Parables, Allegories and Metaphors About Mormonism

A recent return missionary was speaking in stake conference and began discussing the "parable of the orange."

Apparently, "if you just hand someone an orange, they won't know what to do with it. They would smell it, lick it, play with it, but would not know what to do with it."

You need to show the person what to do with it. You peal it, break it open, and then eat each slice to get the benefit from the orange.

This is similar to the gospel: You have to show people the benefit of the gospel and how to get it.

If I wasn't laughing so hard, I would have suggested other uses for the orange.

Where do people get this stuff? - by cludgie

And besides, if the "Gospel" was that great, why would we have to instruct each other how to benefit from it?

Oranges, pickles, sugarbeets... what is it with mormonism and produce. - by Tauna

Is the true gospel of JC so empty that it has to be compared to fruits and veggies?

What if you handed someone a banana? - by Hermes

They must not know what to do with that, either...they would sniff it lick it, play with it until curiosity leads them to stick it in an opening, and not necessarily their mouth.

This is similar to the gospel: you're not feeling the full effect of what it can do for you until it is completely up your ass.

I wonder how Adam, the first person figured out what to do with the orange. by anon

I often lay awake at night trying to figure out answers to questions like this. But then I remember what I learned in Elder's Quorum: Someday, in the next world, all our puzzling questions will be answered, and no more will we be in darkness.

Parable of the cucumber? - by jacyn

TBMs (True Believing Mormons) are so accustomed to getting screwed, you should never just hand them one. Instead, you should show them how to cut off the ends, peel it, chop it into pieces, and tell them it's delicious and nutritious, good to the taste and very desirable. Only for eating. Otherwise, you never know what they'll do with it.

Milk before meat - by Don Bagley

Let's say someone just gave you an orange. What would you do? Would your benefactor not tell you how to eat the orange? Maybe he would say "milk before meat" don't eat it. Just play with it for awhile. Then let me dunk your face underwater. Then give me a tenth of all you own.

Okay, now peel the orange. Go ahead and taste it. It's good, no? Continue to give me a tenth of all you own.

Only now can you eat oranges. Fruit before juice, heh heh.

A certain man stood on a hillside and preached to a multitude, and verily, it came to pass that he spake these words:

I bought a box of microwaveable corndogs last week. I kept it in the fridge and ate one or two per day until they were gone. On the 4th day, I noticed that my corndog tasted funny. I thought to myself, "I've only had these corndogs for 4 days. There's no way they've gone bad." And it came to pass that I did eat the residue of the corndog. The next day, I noticed that my corndog not only tasted funny, but was less firm than I expected. I wondered briefly if it had gone bad, but told myself, "There's no way! We've only had the corndogs for 5 days. They couldn't possibly be spoiled that fast."

On the 6th day, the corndogs tasted even nastier. I microwaved the last 2, and ate most of one before my stomach rebelled and I couldn't eat any more. I expressed my confusion to my wife. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "We've only had these corndogs for 6 days, and they already taste funny. I don't understand how they could spoil that fast."

Wife: "Aren't you supposed to keep them in the freezer?"

Me: "I thought it was OK to keep them in the fridge."

Wife: "You should see what the box says."

Me: "OK."

Box: "Keep frozen before use."

Me: "That explains a lot."

He that hath ears, let him hear.

And it came to pass that the disciples of the man gathered round about him, and it came to pass that one of them said, "Master, wilt thou not reveal unto us the parable of the corndogs?" And the man said, "He that hath ears, let him hear. Behold the meaning of the parable of the corndogs:"

For much of my life, I was thoroughly convinced that Mormonism was The Lord's True Church and The Kingdom Of God On Earth. I was so convinced, and so innoculated against any dissenting opinion, that I thought all critics of the church must either be liars, or were deceived by Satan. No argument could penetrate my shields, because I Knew The Church Was True.

I made decisions based on what Mormonism taught me, instead of what I really wanted. I pressured my nonmember friends to join the church. I donated my time and money. I passed up opportunities to earn money or have fun because of The Sabbath. I did not watch R-rated movies. I rarely swore, and I felt guilty when I did. I did not masturbate because I didn't know how. Seriously. I rejected pleasurable experiences because They Were Sinful. I spent 2 years of my life Serving The Lord As A Missionary, then spent the next 2 years trying to get back on my feet financially so I could afford college.

Through it all, I was promised that if I did what the church taught that I Would Be Blessed, and that I would look back and be grateful that I Chose The Right.

Through it all, I wondered why the promised blessings never materialized. I wondered why every time I put the church ahead of my own desires, I felt like I had missed out on something. I wondered why my nonmember friends had begun to avoid me. I wondered why my parents, who paid their tithing and never said no to a church calling, struggled financially, and seemed stressed out and unhappy all the time. I wondered why a God who supposedly protects His servants and supports them in their callings didn't prevent the series of car accidents my dad had as a direct result of working long hours and serving as a bishop at the expense of his sleep schedule.

I attended BYU, and wondered why a God who created all the diverse peoples of the earth, who supposedly knows each of His children better than they know themselves and is aware of even the sparrow's fall, apparently requires His children to stifle their individuality and conform at all costs. I balked at the latter-day Phariseeism and struggled to reconcile it with the Jesus of the New Testament, who condemned the Pharisees for their assinine rules and outward displays of righteousness. While at BYU, I heard a card-carrying TBM (True Believing Mormon) biology professor tell us that evolution by natural selection is real, and I wondered how to fit that into my religious beliefs.

I got married, and wondered why a God who wants husbands and wives to cleave unto each other and become one flesh required my gorgeous, 23 year old wife to wear underwear that made her about as attractive as her 80 year old grandmother.

I noticed that my apostate sister and her nevermo husband seemed to be living life more fully and more happily than any other branch of the family, and that her kids were happier and better behaved than their cousins.

I wondered how I was supposed to reconcile religion and science when the two contradicted one another.

I questioned how my feelings, which had steered me wrong more often than not, could possibly be a reliable guide for discerning truth from falsehood. I questioned whether I really knew the church was true, because knowing was based on the assumption that certain feelings were God confirming truth.

Finally, while browsing at the library, I found a copy of "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. I decided to read it. By the time I had finished, my belief in God had completely evaporated. My belief in Mormonism naturally followed, and for the first time in my life, things made sense.

I am unfortunately very good at disregarding immediate data in favor of previously held assumptions. My corndogs had started to spoil, and I had tried to explain away the resulting rancid taste, because I was convinced that it was OK to store corndogs in the fridge. I tried to explain away the rancid taste of Mormonism, because I was convinced that Joseph Smith saw God. In the end, however, the corndogs became unpalatable, and the church stank of bullsh*t, and Truth won out.

Behold the parable of the corndogs.

--

And the disciples kept their corndogs frozen before use, and behold the corndogs were delicious to the taste and were not rancid.

And the disciples were glad.

This is the latest news from Zarahemla, or rather Guatemala. It seems that just outside of the entryway to the Pyramid of the Sun there was a Vendor arrested and taken to jail.

In a few days with a lawyer this Vendor appeared before the magistrate to answer the charges against him. Said charges were that this Vendor was caught selling fake antiquities claiming that they were relics from ancient Zarahemla.

These artifacts were metal spearheads, metal helmets, breastplates, and fine gold leaves illustrating strange glowing stones in a boat like floating device. Along with these artifacts were old horse shoes and iron rims that were the outer rim of wooden wheels.

It was plain to see that these were cheaply made imitations of ancient artifacts.

The lawyer presented his defense. It has been shown that it is Written in the Mormon Bible that ancient Nephites once possessed all of these various items. Eventhough there has never been any archaeological evidence to prove that case. No iron work was maleable until the Conquistadors came 500 Years ago.

This Vendor claims that he is selling what is described in the Book of Mormon as being present here in ancient times. The magistrate then asked the lawyer what this vendor was charging for the phony cheap artifacts.

The lawyer replied, that that was very strange, Poor people that desired them were freely given away, but to every one else if they wanted to possess any of these artifacts they only had to pledge 10% of their income for the rest of their lives.

The magistrate's mouth fell open, then he declared that the case was dismissed, saying that no laws were broken as this vendor had placed for sale phony cheap artifacts, that were described in a book that obviously was also phony and cheap. Therefore no deceit had taken place, as far as what people paid for these cheap phony artifacts.

Well one man's trash becomes another man's treasure. There is nothing immoral nor illegal about that! The moral of this news item is, "You get what you pay for."

Once upon a time a bored father decided to have some fun with his boys on a rainy Sunday afternoon. He decided that he would get them to build a jig-saw puzzle together. Before he started them on the puzzle, however, he brought one of his boys over, little Timmy, and showed him the picture on the box. It was a beautiful picture of a horse in a meadow.

"Don't tell your brother I showed you the picture", Timmy's father whispered with a mischievous look in his eye. "Just let him think you are really smart."

Little Timmy returned to sit with his big brother, Mark, and his father handed them the pieces.

"What do you think it is going to be?", Dad asked Mark.

"I don't know silly. We haven't even started yet."

"I think it might be a horse in a meadow", exclaimed Timmy, and he gave his father a little wink.

Unfortunately for Timmy, however, his father could sometimes be a little cruel. While he had shown little Timmy a picture of a horse in a meadow, the actual pieces he had handed the boys were for a space rocket about to blast off. He sat back and watched the boys go to work.

At first they put together some pieces that looked like clouds in the sky.

"Oh look, we've made some clouds in the sky", exclaimed Mark.

"Yes, I bet the horse is standing somewhere below them", offered Timmy.

"You look for the green pieces to make the meadow, and I'll look for the pieces that make up the horse."

As hard as Mark looked, however, he couldn't find any green pieces, just lots of white ones. Oh well, he thought, if these are the pieces we have to work with, we'll just have to make do with them. Soon he put together what looked like the nose of a plane or rocket.

"Look Timmy, I think I've found the nose of a plane or rocket."

"I don't think so Mark. What you've probably found is part of the house the horse lives in. Just keep going. I think you'll find I'm right."

Mark wondered what Timmy was going on about, but he didn't worry too much and continued putting the available pieces together. Soon he had found part of a wing and something that looked like rocket boosters.

"I think it's a rocket!", he shouted excitedly.

Timmy looked over at his father for reassurance, but his father gave him a look that said don't worry. In the end I'll prove you right. Timmy regained his confidence.

"That's not a rocket Mark, it must be a tower or something next to the meadow where the horse lives."

Whatever, thought Mark, and went back to work.

Soon Mark had completed parts of what looked like a tower supporting the rocket and orange flames and smoke that were coming from the bottom as the rocket blasted off. He even found some red letters that spelled the word NASA.

Little Timmy, on the other hand, continued placing random pieces together wondering how he could get them to make a horse. Mark's pace started increasing and before long the picture was almost completed. By now he was almost 100 percent positive that what they were building was a space rocket (though honestly by this time he was doing all of the work himself). Timmy, however, stil insisted.

"The horse must be standing next to the rocket", offered Timmy.

By this time, however, Mark was starting to lose his patience. "Get over it Timmy. There are no horses in this picture!" In another five minutes Mark had finished the picture.

Timmy looked over at his father in desperation. Surely there was some kind of explanation for this. His father burst out laughing and tears started rolling down his cheeks. Little Timmy burst out of the room in tears.

I've used that phrase in several posts and I hear it from the LDS in reference to anything that doesn't emulate what they believe is the high moral platitudes of the religion, it's movies, books, magazines, music, etc.. As I read these posts and hear the frustration and downright anger at the church and it's people, doctrine, and practices for what seems like blatant lies and coverups throughout the history and leadership of the church I am compelled to think about the motives of those who would create the lies, perpetuate them and enforce them.

I made up this casserole recipe and it's a metaphor for the varying levels of believers, enforcers, or creators of the lies.

Dog Poop Casserole

1 bag of tater tots (Ore Ida is best because they come from Idaho and we know that Idaho is a good place because it has Mormons, and Mormons are good because they say they are.)

1 lb. scrambled ground beef (made from hormonally induced cows) drain the fat and rub it on your thighs cause that's where it's all going to go anyway.

2 cans of Campbells Mushroom Soup ( the high MSG kind because it hasn't killed me yet so what's the worry?)

1/2 cup of shredded or finely chopped onions. ( I like to sautee them in with the hamburger.)

season to taste with salt, pepper, and other things that you like.

Stir the scrambled hamburger in with the mushroom soup and onions and seasonings and pour the gravy mixture into the bottom of a cake pan.

Sprinkle and spread (and if you're really anal retentive you can lay them in tidy little McMormon rows) the tater tots on top and lightly season again with salt and pepper.

Bake for 1/2 hr. at 350 or till gravy is bubbling and tots are toasty. Cool slightly and serve with green jello with pears in it and cherry koolaide. My kids called it dog poop casserole because the tots looked like little doodles left on the lawn by our dog Honey. Sometime I'll give the recipe for Cat vomit casserole but that's another day.

Sounds pretty good eh? Now what if I told you that there was actually 1/2 cup of fresh dog doodles in the ground beef. Mixed in and seasoned with onions it is hardly noticeable is it? The MSG from the mushroom soup will kill off any bacteria and negate the fecal taste. Besides, it hasn't killed me yet!!

When I hear the LDS mention that even with the inconsistancies in their doctrine or scriptures, or the revisionist portions of the history and counsel from the "Prophets", I am reminded of the dog poop theory. Even if it smells good and looks good and might even taste good, it still has that essence of shit stirred in and contaminates the whole batch.

Now if you frequently made such a casserole and you didn't know it had the 1/2 cup of dog poop but you served it up anyway, and no one even knew it had been contaminated or read the labels, then it would probably continue to taste good. You'd create a tradition that everyone believed was good, therefore, why mess with tradition. You're not lying if you don't know you're lying.

What if someone, maybe a nutritionist or some other nut job told you that there was MSG in the soup, hormones in the hamburger, and that they make tater tots from the cut off spoiled chunks of potatoes at the ORE IDA plant and they bleach them with food bleach to look nice and white, AND that the onions were grown in sewage fertilized fields in California AND that there was 1/2 cup of dog poop in it.

Well of course, discredit the nutritionist!! They are just naysayers and negative nellies and probably don't even say their prayers.

Now what if YOU actually read the labels, studied the Ore Ida processes, and saw them spraying reclaimed water from sewer treatment plants on the onion fields, and actually knew the person that had slipped the 1/2 cup of dog turds in the mix? If you served it up then, boy howdy, you'd be a regular bastard. If you knew all that for sure and still served it up for dinner with a big cheezy smile on your face, well what does that make you....

Now what if you were the guy working at the Ore Ida plant and you had a side job at the Campbells soup factory and your brother owned the onion field and you supplied the raw sewage for fertilizer, and you knew the dog who'd crapped in the vat? What if you didn't narc on anyone. What if you just closed your eyes and reasoned that you're just a MAN, following the leaders and doing your job? What would that make you?

Now what if you OWNED the Ore Ida Plant and the Campbells factory and the mortgage on the onion field, and it was your dog that was always crapping in the vat, and you ordered your workers to keep quiet about the vegetable bleach, the MSG, the hormones in the beef, and you didn't stop or even scold your dog for crapping in the vat, and you made lots of commercials and promotions for DOG POOP CASSEROLE, making sure that your loyal customers believed it was good for them, would make them eternally happy, and even if they smelled the poop or suspected it was there, it was just a part of the test and if they smile and EAT SHIT, they'll be happy forever and ever. ForEVER AND EVER!!! What would that make you?

So when we're mad at our moms or dads for perpetuating what we've discovered is a big lie, remember, they didn't read the label or work at the factory where the lies were made. They didn't put the dog turds in the casserole and they are not the ones we should focus our anger on.

I understand and agree with many who feel great contempt for the leaders and those "in the know" who continue to perpetuate and enforce the things we've discovered are lies. In fact, I find those leaders far more culpable than the dregs that work in the factory or just cook the casserole. When I see a bishop I feel a little resentment and see a player. WHen I see a Stake President I see an instigator. WHen I see a General Authority I see a perpetuator and enforcer. When I hear about the teachings of the prophets, new and old, I see a schiester on the level of P.T.Barnum.. "There's a sucker born every minute". As long as the Mo's keep popping babies out like Pez dispensers they'll have devotees to fill the big circus tent.

Dang, I'm hungry. I wonder if there's anymore casserole left? Maybe I'll write a cookbook and call it "McMormon Stew-pid Recipes for the Logic/reason Challenged".

Once upon a time, a group of men got together to form a club. They called it: "The Number Ten Club".

They were excited about this club. After all, it was far more than a social club. It was a club with a serious purpose: defending against doubt the special knowledge that each one of them possessed. And that special knowledge was special not only because relatively few people knew it, but because it had been passed on to the members by a man uniquely privy to Universal Omniscience.

And what the man had revealed to them - of course after being informed himself by Universal Omniscience - was that the answer to every mathematical problem in the world, was the number ten.

Certain people didn't believe this. Members of the club referred to them as "anti-Tenners". These anti-Tenners claimed to provide "proof" that, say, two plus two equalled four, not ten. They trusted, the Tenners noted with a mixture of scorn and pride, in the arm of the flesh. The anti-Tenners claimed that the strong feelings that each member of the Number Ten Club (NTC) had experienced upon hearing the words of the man who spoke for Universal Omniscience, were understandable in many ways, but could not be taken to mean that if one had two oranges, and then was given two more, that he would then have ten oranges. They said, rather, that regardless of how anyone felt about it, that adding two oranges to two simply resulted in having four oranges.

But the Tenners knew better. In fact, they knew perfectly. They knew, for example, that it all depended on what one meant by the words "orange", "two", "plus", "equals", and "four". And indeed, the precise meanings of such concepts could only be determined on a problem by problem basis. The only thing that could be predicted with any certainty, was that the answer would in fact turn out to be, as always, ten.

In the case of the four oranges, for example, the Tenners reasoned thusly:

"What, in fact, is an orange? That is, at what point does an orange become an orange? A one day old baby is a 'human being', just as much as a 90 year old. So we correctly call both the infant and the old man 'human beings'. It therefore follows that a very young orange - as young, that is, as a seed - may correctly be called an 'orange' just as much as a mature orange may. And once we realize this, then the 'two'oranges in fact were not 'two' oranges at all, but probably more like twenty, supposing an average of nine seeds per orange, plus the two mature oranges themselves. That added to the other 'two' oranges would then result in a total of forty 'oranges'.

"'But', the anti-Tenner says, 'even if we granted you this, forty is definitely not ten. Thus, you have shown that two plus two does not equal ten'. It is amazing how willfully the anti-Tenners misunderstand and forget everything, for in truth we answered this objection long ago. The answer, in fact, is really quite simple, for all we need remember is this: we wish to 'conquer' this problem; and it is well-known that the most effective way 'to conquer' is 'to divide'. What then shall we divide by? Why, it has to be four, since that is the number of mature oranges we have. And what is the number which we must divide? Of coure, forty, since that was the sum total of all oranges, young and old. And once again, we see the anti-Tenners thwarted, since the answer was (though it never should have been in doubt), TEN all along! The Number Ten really is true."

To the problem, "What is 25 divided by 7?", an even more sophisticated answer was provided by the Tenners; and to the problem, "What is 541.229 divided by 71.33, multiplied by the circumference of a cricket green and then divided by p?", a still more sophisticated answer was produced - so sophisticated in fact, that when parts of it were quoted back to the head Tenner, he failed to recognize his own words and announced that anti-Tenners were 'distorting his views'. And interestingly, when it was finally pointed out to the Tenners that their novel answer to this last problem even on its own terms did not equal ten, they merely huddled and then announced a wholly different means of trying to arrive at the answer they already knew was the only true answer in the world.

On and on it went, each problem met by the undaunted group, who were (perhaps predictably given the boundlessness of human imagination) always able to come up with some explanation as to how every mathematical problem equalled ten - though no two explanations were ever alike, or ever followed the same procedures. All started with the answer, and worked backwards from there. And so, naturally, they were always successful.

The Number Ten Club, thrilled with their fantastic success at always being able to arrive back at the one, true answer, saw no reason to abandon their task or their belief. To do so would be seemingly to defy God himself, after all. He himself, they knew, was the very first member of the celestial Number Ten Club. No, it was impossible that they were wrong. Besides, what meaning would life have, if the number ten weren't all they thought it was? Tenners could only look with a kind of pity at all those who didn't have access to the many pleasures they enjoyed as a result of their special knowledge. And why couldn't anti-Tenners leave them alone, anyway? Why did former Tenners seem to feel a keen interest in the club they had abandoned, even talking for months after leaving about the many clues they should have noticed, which suggested that many problems had answers quite different from ten? The Tenners knew that such critical attention was only further evidence, that the answer to every mathematical problem in the world, was ten.

They even began publishing a special magazine: "The Journal of Number Ten Studies". It was even peer-reviewed; but of course, only by members of the Number Ten Club, who were the only ones, after all, who were really the "peers" of other (enlightened) Tenners. And they were all quite angry about the fact that some people, somewhere, who no longer believed that the answer to every math problem was ten, should ever get together to talk about that fact. It was not fair; for any slight against the number ten itself, was a slight against the very individual Tenner himself. It was a personal attack. It was war. It wasn't fair that anyone, anywhere, should be doubting ten, or examining the suppposed "mistakes" in the calculations of Tenners.

Years passed. Some Tenners retired, others took their places, and yet the work remained much as it always had. One enterprising young Tenner even made a name for himself by coming up with the idea that variables, represented by letters, were in fact a kind of code, which when decoded "properly", once again allowed him to arrive at the one true answer:

Ten.

And on it will go forever, and ever, with ever more "creative" solutions to a besieging growth in mathematical knowledge, all showing that ten simply is not the answer to a vast number of mathematical problems. And more and more unable even to contemplate the (dangerous) substance of this growing mathematical knowledge, Tenners will increasingly rely on non-substantive responses, focusing instead on sloppy number drawing by anti-Tenners, the unacceptably light shade of graphite in pencils used by them, the non-recycled paper used by them, which can only mean they are "environment-haters", typographical errors in instructional math books, anti-Tenner tone of voice, their secret nefarious motivations, etc.

And more and more Ten sympathizers will leave the Tenners behind after having reviewed their material, noticing its ad hoc nature, and sadly having to acknowledge that while Ten might have things going for it, in the end, it is just not the answer to every mathematical problem, and isn't what it claims, so that no amount of legerdemain will ever be able to make it so...because it just isn't.

The End

Uncle Talmage