PART ONE: EXODUS!

I was re-reading The Bible the other day.  Seriously!  I've been doing it for more than 70 years.  I still have a battered, gilded-edged Bible given to me by my grandmother when I was baptized a Mormon at age 10. I threw away the companion Book Of Mormon many years ago, but I still have The Bible. The golden lettering has worn off the fake-leather cover, and the cover has come loose from the rest of the book, which is dog-eared and flagged, underlined and highlighted, testifying long years of use, but I still consult it often.

 
It is my carefully-considered opinion that the Christian Holy Bible is the biggest collection of fantasy, bullshit, and deliberate disinformation ever assembled between two covers.  I’ve never read The Koran, but I assume the Judeo/Christian Magic Book is a bigger book. "The Holy Bible" simply means: "The Magic Book." People used to believe that "words," themselves, were God-magic (Think Moses and those stone tablets, inscribed by the finger of God) and that anyone who could read those marks on that tablet or scroll, were superior to ordinary people – who needed God’s magic word interpreted for them and applied to their lives - by those who knew God on a first name basis: "Jehovah," or was that "Yahweh?" Or "Elohim"? - Anyway, Jewish, and now Christian Priests.


The "Ark of the Covenant" was the device used to transport the sacred scrolls or tablets containing, The Ten Commandments, of course, and the written "covenant" between the Children of Israel and their God. That "Covenant" became the Old Testament. It was added-to and modified as Jewish kings and prophets came and went, as the Judeans moved from country to country, looking for the Land of Milk and Honey.  Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Kings, Chronicles, etc.


After Jesus came and went, that covenant, or testament, was appended to a series of testimonies meant to promote the belief that Jesus was the long-awaited Jewish Messiah and that instead of accepting him, "we" had killed him. "Jesus died for your sins!"   And that your "sins" and mine are all that are keeping Jesus up there in the clouds for nearly two thousand years, waiting until it is safe to come down and send all of us sinners to Hell.  Something is wrong with that concept.  Actually, us sinners are all that is keeping The Christian Religion alive and well. If Jesus actually came back, a whole lot of preachers, teachers and evengelists would be out of business!


My Persian PCP once remarked "They have taken stories for children and have made religions out of them!" Amen, Alriza!


 Anyone who still believes that The Bible is The True Word of God must also believe that God is stupid, or at least completely schizophrenic: Kind and loving one day, jealous and vindictive the next. First God says not to kill, then he says kill everyone who isn't circumcised  According to Genesis, the all-knowing, all-powerful, Everlasting Everything didn’t even realize, or stop to think, until after He’d made Adam out of clay, that in order to "multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it," Adam would need a female to help him start the mess. An intelligent God would have known it would require two to multiply, so He, or She, would have made them both at the same time. Had it been necessary to start with only one, surely it would have been with the female, the reproducing-machine.  And because Judaism was a male-dominated, heterosexual religion, the first woman had to be Adam’s "wife," not just some hot female he met in the garden.  Eve was created as an afterthought, from Adam’s rib! (Why not the same clay Adam was made of?)


The Jewish Priests carefully planted the idea that God made men first, so therefore they were superior.  He made women second, as an appendage to men, therefore they were inferior, meant not to reason why, but to do what they were told, to be a sex-toy, relieve all of men’s urges, have lots of babies and raise them to help the men do their jobs, and to cook the meals and do the dishes for everybody in the bargain.


Mormons believe that God is so stupid He doesn’t know Good Mormons from the rest of us, without holy-Mormon-underwear. They wouldn’t bury my mother without her "Mormon Garments." That was so she could get into Heaven! For many years, she had saved her own pre-"marked" garments in a box carefully labeled "Burial Garments", but the Mormon Mortuary wouldn’t use those; they had to be new garments, for more money, fresh from the Mormon company in SLC which makes Holy Underwear.  ZCMI, if I remember correctly. We used to call it "Zion’s Crazy Mormon Idiots."  I have often wondered if one of the Relief-Society sisters sewed Mama's holy buttonholes in the proper place, so she could get to the other side?


Concept progression: "Holey underwear = holy underwear = holy under where? = wholly unaware!"


 When my parents were married in the Temple, in a very secret ceremony, which they were forbidden to talk about, they were given "special unique marks" which needed to be sewn into each garment, his and hers, for the rest of their natural lives – and, as it turned out, apparently beyond. They looked like button-holes, sewn into the very unsexy, flimsy rayon garments above the breasts.  My mother carefully stitched them into every piece of underwear they wore, all their lives. Those marks were supposed to be unique, exclusively their own, so that God would know they were Van and Afton Fullmer, not Von and Mildred Volmar.  I often wondered how many thousand others had those same buttonholes, but didn’t know it?  There are too many Mormons and not enough space on everyone's underwear, not to have duplicated those marks at some point.


Missionaries get Magic Garments, too, when they go on their Missions. I was told, growing up, that those garments would save the  boys from burning up in a fire. I was also told that those boys turn magically into "Elders" when they go through The Temple and get holy underwear of their own.  I was recently accosted by a pair of "Morons on Bicycles" as I walked with my dog.  They introduced themselves as "Elder Smith and Elder Jones."  I said "No, you're not."  They said "What?"  I said "You're not elders.  I'm an elder.,  You're still boys.  You won't be elders for another fifty years."  They wished me good day and peddled away on their black and white bicycles.


Mormons also teach that Jehovah was once a man, but is now a God, and lives on a planet called Kolob with many wives; that Jesus and Satan were brothers in a pre-life; that the men who beget the most children get to be Gods, themselves, and instead of pie-in-the-sky-when-they-die, they get planets-of-their-own-to-play-Gods with.


Josh Thomas in one of his reviews of one of my books, called Mormonism: "the craziest damned religion on the planet." Amen, Josh!


Mormons also believe in a vision by Brigham Young, for whom BYU is named – whose motto is "The Glory of God Is Intelligence" – that there are human-like beings who live on the dark side of the moon, males and females, who dress like Quakers but have wings, and are waiting for some Mormon Missionaries to come up and give them the true Gospel, so they can go to heaven, or have planets of their own. A bunch of young Mormon missionaries tried to convert Astronaut James Irwin, when he got back from the moon, so that he could fly back up and give the moonmen the True Gospel so they could go to Heaven and get planets of their own, like earth-Mormons. But he rejected them.


MORMON MOON MEN


Enlarge that drawing of flying moon-men and moon-maids, on the far side of the moon - with waterfalls?  Brigham didn't know much about astronomy.  The drawing is almost pornographic. The flying, naked moon-man in the center-left foreground is displaying himself to the flying naked moon-maiden, who looks like she is saying "Ooooh, my, goodness!" He ain’t dressed like no Quaker! Neither is she. Only a Good Mormon could take that drawing seriously – but it’s in a vault, deep inside Mount Timpanogas, behind BYU, waiting "to be restored in the fullness of time."


I love this true-believer’s description of Irwin's rejection: (It’s a quote:)


"Irwin, aged 39, could not remember a time when he did not have a burning interest in outer space. He was chosen in 1970 to become the eighth man to walk on the Moon.
As Prophet, (David O.) McKay, of course knew this would happen. So it came to pass that McKay sent seven missionaries to the home of Irwin in 1970 to pray with the Irwin family. The missionaries' task was to convert Irwin to Mormonism so that Irwin, the astronaut, could contact the Quaker Moon-Men in 1971, for the purpose of restoring to them the gospel of Jesus Christ of Earth. But Irwin could not understand the basics of Mormonism completely and he did not trust these young missionaries. He rejected the truth, but this episode started him thinking about spiritual matters.

Being scientifically inclined (M.S. in aeronautical and instrumentation engineering, University of Michigan, 1957) his mind pondered if it would be possible to communicate telepathically across the vast distances of space -- from the moon to the earth. Double blind experiments were set up, but the results turned out ambiguous.

Irwin died in August of 1991. But his experience with the missionaries made a lasting impression on his spirit. He never fully accepted Mormonism, but he also did not reject it."

They have probably already baptized him in-absentia, after-death. Mormons can do that. I know that first-hand. There are now a dozen once-lost-souls, living in Heaven, (do souls "live?") or maybe even on their own planet, because I got "Baptized for the Dead" in the bowels of the LDS Temple in SLC!

DUNKED FOR THE DEAD

In another time & place, I would have been a "Shaman," or "Wizard," or "Oracle," or whatever the oddball-misfit ("Visionary Mystic")  of the tribe was called.  I would have been singled-out early & sent to live with the elder Wizard, where he or she would have taught me all the magical words & rituals appropriate to the customs of the tribe, and sooner or later I would have inherited the job — or been killed by stoning for being a Sorcerer or Warlock.

Instead, I was born into a tribe called "Mormons," who didn't believe in Wizards — so neither could I. Instead I embraced Mormonized Christianity with the fervor that, I now assume, only incubating Wizards feel — certainly none of the people I knew seemed to feel it so intensely, or to take it as seriously as I did!

I was the kid who could find the four-leaf-clover in the church-house lawn. I had a "talent" for finding something someone else had lost, or was looking for. Somehow I see "more" than other people.  I’ve always thought of it as "paying attention to detail." I’m always surprised to know that no one else seems to have noticed when some watershed event has happened. Long before McCain lost the election because of Sarah Palin, I said "That woman intends to be President." Other bright & observant people around me said "No way! She’s a quitter. She’s got a bastard grandchild. She took campaign money & spent it on a wardrobe and stuff for her kids.  She shoots wolves and grizzlies from helicopters." Guess what?  She's running as hard and as fast as she can.  Unfortunately for her, she's running backward.

I know I’m getting myself into trouble.  Ours now is a religiously/politically power-and control-oriented society where there is no call for truth or reason, only compliance to all the rules and regulations, and obedience to those "elected" to True Authority – and certainly no call for or for anyone who sees the silliness and outrageousness of what most people seem to accept as reality, or to not even notice – and who feels the need to say something about it.  I just can't help myself.

I’m that little kid watching the naked guy leading the parade, yelling "The Emperor is naked," and the people all around me are saying "Shut up, kid! You’re spoiling the parade!"

Who the hell is Lindsay Lohan and why should I care how much dope she tries to smuggle through customs – or is that some other misbehaving starlet-media-darling? I get them all mixed up. Why is an unwed mother from Alaska now "starring" on TV’s Dancing With The Stars? What does her little bastard’s father think he’s doing, making the rounds of talk-shows, badmouthing her mother, the craziest woman on the planet? She’s running for President. What is he running for? The earth is on the verge of destruction and the majority of its inhabitants have no idea what is going on or why.

The Apostle John, John-the-Beloved, the canonized Catholic Saint, was also a Seer, like myself, and almost two thousand years ago, he foresaw "Armageddon," the end of the world and the second-coming of Christ.  Several long years ago, President G.W. Born-Again Bush was secretly convinced that he was starting Armageddon, responding to the 9\11 attack on the World Trade Center by Islamic Militants, by going after Saddam Hussein for pissing on an American Flag.  Egged on by the number one man in American government, at the time, Dick Cheney, "W" believed that by winning The War between Christianity and Islam and Judaism, he would become Jesus Junior.  He killed nasty old Saddam, even had his statue torn down, but he must be utterly crestfallen, now, watching our brave young troupes - whose lives he was perfectly willing to waste for his own glorification - moving out of Iraq and Iran.

Why don't we move our people out of harm's way, then let them all blow each other to Happy Land or wherever the hell they go when they die, with a dozen or so virgins to serve them. Where do all those virgins come from? Do they remain virgins forever? Do the women who blow themselves up get muscle-men to serve them? I don’t really want to know.

But Bushie was right!  Anyone who thinks that Islam is not trying to take over the world hasn’t been paying attention. But then, of course, so are the Christians. So are the Jews! So is anyone whose "God" tells them they’re "the best" and they should rule the world, because they are right and the rest of us wrong: "Sinners" – or whatever their names for the Bad Guys are.

Jesus called religion: "The abomination of desolation, sitting in the holy place." He said "You already have what you seek but you know it not. It is spread across the earth but men do not see it." He wasn’t talking about life after death.

Under the circumstances, reading just this morning's headlines, I'm convinced: this is, indeed, John’s Armageddon – but not as an instant explosion. Not a sudden Apocalypse, but one in super-slow-motion. This one is taking years and years. Decades. Centuries. Maybe millennia. If I am correct in how I see it happening, if mankind survives at all – and doesn’t destroy us in the process (I predict we'll survive) – this will be the end of religion and the beginning of the long awaited "Second Coming" of The Son of Man – which is what Jesus insisted he was, not  the Jewish Messiah. 


Intelligence restored.  Paradise renewed.  But not quite as anticipated!

As a devout Mormon boy, growing up in Utah, I never, in my most frightening nightmares or daydreams, imagined that I would grow up to be a homosexual atheist, who believed in Jesus, but not God, in Heaven on Earth, not above the clouds, the author of eight published "pornographic (‘Fag-Hot’) novels." all of which praised, promoted and propagandized homosexuality, saying: "Gay is Good! Don’t be afraid of becoming what you already are! Enjoy it!"

That hasn’t been an extremely popular message, even among proud Gays. It would seem we are fond of being victims of society, not really responsible for the messes we make of our lives, sinners expected to kill ourselves early on, or at least stay out of sight for the sake of the children, second-class citizens forbidden to "marry"....! Whoa!

Marriage is a failed institution, folks! Why should we want to emulate it? Jesus said "Love each other," not "Pair-off and get married in a church!" Marriage is an invention of the Priests for control of the population – and an income for Priests and Popes and preachers of all stripes. Marriage is a license to Sin! ("Pay me to say ‘Holy Matrimony’ over your heads and you can go home and fuck all you want!")

Jesus, himself, never married, never recommended marriage, never performed a marriage. They surely would have said so in The Bible if he had and the Mormons would be quoting him in anti-Gay commercials on TV, with their starchy-white, smiling children, out standing on corners, with signs reading "Jesus said Get Married!" - but they can’t.  He never did.  He went to weddings and got drunk – which is against Mormon Law, by the way – but he never, ever said "Holy Matrimony" over anyone.

In demanding equal rights, let’s not take the bad stuff along with the good!

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