Posted by:
Raptor Jesus
(
)
Date: August 28, 2015 11:28PM
Before this post gets too koo koo crazy, I want to say that the swearing contained within is not by any means an angry swearing. The missionaries stopping by was literally the highlight of this really fucking awful week.
I missed two days of work this week because the scar tissue that I live with was being a bitch and made me feel like I was having kidney stones. But after two visits to the doctors, multiple blood and urine tests, and a CT scan - it was determined that I did not have kidney stones but there was pressure on my kidneys and bladder making me think I was having kidney stones. But I wasn’t in real life, just in the c-fibers of my brain. So, I have been prescribed stretches and microwaved rice bags on my rummy tum-tum-tum.
Then, last night I had issues with the plumbing in my house where water was raining down into my basement, and I had to whine to a plumber to come fix this shit because I had laundry to do and a messy kitchen. Because my bodily plumbing was fucked up earlier, and everything was backing the fuck up. Luckily the plumber was able to come, and he was a friendly chap who taught me some shit about shit. He was also concerned because we had to cut some holes in some places, and he was concerned until I slapped my hands against my face dragging my cheeks down slowly while saying, “Not my precious wood panelling!”
But we cut into the ceiling instead and sawed into steel before digging out 50 year old sludge in my pipes. And I was a little sad because my floors - even the concrete ones - were looking so nice, but now I will have to scrub all of them this weekend while singing like Cinderella. And I will do it by myself, because rats and mice aren’t helpers in my household. They get slowly poisoned like wasps, earwigs, and that blue uniformed man who keeps putting stupid shit into my mailbox.
So Friday had finally come, and I had thanked god because Friday is the only thing he is good for, and after picking up a few groceries I came home. No sooner had I put my wallet and keys down by my Final Fantasy games (because ‘tis the season. ‘Tis the season of Final Fantasy...Footbal!) when a rapping, an oh so gentle tapping fell upon my chamber door.
I thought to myself, “This better not be the Danites again,” (which actually is an inside joke that literally two RFM posters will get. But it’s a great fucking joke. And I’ll let all of you in on it in about a year.) And I opened up my chamber door to see two bright, shiny, culty looking young men in white shirts and ties.
“Hello boys,” I said in a way that I was hoping wasn’t too seductive; except it probably was seductive because this was a really shitty, godless week, and I have a lot of homework to do for my job this weekend. But maybe there was a slightly dickish god trying to make amends by creaming my corn with these two, young, virile, budding men on my porch.
“We are missionaries,” They stated.
“I know.” I said. “C’mon in.”
They seemed surprised that it was so easy to get inside a house. We exchanged names, and I was so excited. They really had NO IDEA who I was. They hadn’t been privy to my great becoming. My Mormon metamorphosis. My exmormon transformation.
Usually the church tracks where you are, and sends that information onto the missionaries. So that these guys know that you are dangerous. That you are as poisoned as Jack and Gus Gus had been in the toolshed behind my aging house.
But missionaries were in my house. My. House. And they didn’t know shit. And I wanted to revel in the shit that they didn’t know.
I could not have pictured a better way to spend my Friday early evening. I was going to drink, watch Hannibal, and pretend like I was as cool as he is in the kitchen while cooking. Then I was probably going to drink some more while playing video games. But this was going to be SO much better.
I was going to play with these missionaries, and then tell exmo friends about this. And still while drinking.
It went from lovely evening plans to glorious evening realities.
The missionaries made small talk because they have to build a relationship of trust. I had to move some laundry from my couch to my bed because last night was FUBARed. And they started to talk to me about religion.
Of course they had to ask me about the Mormon church.
“Yes, I know about the Mormon church.”
“Are you a member?”
“No, I am not.”
“Have you ever been a member? Like, have you ever been baptized as a child?”
“No, I have never been baptized.” I said, and this response is a debatable lie. Because it’s a situation that happens when you are dealing with a really shitty person over something stupid. Like you tell them that you’ve done something, and after you tell them about your experience, they say, “Well, you’ve never REALLY been to Disneyland unless you’ve been to Club 33 and snorted a line off of Eyeore’s ass.”
And the church acted like that when I sent in my resignation. They wanted to pretend that my baptism never happened even though I clearly remember being cold, shaking, and seeing my father’s business in the changing room afterwards.
So, maybe I lied to them. Maybe I didn’t. What mattered was that these boys has stumbled upon my lair. They had found themselves into my den. And even though they were supposed to build a relationship of trust, they never ONCE commented how great it was for a grown man to have a Justice League placemat on my “hot chocolate” table in the living room.
“What are your beliefs then?” They asked.
And this would have been forward of them for asking. We are living in the age of “grinder” and “tinder,” and it’s far more appropriate to ask people to have sex with you before asking those kinds of intimate, personal questions. But in spite of the Mormon church saying that I’m a complete moron after resigning, I do know some things. And I know that missionaries like to ask personal and intimate questions. And I know these missionaries aren’t like Hannibal Lector. This isn’t a super hot quid pro quo of psychoanalytical insight fused with art and philosophy. This isn’t even a Doctor Chilton fumbling at your head like a freshman at a panty girdle.
There are no panties or girdles, except the ones I moved from the couch to the bedroom. There’s a manual called “Preach My Gospel” and a string of thoughtless, cognitive diarrhea thrown like a diseased ape at potential investigators by these late teenaged-boys who don’t know any better.
I told them I was agnostic. I then taught them what that word meant. I also added that I really enjoyed mythology. I liked learning about supposed scripture, and I had an interest in studying early christianity.
Of course when I had articulated all of this shit, they were all like, “Have you read the Book of Mormon?”
I responded by being all like, “Yes. I have.”
They axed my ass, “What were your thoughts and feelings when you read it?”
I tried not to snort. But there is this sound I make when I’m really trying not to be a colossal douche, where my brain starts thinking of a thousand mocking things. Except that not one of those things can come out of my mouth.
Because I wanted to play with these boys. I was having fun. And I wanted to have more fun. But I also had chores to do. So invited them into the kitchen while I asked, “Do you want the honest answer, or do you want the happy answer?”
And I love asking this question. I love it so much because I usually always get the same answer.
“We prefer the honest answer,” Is what I usually hear (which is what they said). And then I give an answer that is kind of honest, but starts to turn up the heat. And I get to see that most people are either liars (because they don’t want the honest answer), or useless assholes (because they will make you PAY for that answer.) People reveal themselves far more in your honesty than in their own.
But these are virtually children, and I don’t have shit to lose for this. I said, “Joseph Smith, or whoever actually wrote that book stole. They stole. They stole a lot.”
They made noises that could be interpreted as, “Whaaaaaaah???? Go on!.”
“Joseph Smith wasn’t the only one who claimed that Native Americans were descended from Jews. Other people had said that right before he brought about the Book of Mormon. There are chunks of Isaiah copied and pasted in the Book of Mormon. Except it’s not the oldest forms of Isaiah that we have. And there’s a lot of Campbellite Doctrine in there as well as other sermons just ripped straight from Joseph Smith’s time. Sidney Rigdon was a Campbellite preacher, so it’s interesting to read the sermons from the Christianity that Joseph Smith grew up around, and see them copied down into the Book of Mormon.
By the way, have you guys read the original version of the Book of Mormon?” I asked them.
“The original manuscript is being released, I’ve read a little bit,” The senior missionary said.
“Oof! It’s a mess.” I told him. “It’s so much sloppier than the copy you guys give out in that blue cover.”
“You mean this one?” He asked.
“Yes, I have a copy of that. I got one at Carthage Jail over the summer.”
“Have you ever had an experience with prayer?” The missionary asked me seeing that the Book of Mormon discussion was going nowhere.
“Yes,” I said while I was unloading the dishwasher and getting other, dirty dishes soaking.
“I have had a lot of experiences with prayer. But not good ones. I’ve been very sick in my life several times. To the point of almost dying. I’ve prayed a lot. And my experience is that there is no one out there listening to me. I’m alive because I had good doctors, and I was lucky.”
This explanation was met with a mini-lesson on prayer and god’s will. I believe you’ll find it on page 135 in the manual. It was trite. It was stupid. But I was still having fun.
“I find it interesting that you would say that about prayer. I sounds very nice, except that when you think about it - it’s problematic.”
“How so?” The senior missionary asked.
“Because it says more about the nature of your god than your prayers.”
“What does it say about the nature of god?” He asked me using the same language I did.
“That some people are better than others.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” He said.
And I spared him the lecture that I give most people about that phrase. About how stupid that phrase is. About how ridiculous and narcissistic that phrase is given the context.
I don’t give a fuck about how he would say that. I didn’t ask him. He asked me. I really, honestly, truly don’t give a flying rat shit fuck how HE would say it. I am saying the words out of my brain, out of my mouth in the way that I would fucking say them. Because this is me saying them. Not him. I already know that he is different than me. This is a phrase that people who want to control other people who don’t like differences use. That I will just bend my will because HE wouldn’t say them.
“Those were MY experiences.” I said instead. “I understand that other people don’t have the same ones as I do. But that we all seem to have varying experiences suggests that prayer is problematic.”
We talked a little about “free will” which Mormons code as “agency,” even though they have no fucking clue what they are talking about. I slid in the problem of evil.
“I find it odd that a god would answer some prayers instead of others. Just as he would make so many privileged and what you religious people would deem ‘evil,’ while so many would die horribly.”
The senior missionary answered all of the questions. The junior missionary remained silent. I was given page 168 of the fucking manual once again dealing with “agency.”
“Except that’s not what your scriptures say.” I said politely. They were once again confused, and I had to explain. “The Old Testament and the New Testament both have examples where god kills people because they don’t do exactly what he wants them to do. The Book of Mormon is the same with god killing someone because he proclaims not even to believe in him. And even the beginning of your sacred book starts off with a murder.”
The missionary started to say things that were amazing. And not in a good way. These were amazing things coming out of a boy’s mouth that were the same as coming out of a general authorities mouth, or a Mormon “prophet’s” mouth. Pure, unadulterated, ignorant bullshit.
Even though we were discussing Nephi cutting off Laban’s drunken head to steal his shit as well as commit treason, and Elisha commanding bears to devour mocking teenagers, and those poor people who DARED to not give everything to the early Christian church in Acts, this missionary wanted to tell me about how people live their lives until they had nothing left to learn, or who would have nothing left to learn would be “taken by god.”
“That seems really nice when you say things like that,” I reiterated. “But they are very problematic when you think them through.
“You are implying that all the children who die from starvation are meant to learn only starvation from god before they die.
“And I don’t know about you boys.” I said while pointing to them. “But I have tasted starvation.” And I wasn’t fucking around with them, and their supposed personal experiences. “It is a terrible, horrible, painful death.”
“What do you think god SHOULD do?” The senior missionary almost challenged me.
I was still cleaning the kitchen. It had been a mess.
“No,” I reassured him. “I get that you are asking a very complicated - complex - question. Because I am an agnostic. I don’t know, believe, am sure if a god even exists. So, when you ask me about what god SHOULD and SHOULD NOT do, it’s very complicated.
“BUT! ALL religions are the ones who are saying what god SHOULD and SHOULD NOT do, as well as what people SHOULD and SHOULD NOT do.
“I’m just the one who says that some of those things are problematic, and others are horrifying.”
The senior missionary told me, once again that I had, “Researched a lot of things.” And that I should, “keep researching.”
This is another phrase that I usually let go because most of the people who say this are parroting it from someone else. Except that I have a fantasy about hearing this phrase and pushing down people at FAIR and Richard Bushman, and the top 15 - and then peeing right on their faces.
They are sputtering and choking and trying not to barf. I keep asking them, “What do you want me to keep researching?” And they don’t say anything because they can’t, except I keep asking them over and over again, “What, specifically, do you want me to keep researching?”
They still can’t say anything as I micturate all over them like unto a rug that really ties the room together.
They spit and cough, and I keep asking them, “What DO YOU WANT ME TO KEEP RESEARCHING?”
And even when I’m done with my tinkle, they still won’t tell me. Just like in real life. They keep saying, “Keep researching,” and I FUCKING KEEP RESEARCHING, but IT NEVER MAKES MORMONISM TRUE!
It never makes anything religious true.
But, this was always a problem with me. And it was always a problem with me for religious people.
The missionaries told me that they had another appointment to get to. But they appreciated me letting them into a house away from the heat.
I told them that they were always welcome. And I fucking meant that. They could come for water and toilet, as well as philosophy.
I don’t think they are coming back. But they made my Friday evening.
I am the Great Raptor Jesus. As I finished cleaning my kitchen, I realized that those missionaries recognized nothing. They were slugs in the sun; ants in the afterbirth. In my presence, they rightly trembled; but fear is not what they owed me.
They owed me awe.
Except that they didn’t.
I was a dead statistic to the missionaries. I was another spiritually dead corpse to heap on top of the mound of spiritual corpses that made them feel validated that the apocalypse was on its way. And I didn’t blame them. I felt the same thing on my own mission in Germany.
One more crazy to add to the heap. One more spiritual death to help usher in the Second Coming.
These missionaries were the highlight of a shitty week for me. But I was a spiritual experience to last them a lifetime. They were the confused boys who had no idea what they were talking about when it came to philosophical matters.
But I was the crazy, “worldly” guy who “knew” things with the “flesh” but knew nothing when it came to “knowing with the spirit.”
As missionaries, they “knew” things without knowing anything real given their experiences. And as an agnostic, I didn’t know anything about god. Except there were still things that I did know given my experience.