[irrelig]For episode 103, we have selected some of the most basic and oft-repeated crazy-ass stories found in the Book of Mormon, including Lehi’s vision of the Tree of Life, Nephi’s “acquisition” of the brass plates, the origin of GPS devices, and what happens to two atheists in ancient America under the Nephite prophets and judges.

All that, and a new candidate for Skunk Dick of the Year.

75 Responses to “103: Crazy Book of Mormon Stories”

  1. Gliblord says:

    Beautiful unto mine ears

  2. talkjawking says:

    Been excited for this one for a while now. Will this be a two-parter? I think it was Chuck who mentioned in the forums that you had almost two hours worth of material. Either way, glad this subject is getting delved into.

  3. Anders says:

    I think “…and it came to pass” is also inserted to give Joseph Smith some time to think new shit up. IIRC, the Swedish BoM has * in place of the …”and it came to pass”-es.

  4. @talkjawking: we’ll have another hour on this topic, devoted mostly to the BoM’s story of Christ’s visit to the Americas.

  5. Grant Gardner WAS the secret ID for Captain America in the serial. http://buffalodavidspeaks.com/journal/2011/3/25/captain-america.html
    In that version he was a lawyer. A District Attorney in fact.

    BTW, is this guy familiar with the term “legal fiction” ? Logic has very little to do with the law.

  6. Herb (12th Apostle) says:

    Thanks for getting back on your game, guys. My brain doesn’t like it when your podcasts omit the normal structure of intro/skunk dicks/meat. (It’s stupid but true.)

  7. I have only listened to the first 15-20 seconds, but I have to say: I was singing along with you, Leighton! This episode is going to be SO good.

  8. talkjawking says:

    @Chuck: I probably should’ve listened to the entire podcast where you mentioned this before jumping the gun and asking. Looking forward to it. Also, huge props for that Book of Mormon hymn you guys played, brought back a surge of repressed childhood memories.

  9. empbac says:

    BOOK OF MORMON STORIES THAT MY TEACHER TAUGHT TO ME, DUH-DUH!
    ALL ABOUT THE INDIANS AND A YOUNG MAN’S FANTASY, DUH-DUH!
    DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DDOO DOO DUH
    IF YOU LIVE — RIGHTEOUSLY — BLAH, BLAH, BLAH

    Oh yeah, good times, dancin’ round the campfire light with the Ghost of Old Tom Jones… Wait.

    You’re already going to do Jesus’ visit to America (Quetzalcoatl)? There’s so much more before that though. I especially like Alma the Younger, I mean, St. Paul II, and his explanations of faith. What a joke. I need to get into that thread in the forums.

  10. Why are you guys surprised that Kirk Hastings takes fictional characters so seriously?

    He’s a Christian, isn’t he?

  11. O man you guys just scratched the surface of crazy and dip-shitery that lives in the BOM. I remember my parents purchased a picture book of the BOM so it was easier to pan that shit off on us kids. I got so tired of the “and it came to pass” bullshitery that I just stopped trying to read it all together. I remember in seminary when they would ask you if you read for 10 min the night before and track if you did, my tacking sheet was blank for all four years of seminary. I was so proud.

  12. zaron5551 says:

    I had totally forgotten about the hand gestures, but right after you mentioned them I totally remembered them. Fuck!

  13. somewhere in greece says:

    So much “and it came to pass” and people still took this seriously? Good grief!

  14. somewhere in greece says:

    For Leighton, a list of all “and it came to pass”-es in 1 Nephi

    http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/1ne/aictp_list.html

  15. Moggie Magfeline says:

    You poor, poor bastards growing up. I’m surprised you didn’t yearn to become proctologists after hearing “and it came to pass” so many times (but come to think of it, Chuck has talked a fair bit about removing foreign objects from posterior orifi, and Leighton has alluded to his penchant for carrots…hmmmm).

    Moving on, I’m hanging out for your mash up of crazy Bible and BOM stories: “And it came to pass that Job’s friends did see him in a way with their retinae receiving his holy light, and it came to pass AGAIN that Job did scrape pottery shards across his upper limbs, both bemoaning and yet rejoicing in the shredding of his epidermis…..”

    Hope the haunt is looking “skeevy” – did I use that word correctly? If not, soz……hope you know what I mean.

  16. Boggsj says:

    Oh, are you guys still podcasting?

    *yawn*

    Where’s TSL at?

  17. Anders says:

    Will you do a show on Rigdon (?) and the theory that he and Smith cooperated in writing a book of Mormon (swiping much of it from some other guy)?

  18. Discord.agent says:

    Jesus Christ! How did the ancient Mormons know that all us atheists are just mad at god? They must be mentally… special.

  19. MarcParis says:

    Entertaining, I guess. But you really don’t know how to tell these stories. There were far too many pronouns to know who you were talking about; “And so he told them to get it.”
    If you know these stories by heart, as, alas, you do, that makes sense. But if you have the good fortune to have been spared this BS as a child, you don’t have a clue who is who. Redub the episode with a delicate voice over for every pronoun.

  20. Andrew C. says:

    Don’t forget the crystal powered, bronze age, Jaredite submarines!

  21. Boggsj says:

    I didn’t have any problem following the stories . . . if something “righteous” or whiny was said or done, it was nephi.

  22. Rnegade87 says:

    I love the mormon stuff, probably because I’m an exmo. 😛

    Oh and I was doing the hand motion at the beginning too.

  23. AtheistMama says:

    Wow, that song brought back memories…. the whole podcast did, actually. I might have to go back and re-read the BOM, just for hilarity’s sake.

    Also, I was very happy to have a podcast to listen to! (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). I’ve been listening to Ardent Atheist during the down time. It’s a good one, but I feel like a traitor.

  24. Rnegade87 says:

    Oh, for Christ visit, be sure to mention this.

    In 3rd Nephi 7, near the end of the chapter Nephi preaching repentance and it specifically says that these people were baptized (this happens in 33AD). Then, in 3rd Nephi Chapter 11, Jesus shows up and gives them the power to baptize and teaches them how to do it. So, if they just got that after Jesus came, What the FUCK kind of baptize was Nephi (and Alma earlier) doing?

  25. articulett says:

    Totally Awesome–

    I’m eagerly waiting for exceedingly more bedtime stories to come to pass!

    Delightsome!

  26. Anders says:

    Do you get something extra if you can say you’ve read BoM more than 9000 times?

  27. Arallyn says:

    I made my fiancé to listen to this episode while we drove to work earlier this week. He heard the “rapril fools!” joke and gave me some serious side-eye, and started going on about how I shouldn’t be listening to things like this, because it encourages my inappropriate humor.

    Yeahhhh…overheard the bastard use the joke with his friends that evening, along with many of Leighton’s other awful offensive jokes that should not be repeated in polite company, or any company, for that matter. You know it’s love when you laugh at your mate being slugged in the face for telling black baby jokes to one of his best friends (who just so happens to be black). Fucker deserved it.

    Great episode, by the way. Can’t wait to hear the next installment of crazy BoM stories.

  28. Please, please, please delve more into the Book of Mormon. I tried in my youth to read the book and never got much past 2Nephi. Surely there are more crazy stories further into the chapters. Great episode!

  29. Fuck you Leighton, and your little scrotum, too!

    After listening to the intro song for this show, I am now suffering from Post Traumatic Mormon Disorder (PTMD). I am having flashbacks of Primary and beyond. “Jesus wants me for a Suuuuuuuun BEAM! A Suuuuuuuuuun BEAM, aaaaa Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun BEAM!” “Adam was a Prophet, first one that” blah, blah, fucking blah. Popcorn is fucking popping on the mother fucking apricot tree! Fuck you both! That said, I CAN’T FOR THE NEXT SHOW! I’m a masochist, I know… I made my brother listen to the intro and remember/perform the hand motions, to share my pain. My wife, life-long atheist, was VERY fucking confused! She thought we were having a seizure or something.

  30. ^ Meant to say I can’t wait for the next show!

  31. Dr Phlebas says:

    Yeah, well I don’t know about you guys but I have two little hands folded snuggly and tight. They are tiny and meek yet they know what is right. During all the long ours till daylight is through, there are plenty of things for my two hands to do.

  32. Dr Phlebas says:

    ^ was this a reference to the sin of Onan?

  33. agentsarahjane says:

    I am waiting for the “it came to pass” meme on the Irreligiosophy forms

  34. The Red Mist says:

    Fun episode, but I’m really looking forward to the Jesus in America episode next. When I was a good young Baptist, I got to hear all the “anti-Mormon propaganda.” It should be fun to hear this tale from our good young ex-Mormons.

  35. Discord.agent says:

    I wanted to say how much I liked the show, and it came to pass that I typed up a comment. Then it came to pass that I submitted it. And it came to pass it was displayed.

  36. Brandon Reasoner says:

    I was doing the chop right along with you Leighton!

  37. Hypo-Calvinist says:

    I have listened to all of your podcasts, often twice, and “rapril fools” was far and away the funniest thing I ever heard on your show.
    Thanks

  38. harayda says:

    So let me be the one to ask: Who was signing the song at the beginning of the podcast?

  39. The intro song can be found on the soundtrack to “Single’s Ward,” a horrible Mormon movie.

  40. zaron5551 says:

    horrible and mormon movie are synonymous, there’s no need to use both words

  41. Moggie Magfeline says:

    It’s an oxymormon

  42. Moggie Magfeline says:

    I know it’s not, just wanted to use that word

  43. Nadeen says:

    Wow, I have always thought most of the old testament was boring but this was mind numbing. No wonder Leighton snoozed through all those classes and sermons.

    Oxymorman-hur hurr.

  44. Command used: cat pg17.txt | grep -c -i “it came to pass”
    return number: 1322

    ( so the line “it came to pass” should be 1322 in the book of mormon i used the version from the gutenberg project )

    Command: cat pg17.txt | grep -i -c “and it came to pass”
    return: 1092

    Warning: i did not alter the projects file so, i could be off for 2 reasons 1 my source data or 2 there could be a and it came to pass or a it came to pass line in the standard text of the gutenberg project.

    Feel free to rerun the experiment if you don’t trust my results. ( you should rerun the experiment, trusting me is bad not a good idea )

  45. One minor problem with your results, Deathzor: grepping the gutenberg text file like that doesn’t account for newline characters. Here are my results:

    # First, convert to unix newline characters
    $ dos2unix pg17.txt
    # Now count, transforming newlines into spaces, and counting each occurrence
    $ cat pg17.txt | tr ‘\n’ ‘ ‘ | grep -o -i “it came to pass” | wc -l
    1353

    $ cat pg17.txt | tr ‘\n’ ‘ ‘ | grep -o -i “and it came to pass” | wc -l
    1123

    $ cat pg17.txt | tr ‘\n’ ‘ ‘ | grep -o -i “and it came to pass that” | wc -l
    1040

  46. wow that was stupid on my part (i should of know i had to strip the newlines), your correct, funny that i considered my results to be high already ( and was more worried i was on the high end then on the low end ).

    Thanks for the correction.

  47. Herb (12th Apostle) says:

    Happy Mothers Day, Mother-fuckers.

  48. I figured everyone here would be interested in this . . . NPR posted an audio recording of South Park creators Parker and Stone’s new musical The Book of Mormon on their site.

    http://www.npr.org/2011/05/09/136054170/first-listen-cast-recording-the-book-of-mormon

  49. Anders says:

    If this had been the book of Mormon I think Leighton would have been awake. “No Joseph Smith, fucking that baby won’t cure your AIDS. Take this magic frog and fuck it instead.”

  50. Gliblord says:

    @Ben Wonderful musical! I think my favorite number is Turn It Off