A Series of Tubes

There is an interesting article at the Wall Street Journal about Mormonism. It basically talks about how Mitt Romney’s presidential bid created a resurgent interest in Mormonism and how most of that interest was not of the positive variety. Here is a graphic from the article that highlights that sentiment:

I had read up on Mormonism a while back and this article made me curious about something. In the book of Mormon, Lehi and his family and friends head to America by boat in the year 600 BC. I decided to ignore the fact that no archaeological evidence proving that this journey ever took place and that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Americas were settled in a entirely different fashion, and instead simply agreed that this was the case for a second. Eventually, according to the book of Mormon, the people in America split into two groups with one believing in Jesus and the other being a bunch of Jesus haters. The Jesus haters killed the Jesus lovers and as a consequence God made the skin of Jesus haters not white:

2 Nephi 5:21-23:

“And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.”

This explains why Mormons forbade anyone with dark skin from participating fully until 1978. But I was wondering how a group of people that traveled on a boat across the Atlantic in the year 600 BC, a feat not repeated until around 892 AD by the vikings, could possibly know about Jesus who is supposed to have died around 34AD on the other side of the planet. It turns out to be a simple explanation. Jesus, during or at least sometime near his ascension into heaven, made a brief pit stop in America. You’ll notice that Jesus, during his flying expedition to North America, decided not to stop and talk to everyone else on the planet. Obviously Jesus could have talked to aborigines or people in China or chit chat with Brazilians or preach to people in South Africa. Instead Jesus talked to a group in America that would eventually get slaughtered, only to have their history revealed hundreds of years later by an Angel, written on gold plates that would get collected by an angel so as to leave no trace. Sounds like a pretty terrible plan:

step 1: Kill son in the middle east

step 2: Have son’s ghost appear to a group of people in America while knowing that there are other groups of people on the planet that will survive longer than the one chosen

step 3: Destroy all evidence of that group of people, their voyage, and of your son’s visit. Definitely collect the gold plates that would basically prove everything.

step 4: Do not send son back down

A flying Jesus that can’t figure out the best way to spread the word of God amuses me about as much as a dumb angel that can’t figure out who god’s chosen people are. In order to decipher who god’s chosen people are, god commands his chosen people to place blood on their door so that this incompetent angel doesn’t accidentally slaughter the wrong person. Apparently the angel of death is not the brightest bulb in the box.