he knows all the thoughts and the intents of the heart. By his hand, they were all created from the beginning. And King Lamoni said, I believe only things which thou hast spoken. Art thou sent from God?
01:39:31
Speaker
Amen said unto him, I am a man, and man in the beginning was created after the image of God, and I am called by his Holy Spirit to teach these things unto this people that he might have brought, to acknowledge of that which is just and true, which is just and true. And a portion of that Spirit dwelleth in me, which giveth me knowledge, and also power according to my faith and desires which are in God.
01:39:58
Speaker
Doesn't this sound like this is a- He wenteth back to his quarters and he placed his oneth penis in his bumhole.
01:40:08
Speaker
Indirect it until he came and you're like, oh wow, that's great. God. I love that God. That's good This is it though. You could like like this is clearly written by a person who? grew up in like a Modernish Church like that whole interaction is just spelling out exactly what like Moderny Christianity, I mean modern in the past four and a How half do I make this sound old without having any education at all to know what old sound is actually like? Well, it supposedly takes place before Jesus was born. So it's like all this like Holy Spirit doctrine and stuff before. I mean, it's not really not a thing at that point, is it? No, no, no, it's definitely not. That was very that was very post Jesus, very first century Christianity.
01:40:57
Speaker
We were still in the sheep genocide phase of Christian. we were right They were still in the sheep fucking phase.
01:41:08
Speaker
wait i think yeah i I don't think that we really... Really give enough attention to how you know, how long humans fucked sheep throughout human history You know what I mean? I think like if it's pre Jesus someone was fucking a sheep while someone was writing the Bible. That's my thought I don't know. I have no proof His post Jesus, too Yeah, I don't know if that's anything that humans have really grown out of yet bestiality comes up in the Bible, you know, I
01:41:40
Speaker
and And if it came up in the Bible, it means people were doing some weird shit. And I mean, there's death sentences for people who have sex with animals, which is like, they're just prehistoric counties. Yeah, it happens in cell. That was like the, that was like the early in cell community, you know, before AI, there were sheep.
01:42:03
Speaker
So and now when Aemon heard these words, he began at the creation of the world and also the creation of Adam and told him all the things concerning the fall of man and rehearsed and laid before him the records and the holy scriptures of the people which have been spoken by the prophets, even down to the time that their father Lehi left Jerusalem.
01:42:24
Speaker
What? Did you say the creation of Adam? Yeah. This predated Adam? No, no, he's telling him like, he's basically reading him Genesis. Oh, gotcha. He's reading to the, the, the pagan. Okay. All the way up to the point where their father Lehi left Jerusalem. So. God, this is the dumbest fucking shit. It's crazy that a whole religion was born out of this nonsense.
01:42:48
Speaker
i Look, ah there are times where I go, it's crazy that Christianity exists in the way that it does in 2025 America.
01:43:00
Speaker
um But looking at what it's based on and how it came to creation how it came to be compiled, it's not it's not crazy. It's not wild. It's very human. ah But this, the Book of Mormon, what we just read, the Book of Amelie, what is it?
01:43:17
Speaker
Uhh, Alma. Alma. This is ridiculous. This is so this is so ridiculous. Like, I get that Christianity's gone horribly astray, and I get that the New Testament, and there are things in it that you can connect to the beliefs that are modern day Christianity.
01:43:37
Speaker
But my God, like you just read this and you go, this is dumb. This is dumb. And if you read the Bible, any part of it, any portion of it, and you compare it to this, this, this does not hold up. It does not have any level of authenticity. It does not sound like it means anything. It was just a story made up that actually means nothing. It was like,
01:44:02
Speaker
in an elaborate story that ended with someone being like, in Jesus is God and Christ and God and Christian. And the person goes, okay, I agree with that now. Like this is dumb. You just basically like expelled out the next part of the story. He goes through history, history, history, he says, but this is not all for he expounded unto them the plan of redemption.
01:44:26
Speaker
which was prepared from the foundation of the world. And he also made known unto them concerning the coming of Christ and all the works of the Lord did he make known unto them." So he told them all about Jesus who hadn't been born yet and the plan of redemption and this and that, which hadn't been laid yet, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He was really in the know on everything.
01:44:48
Speaker
This is, this is 100% the way that that played out. The exact way that all Christian, movement that this follows the meta of Christian filmmaking or Christian filmmaking follows this meta. Yes. Yes. It's like we talked about where it's all this crazy shit happened at the end. I'm going to tell you about Jesus and you're going to go,
01:45:10
Speaker
Holy shit! I was wrong about everything! Jesus is Lord! Christ is King! We all came together to glorify God. Oh my God, dude. This created the Christian movie industry before Christian cinema was even a thing. It's very similar also in the fact that like if you didn't know anything about Christianity, this would sound like gibberish.
01:45:36
Speaker
even more than it does us Even more so than a pure flicks original. Well, here's the payoff. And it came to pass that after he had said all these things, and he expounded them to the king, that the king believed all his words. He did.
01:45:52
Speaker
course it And to cry unto the Lord saying oh Lord have mercy according to thy abundant mercy Which thou has had upon the people of Nephi have upon me and my people and now when he said this When he had said this he fell onto the earth as if he were dead dude this this book loves prepositions it does So he says all that, kind of cries out for redemption and stuff and then just falls over dead basically. And it came to pass that his servants took him and carried him in unto his wife and laid him upon a bed and he lay as if he were dead for the space of two days and two nights and his wife and his sons and his daughters mourned over him after the manner of the laminates greatly lamenting his loss. Now this is the part that I was kind of waiting for here because I feel like this is funny.
01:46:45
Speaker
The real payoff. this is We're now into chapter 19 of Alma. Jesus Christ. And it came to pass that after two days and two nights, they were about to take his body and lay it in a sepulcher, which they had made for the purpose of burying their dead.
01:47:02
Speaker
just Yes, that is what a sepulchre is. Turns out he just ate bad puffer fish.
01:47:10
Speaker
Now the queen, having heard of the fame of Aemon, which this is like this was this just happened in front of them, since she's heard of the fame of Aemon, therefore she sent and desired that he should come in unto her.
01:47:23
Speaker
And it came to pass that Ammon did as he was commanded, and he went in unto the can queen, and desired to know what she would would she that what she would that he should do. And she said unto him, The servants of my husband have made it known unto me that thou art a prophet of the holy God, and that thou hast power to do many mighty works in his name.
01:47:47
Speaker
Therefore, if this is the case, I would that ye should go in and see my husband, for he has been laid upon his bed for the space of two days and two nights, and some say that he is not dead, but others say that he is dead and that he stinketh." What a mystery. He just shit his pants. He just fell asleep doing opioids and shit his pants and hasn't woken up yet.
01:48:12
Speaker
He stinketh, and that he ought to be placed in the sepulchre, but as for me, to me, he doth not stink. it's She has the scent blindness. To me, he doth not stink. I smelled those farts for 30 years, and they do not stink to me. They remind me of a good time. I doth enjoyeth his musk.
01:48:40
Speaker
His mouth doth fill me with marvelings. Mmm. Amen. Now this was what Aemon desired, for he knew that King Lamoni was under the power of God. He knew that the dark veil of unbelief was being cast away from his mind, and the light which did light upon his mind, which was the light of the glory of God, which was a marvelous light of his goodness. This is written by goddamn Donald Trump, dude! I told you!
01:49:06
Speaker
It's a light. It's a marvelous light. It's the best light. One of the best lights that ever happened. Holy shit, dude. It was a marvelous light of his goodness. Yeah. This light had been and had infused such joy into his soul, the cloud of darkness having been dispelled, and that the light of everlasting life was lit upon him in his was lit up in his soul. Yeah. He knew that this had overcome his natural frame, and he was carried away in God.
01:49:36
Speaker
That is the dumbest paragraph we've read so far. Oh my god, dude. Well, holy shit, what a dumb book. No one should be Mormon. That's all I got out of this is no one should be Mormon. Maybe we should be put a pin in this right here. Yeah, it's worse than being anything else. It's that's so stupid. This is stupid. This book sucks.
01:49:58
Speaker
So basically where we're leaving off here, ah everybody thinks he's dead and that he stinketh, but his wife, she doesn't think he stinks. In fact, she's turned on by it and she had sex with his corpse. Sleep assault.
01:50:14
Speaker
Amen knows that he's not dead. He's just sleeping in the Lord and that the light has lit upon his mind and the darkness was hid by the light, the light which is a glorious light and filled with much marvelings has lit upon his non-lit soul. Something. Sure. So he's about to go in unto the body. That's yeah where we'll ah pick up in the future. his not His lit Nick enlightened his wife's pussy. Perfect.
01:50:44
Speaker
There's got to be some real filth in the Mormon Bible, don't you think? is are we Are we far enough into like modern era where they would be like all shameful about it? So like those weird, yeah creepy stories from the Old Testament don't make it in. They'll be so puritan about it. It'll be gross. It's like, it'll be so puritan that it's, it's more uncomfortable than just being vulgar. You're like, uh, that was the grossest thing I've ever heard because it tried to be so, so clean.
01:51:10
Speaker
Ugh, gross. You can read Song of Solomon when you're older. I feel like- I feel like we i we need to pay more- I feel like we need to give more attention to the Book of Mormon. This is a fascinating book, fascinatingly stupid. It is so poorly written. It's so dumb. It's amazing how and how bad the writing is. it's so eight it's It's some of the worst fan fiction and that includes like That includes Fifty Shades of Grey, Twilight fan fiction shit. Like this is the worst fan. This is the worst Bible fanfic I've ever heard. It's a terrible. Not good. Not good. Oh, all right. Well, thanks, everybody, for tuning in. I hope that shed some light on what your Mormon brothers and sisters believe. And that's probably why most of the ones that you know, even though they're not supposed to drink coffee and stuff, you catch them getting drunk.
01:52:08
Speaker
here and there because they know it doesn't matter. Or when you ask him questions, they go, let me explain it a little bit later. They've got, no one wants to tell you what we just talked about. No one wants to talk about it. It's dumb. Skin of blackness can mean a lot of things. It could be a ceremonial makeup, but it could be a blackface. Ceremonial blackface. Nothing wrong with that. Tattoos. Tattoos. If we look at the historical record. ah Rodney Radke. tatoo Blackout tattoos, you know?
01:52:41
Speaker
That's Rodney. Yeah, Rodney Ratky might be a woman. Somebody please cut Rodney Ratky's arms off. That would be great. That would be awesome. he I would love if he couldn't hold a microphone. He's annoying. I wish he would squat with his microphone over a Cybertruck.
01:53:01
Speaker
I'm sorry. i know I know there's people that really like ah his band. It's falling in reverse, right? It is. I've never actually listened to them really. I just see constant shit about him online. He's just a polarizing figure. He blacked out his tattoos and I'll never understand blackout. Uh, he just, he seems like a piece of shit person. Uh, and that's why I will never go back to, I mean, what his band hasn't even released music in a long time, right? Like he's just, wrong oh, really? Or I think anyways, I think they have.
01:53:36
Speaker
I don't know. It makes me talk Battle Corps. It's like it's for It's for anime compilations. I don't I don't actually know their music at all. I never really listened to them I just I've realized over the past few years that he seems like a dirtbag fucking piece of shit ah Like who's got her annoying shoved so far up his own asshole and He actually, actually it's so far up there, it's pitch black and he just, he thinks he blacked out his asshole with tattoo also. Dude, we didn't talk about it, but I i haven't watched a ton of Anthony Fantano's videos, but you know, he did like a wrap up of the worst albums of 2024 and like number four or five on the list was Skillet. Hey, hell yeah. He's got, he means he's doing a good job.
01:54:27
Speaker
My faith, my family, my friends. That's what it was like to me. Yeah. ah So dumb. What a loser. He's the worst. you at him um He's like, heck no, bro. There's a podcast called the Black Sheep Podcast. ah One of the hosts for that is um it's what? Is that a Mormon one? No, no, the Black Sheep is What was HM magazine? That was the heavy like Christian magazine, right? Yeah. They were part of that. um Mason Menenga is one of the hosts. He's a little bit younger than us. Very prominent online figure. ah Progressive Christian. Very familiar with the world of music we grew up in. I've actually been meaning to reach out to him because I think he'd be a good guest.
01:55:21
Speaker
ah But Luke Wilson did his did ah his podcast. He has another podcast called like a peep something theology podcast. So Mason has a ah podcast about music and they go on all different areas. It's not just Christian stuff.
01:55:36
Speaker
ah but then he has a theology podcast. But he talked to Luke Wilson. I was like, oh, no shit, Luke. ah I was talking to Luke. I was like, oh, holy shit. I've been meaning to reach out to him because he's such a ah figure in that and that world. um But shockingly, Mason ah was able to get ah John Cooper on his music podcast.
01:56:00
Speaker
And I was shocked. I keep meaning to listen to it ah because they are, I mean, Mason is a very, I mean, he's got his MDiv and he's a, you know, big theology guy, progressive theology, progressive Christian. And he had John Cooper on and i I was very interested to listen to the episode. I haven't yet. I do plan on listening to it and I do want to reach out to him and invite him on the podcast because He also for he also has like I think he has a similar sense of humor kind of dark very just What who gives a fuck? um He personally I think John Cooper. Yeah it's it's weird that they talked It's weird that John Cooper would do it because he avoids he actively avoids any any confrontation ah When it comes to media
01:56:53
Speaker
um You know, you know what would you know, it would be like the right combination of just like horrible online figures that might take off is like if if John Cooper and Matt Gaetz started a dating podcast. I still want to. I still want to. I don't remember if Shane said it while we were recording with him or if it was after. But ah I still want to get John Cooper and Shane Claiborne on a recording with us at the same time. That would i'd be fun. That would be a feat.
01:57:24
Speaker
Oh, before we go here, we should mention that our good pal, the the wonderful Dr.
Engagement and Community Building
01:57:32
Speaker
Luke Wilson, who's been on the show a bunch of times, you guys know him. Friend of the show. Just recently released his book, Shame Sex Attraction, Survivor Stories of Conversion Therapy. And he kind of like, ah accumulated and, uh, you know, put together just like a bunch of different accounts of people who went through conversion therapy of a lot of different types to not necessarily just the, uh, the collegiate variety that we're familiar with. Um, and it's out, you can get it. It's on Amazon and everywhere, but, uh,
01:58:09
Speaker
You should, you should pick it up. It's awesome. We love Luke. He's just the coolest guy. One of the, one of our favorite people we've met through the podcast and, uh, highly recommend his book. And I think he's got some other projects in the future that we are he does that we very excited to read. so eager for You just.
01:58:30
Speaker
spill the tea yeah is that a thing that people still say I don't know really dumb to say it does but it's true and he's given us he's given us a little snippet and we're we're on the edge of our seats waiting for it it to come to fruition so Well, thanks everybody for listening. um Don't forget, we got a Discord. We've gotten a couple of people pop up in there recently, but it's a good group of people. So if you haven't joined the Discord at this point, maybe Discord is just not your thing or whatever.
01:59:08
Speaker
You should give it a try just because I don't know. It's a fun place to, you know, share some thoughts about some of the things that we talk about. Maybe give us, you know, tell us people some stories about your growing up experience and, you know, uh, whatever weird thing that your family member said at Christmas dinner this year about how cancer might be caused by parasitic worms. You know, um,
01:59:36
Speaker
The moon is hollow by having a eating diet. Yeah. I mean, you never know, right? You don't. I mean, you kind of know, but you know you never really know because you can never know anything for sure. Yes. Uh, another wonderful, that's science. So, uh, discord, Luke Wilson's book.
01:59:59
Speaker
All of those things. And hey, if you like the show, uh, we, we don't ask all the time because it's annoying to hear the same words over and over again, but it's great if you can leave a review, even if you don't want to write out a thing, but just leave us like a star review or whatever, wherever you listen to it and share it with a friend.
02:00:17
Speaker
somebody that you, you know, a coworker who could make things really uncomfortable for you if they don't like it. So hope everybody has a great week and we