Books For Blasphemers: The Book of Mormon

When I lived in Templestowe, I often had early morning visitors trying to spread the good word. I knew very little about them other than that they had American accents and wore bad suits. My neighbour once engaged them in conversation and, when they would not leave, he ran to the other room, stripped down to his underpants, grabbed a cap gun and returned to the door. He was never visited again. Now, many years later, I figure it's time to find out for myself why so many of my weekend sleep-ins were ruined. This limerick is long because I only have two days left in the month to read and review Dianetics so I can't break it down into its usual two or three parts. Two things I should point out though; I couldn't find doctrinal support for polygamy (quite the opposite), and its approach to sin was better than The New Testament's (babies are born sin-free here). For the most part The Book of Mormon is harmless. And funny. Unless you just got stabbed in the kidney and need a blood transfusion. Then you're pretty much fucked.

If nine hundred odd pages of Jesus
Was still insufficient to please us
Joe Smith has a story
Revealed him in glory*
Get ready for this garbled thesis

The once was a preacher called Nephi
Son of a pariah called Lehi
Quite shameful he found
To be laughed out of town**
So he set sail to find those who agree

A new holy land he discovered***
Then three hundred pages are covered
With Nephites off warring
Lammanites off whoring****
And clear explanations being smothered*****

Then Jesus decides a vacation
Is just what he needs to be takin'
Those nails really hurt
So I figure I ought
Check out this American nation******

Again he reels off the same talk*******
Why fix it if first time it worked?
Right here Jews will gather
Yea they misheard his blabber
'Cos they gathered instead in New York

I mean here not to make a mockery
Of Joe Smith's providential stockery*******
But all he relates
Was set down upon plates*********
Which makes sense cos its laughable crockery

(* Joseph Smith claims to have been given the book by the angel Moroni when he was just a wee lad. Talk about revelations!)
(** Like his father, Nephi also got laughed out of Jerusalem. Their preaching reminded me of that scene in Life of Brian where all the random 'prophets' are lined up near the temple flogging their spiritual wares)
(*** It goes without saying that the new holy land was America. Duh!)
(**** For those not in the know, the Nephites are the good guys and the Lammanites are the bad guys. Basically the entire book is about their to-ing and fro-ing. Whenever the Nephites follow the laws all is good, and when they are seduced into sin the world turns to shit)
(***** Jospeh Smith cops out far too often. There are many instances of "And he said much more but I'm not going to tell you" in The Book of Mormon).
(****** Which is the entire crux of this religion. Jesus reappears in America and chats with Joseph Smith's forefathers. Get it?)
(******* The Sermon on the Mount, choosing new Disciples etc etc... It all gets rehashed. The theory goes: God chose the Jews, Jesus chose the Nephites. Aweome, huh?)
(******** And herein lies the crux. The book is there to justify Joseph Smith's status as a prophet who can pass it on to his future generations.)
(********* The book, as passed on to Joseph Smith, was given as a series of engraved copper plates.)