It's a Festivus Miracle!!

Christmas is overrated!! Why not bring people together with a holiday everyone can enjoy! The joy of Festivus can be spread to all people!

So gather 'round the aluminum Festivus pole, air your grievances, and prepare for the feats of strength, because this Festivus will be one to remember!

Despite the phallic overtones, children love Festivus!

Union workers everywhere love Festivus!


It's a Festivus for the rest of us!!!

The Agony of Defeat

Long time followers (and anyone within earshot when the subject of the police is brought up) will know that I've got a penchant for getting speeding tickets. Well, my third ticket was bullshit. I was nailed going 40mph in a 25mph zone. The catch was that the road did not have a speed limit sign on it.

I decided to plead not guilty.

I lost before I even got to my hearing.

I left early this morning because the powers that be saw fit to schedule the hearing for today, seven days after I left Morgantown; therefore, I had to drive the whole way back for this shit.

Well I get to the county courtroom, and I do get a bit of perk. I get to see the lowlifes and degenerates of Morgantown. And here I thought the regular hill folk were strange enough.

Anyway, a man who identified himself only as "The Prosecutor" calls my name and takes me into a separate room. "The Prosecutor" looks like Tony Soprano and talks like him too. I'm unsettled. He tells me that I cannot win my case because there is a law that states that the speed limit on any road in town is automatically 25mph unless otherwise posted.

Now for you longtime readers, this may sound familiar. Here is an excerpt from my October 2006 blog post titled "I Fought the Law and the Law Won":

"Apparently, municipalities will have an 'unwritten speed limit' rule written into the law. The speed limit is automatically whatever the city council deems safe in the absence of marked signs. This is some shady shit right there."

When I first stumbled across this little tidbit a few months ago, I didn't believe it. I thought it was just some goofy rumor. I mean, how could such a thing be legal? The government can just make up laws and then not tell the citizens what they are and then expect them to follow them?

Sure what the hell!

I guess the old saying "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" is taken quite literally in traffic court.

Well "The Prosecutor" feels bad for me, so he reduces the fine to $1.00. I was really happy.... until he told me that the court costs were $165.50.

That made me feel like the biggest chump on the planet. My original ticket was $170. Now I have to pay $166.50 plus the money I already spent in gas to make that 4 hour round trip.

I don't care what anyone tells you: no good comes from fighting a speeding ticket. Just accept that the cops are going to rape you. Bend over, spread your legs, and take it like a man.

Bottom line: I got owned.

The Stormin' Mormon, Part 4: The Fundie Undies

Now that we've covered most of the big concepts behind the religion, let's talk about some of the everyday nonsense that just boggles the mind. One of my favorites has to be the "temple garments" that adult Mormons wear. My friend Joy likes to call them "Fundie Undies."

Try this on for size! Mormons who are deemed worthy of going to the Temple (we'll come back to this idea in a few moments) are required to wear magic underwear at all times. It can only be removed for sex, sports, and bathing. According to Mormons, this underwear apparently has supernatural capabilities as there are stories of them protecting people from bodily harm -- even gunshots!! The NYPD really needs to look into this!

As I've mentioned many times so far, Mormons don't like to publicize the really weird shit that they do. This one is probably the biggest secret, but they've got a plan for that. You see, Mormons aren't allowed to discuss the underwear because it represents a sacred bond between the wearer and God. Apparently, God wants his connection to you to be close to your crotch.

I'm tellin ya, whatever Victoria's secret is, it's nothing compared to this.

I never had fundie undies. I kinda wish I did. It's not exactly easy to come by, and I'd love to have some on hand for comedic purposes.

I never really gave the Temples much thought. They were just really big churches as far as I was concerned. Then I learned about the Fundie Undies that they hand out there and I wondered, "Just what the hell is going on in there?" Because they don't let you know what goes on in the Temples until you've been approved to go there. Due to my wicked sinful ways, I was never permitted to go. Once again, I kinda wish I'd churched up for a few months just so I could go check it out.

I really think that the underwear thing should come up on the first visit with the Mormon missionaries. And THAT reminds me of a good point - Missionaries. There's a job I'm glad I skipped out on. Mormon missionaries are right up there with the Jehovah's Witnesses (sorry to steal your thunder Joy) in terms of people you love to chase off your lawn with a shotgun (at least round these here parts). I'm surprised how opposed the Mormon church is to homosexuality given that they require horny Mormon teenagers to wander the world in pairs for two years without being allowed any time with women. Oh yea, and masturbation is a sin.

You figure that one out yourself!

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So I think that concludes my Mormon tirade for right now. Some final thoughts.

Let's not forget that just about every religion has some bizarre beliefs when you get right down to it. They all believe that a magical invisible man up in the sky has this materful plan to run the universe according to his will, but you can change his mind with a 20 second prayer. As you are likely aware by now, I'm very skeptical of religion. I haven't ruled anything out at this point, but once you've been burned by one religion, it's hard to take another one seriously. I've looked into a few others, but I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I mean, who knows what the Methodists' dirty little secret is. What's their equivalent of the fundie undies?

Mormonism sounds pretty good to the casual person who listens to what the missionaries have to say. That's why so many people join. They have this little six-step lesson plan to indoctrinate people. They're pretty good at it. Most of the missionaries probably don't even know a lot of the strange stuff yet. They're all younger than I am, and you don't learn the really really weird stuff until you've been a member for quite some time. By the time most people figure it out, they're already too far into it religiously and socially.

But I can't give Mormons that much grief. Hell, I have eighteen years worth of memories to think about whenever I'm in need of a good chuckle. Two words can brighten my day whenever they cross my mind: Fundie Undies.

Nuff said.

The Stormin' Mormon, Part 3: Indian Givers

So let's talk about the Book of Mormon for a bit. This book apparently picks up where the New Testament left off. According to Mormon bullshit, there was a thirteenth tribe of Israel. This is not to be confused with traditional Christian bullshit, which claims that there were twelve tribes of Israel that were decendents of Jacob.

Side story: Jacob, as you may or may not be aware, is the grandson of Abraham. I love the story of Abraham. Talk about God getting some laughs out of a senile old man. You all know this story. Abraham is just sitting around minding his own business when the VOICE OF GOD speaks to him. God tells Abraham to go sacrifice his son Isaac. So Abraham hollers for his boy who's out herding sheep (or some other equally dull biblical job), "Hey Isaac! Grab daddy's sacrificin' gear and let's go up into the mountains!" So they go up to the mountains and Abraham lays Isaac out on this slab and prepares to sacrifice him. God suddenly pops up. "Oh man!! I can't believe you were actually going to do it!! Gotcha!!" Apparently God was just testing Abraham (God does this a lot in the bible), and Abraham and Isaac continue on their merry way.

One wonders what Isaac thought of that whole ordeal. I mean, dear old dad just tried to kill him! That's gotta create some resentment later in life.

But anyway, I'm digressing. The theory goes that everyone is descended from the original Twelve Tribes of Israel. The bible talks about this in some detail. The Book of Mormon, however, postulates the existence of a 13th Tribe of Israel. At some point, this thirteenth tribe set off for parts unknown. The Book of Mormon documents their supposed journey.

Apparently the Mormons head east across Asia until they get to the Pacific Ocean. At this point, they build eight wooden submarines (can't make this shit up!) and cross the Ocean to the Americas. I have to ask: why submarines??? Were ships out of the question?? The mind reels!

The big daddy on the journey is Lehi, and while they're on their journey, Jesus comes to visit! Turns out Jesus made a little detour during his resurrection to come visit these wayward souls. I guess he said "Fuck off!" to everyone else who wasn't living in Jeruselem when he desided to be resurrected. Well Lehi devotes his life to living Jesus's teachings, and his son Nephi does the same. One of Lehi's other sons, Laman, is a fucker. He takes every opportunity to screw with Nephi and piss him off (my kinda guy).

As one would imagine, they have a falling out. Laman takes a group of people off to live separately. I loved these parts of Sunday school where they would tell us how the Lamanites lived. The Lamanites drank all the time, worshipped idols, had mass orgies, overate, did drugs, married sheep, or whatever else a creative teacher could think up. The Nephites, however, prayed a lot. Maybe I was alone on this, but I thought the Lamanites sounded like a lot more fun.

Well God didn't agree. God and Jesus are up in heaven watching all of this, and it pisses them off. So they decide to punish the Lamanites by turning their skin red. This is the apparent origin of the Native Americans.

As you can imagine, some Native Americans don't take too kindly to this particular theory.

But what happened to the Nephites? I'm glad you asked! Turns out, those righteous Nephites didn't stay righteous for too long. They saw what a great time their neighbors were having and started doing the same shit. God decides to punish them too, and he lets the Lamanites kill them.

God certainly believes in tough love doesn't he?

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Don't miss the exciting conclusion where we'll discuss some of the random goofy things that Mormons do such as wearing special underwear.

The Stormin' Mormon, Part 2: Spaceman Jesus

Time to get to the good stuff. As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, Mormons have some pretty funky beliefs, but they don't really like to share all of the bizarre stuff until after you've been in the church awhile. That's why they don't like to offer up this little gem right up front:

God is an alien.

Well not just God, but Jesus is an alien too.

In fact, there are many "Gods," each of them is the master of his or her given solar system. And when a good Mormon dies, he or she gets to become a God of another world.

This was my favorite thing to learn about Mormonism. It pretty much sealed the deal on my decision to leave the church. Turns out, the God that we all know and love is on a planet that orbits a star called "Kolob."

The following is the Wikipedia entry on Kolob.

The first known reference to Kolob is found in the Book of Abraham (found in the Pearl of Great Price), which the LDS [note from Justin: That's Mormononics for "Ladder-Day Saints] Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. claims to have translated from a set of Egyptian scrolls that accompanied a traveling mummy exhibition, which passed through Smith's town of Kirtland, Ohio in 1835. According to the Prophet, the scrolls described a vision of Abraham, in which Abraham:
"saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God;... and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest." (Book of Abraham 3: 2-3)

Yeah, our boy Joe is at it again. Now he not only has the magical ability to read ancient Hebrew, but also Egyptian hieroglyphs! I'm almost disappointed that the mummy wasn't involved in some way. Maybe he could have said that the mummy was really the remains of Darth Judas, the galactic traitor to Spaceman Jesus.

I love this stuff. It makes me wonder why Scientology gets such a public mocking, but the Mormon church gets a free pass. I mean, come on! The original creator of Battlestar Galactica, Glen Larson, actually used this as the basis for the original series. He turned "Kolob" into "Kobol" and changed most of the settings of the Book of Mormon to space, and that was the show! The new series doesn't really adhere to the Mormon theology, but the basic premise is still there. It takes some suspension of disbelief to buy this concept on television. It doesn't make any sense in real life either.

You really think you're going to become your own God? I find that a little suspect. Does that mean that "our" God was actually some poor shmuck on another alien world who got his chance in the big chair? Maybe we got the C-student of Gods. Sure would explain a lot.

Sounds like a pretty sweet deal doesn't it - becoming a God? Personally I find it a little too grandiose. Being the supreme ruler of an entire solar system sounds like a pretty big job. I can't even take charge of a classroom of 44 freshmen without fucking up something. My solar system would be the laughingstock of the galaxy.

Underling: "Excuse me, Lord Justin, the fjords have all collapsed and the people have all started having sex with tubers. The religious leaders are getting irritated."
Lord Justin: "Fuck it! Law & Order: Galaxy Defenders is on in 20 minutes. Just send a plague of locusts and tell them that God helps those who help themselves or some bullshit like that."

Just give me control of a small island or something. I could handle that.

Stay tuned for Part 3 where we'll discuss the apparent exodus of the "thirteenth tribe of Israel" and how the Native Americans became eeeeeeeevil!!

The Stormin' Mormon, Part 1: The Story of Joe

This is part 1 in a series of posts regarding my former religion.

Nothing is a breeding ground for comedy more than The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (commonly referred to as "The Mormon Church" or "The people who have those temples with the orgies"). Growing up in the church, I really didn't see anything wrong with it. After all, it was all I knew. But of course, as a child, you don't get to hear all of the interesting stuff about the church. You only hear the fun stuff that sounds like all the other religions. Once I got older, I became aware of some of the more.... unusual beliefs of the Mormon religon.

And I'm not talking about the polygamy thing. Let's get that out of the way right now. Only splinter groups of the church still practice that (though the history of why it was ever done in the first place is a fun little tale). That's too easy anyway. Everyone knows about that. Let's talk about some of the lesser known facts.

First up: Joseph Smith. Now this guy was a piece of work. He wakes up one day and decides that none of the existing religions are really his bag. He prays to God for the truth, and God sends the angel Moroni to Joseph in a vision. Moroni tells him that all the churches are false, and he tells him to start his own church. Moroni directs our buddy Joe to the woods to find The Gold Plates, upon which some lost scriptures are printed (re: The Book of Mormon).

So far, that's not really any more preposterous than any other religion. Hell, Jesus apparently turned water into wine! That's one helluva trick. Here's where the funny business happens.

Who should appear to Joe in the woods but God and Jesus. Not one! BOTH! This was a two-fer! They tell Joe that he can't show the plates to anyone. (Personally, I think this makes God and Jesus look like total pricks) So Joe goes into town proclaiming that he spoke to God and he has the TRUTH OF EXISTENCE!!

Well how do you suppose the townsfolk reacted? About the same way you would if some guy came out of the woods proclaiming that he had visions of God: this dude found some bad ganja! But our boy Joe is undeterred. He decides that he's going to translate the plates into English. So he gets his buddy Martin Harris to help him.

Here's how the system worked. Joe had a couple of "seer stones" (the book is a bit vague on where these came from) that he tossed into his hat. Joe would look into the hat, and then dictate the translation to Marty. This is one of those little factoids that the church likes to leave out. They say he translated the Book of Mormon, but they don't say how. They know it sounds like bullshit.

I think Marty started to smell the fecal matter too because he decides to take the book home one night. His wife convinces him to conveniently "misplace" the book. Her theory is that if Joe is telling the truth, he'll be able to reproduce the pages exactly from the seer stones. I have to admit, that's a pretty damn good idea. (This story, by the way, was made famous by a South Park episode. Check it out if you have the chance - it's pretty much accurate.)

So Joe's in a real bind now. But FEAR NOT YE FAITHFUL FOLLOWERS! God comes to Joe in a vision and tells Joe that the people are no longer deserving of the book they were working on (The Book of Lehi - for those keeping score). Joe should start writing the next book (The Book of Nephi - the first book in the Book of Mormon). You know the best part?? Marty buys this explanation!!

I imagine him going back to his wife with this story and her calling bullshit on it. He then smacks her in the face and says, "Quiet woman! You're my bitch and now his too! Go cook my dinner!" (Weren't the 1800's fun?)

The church fully acknowledges this story (of course, they don't tell it like I do). They acknowledge the next part too. Joe and Marty finish the translation and start spreading their Book of Mormon to the masses. Some of the townspeople demand to see the Gold Plates (common sense being around back then too). Joe says that God took them to heaven for safe keeping.

I kind of admire old Joe. He's a bullshitter extrordinaire! You can't learn skills like that.

I was aware of most of this story growing up. As an impressionable and trusting child, it sounded good enough to me. After all, everyone at church thought it was legit. Then I grew up, and suddenly something smelled fishy (and it wasn't fishes and loaves night in Jeruselem either). I swear, you have to wonder how anyone could buy this nonsense.

I must say something in defense of Mormons: they're really very nice people typically. You will not find a more generous and friendly (though often judgmental) group of people anywhere. Still, I don't think any of them are playing with a full deck.

UPCOMING MORMON TOPICS:
God is an alien
Fundie Undies
Mormonism and Battlestar Galactica
Native Americans are evil
The Word of Wisdom
Who wants to be a God?