I have hung around and read this board for hours and hours over the last four months. I just registered tonight. I am a NeverMo and a NeverCouldPossiblyBeMo, but I am fascinated.

Two things:

Is it OK for a NeverMo to occasionally post so long as the privilege is not abused? (I am very aware that this site is for RfMs, not tourists.)

If OK for me to post, is a question about the BoM appropriate?

Thanks for your help the last several months.

There are never Mos here and it is perfectly okay if they follow the rules. A question about the B of M is appropriate

If you want a straight answer, this would be be the place to get it. Not from a fanboy site frequented by TBMs.

Thanks so very much. You guys are the best.

My question is very likely silly, but what's the deal with
2 Nephi? I've never read it straight from the BoM, but I've read about it from what seem to be good scholarly synopsis and analysis. Seems to me to give a good outline of a lot of the more unusual Mo ideas and doctrines.

What's the joke? What's the punchline idea behind "nobody gets past Second Nephi"? Hard to read? Further into the book than most people actually read? As boring as the " begats" in the
O/T Chronicles?

What up?

2 Nephi contains many chapters taken straigt from Isaiah. As such, it is difficult to read. That is the primary reason for the jokes about 2 Nephi.

Ironically, the Isaiah chapters are clearly the best composed ones in the entire BoM! It was the rest of the BoM which gave me indigestion. Awful grammar, ridiculous long awkward sentence structure, etc. make it worse than boring. I once set out to recompose it from the beginning. Without losing a whit of the thoughts, I reduced it by over a third - quitting about just a couple of chapters out of boredom,

stevespoonemore Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What's the joke? What's the punchline idea behind
> "nobody gets past Second Nephi"? Hard to read?

It's the fact that much of Second Nephi is verbatim quoting of chapter after chapter of Isaiah from the Old Testament which is difficult to understand.

At BYU, all freshman are required to take four semester hours of Book of Mormon. The instructors tell students that they may read these chapters if they like, but they will never be tested on the material. Naturally, most students skip right over much of Second Nephi.

There's a semi-funny joke I heard once about a missionary who was hit by a gunshot, but saved by the small Book of Mormon he was carrying in his shirt pocket. Punchline: even a bullet can't make it through Second Nephi!

As I wait for the laughter to subside, I'll share the real truth: it's not just Second Nephi Mormons have trouble getting through--most of them don't seem to make it past the first few chapters of FIRST Nephi. Every Mormon seems to know "I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parent ..." (the first verse of the Book of Mormon), but that's about it.

Ah! Of course. I knew there are long passages from Isaiah but I didn't make the connection. Isaiah is a tough read.

Thanks much.

I would have been a good Calvinist because Nephi 2:2 was always my favorite. The entire book is a remix of 19th century religious notions available to Oliver Cowdry, Joseph Smith and whoever else instigated this rather unorthodox (let's not say fraudulent, even though they were lying their asses off) venture.

Any scholarly study of the BOM starts with the indefensible premise that it's other than a work of fiction and fudges arguments to support that conclusion. Even elementary forensic analysis demonstrates that the BOM cannot be a historical document.

What it is is a repository of the best religious philosophies floating around New England in 1830. This is actually the value of the BOM. It's a window into that past. Now, a smart scholar would make connections to other works of the period and paint a picture of the entomology and evolution of 19th century religion out of the popular memes and tropes of early America.

What usually happens is that an exercise in mental masturbation is passed off as scholarship by apologists who are heavily invested in Mormonism.

Excellent point, Babaloncansuckit. When I'm investigating something about Mormonism on the net I almost never go to the official LDS site. Or, if I do go there, I always double-check elsewhere.

The differences in POV are stunning. How does the Corp get away with it day after day, year after year?? It's amazing.

2 Nephi crashed my shelf. When I realised it was supposedly written in the Americas before Isaiah was penned in the middle East. It was clearly copied, from the King James bible, not inspired.

The research that followed totally exposed the fraud.

Briggy

Although growing up on Planet Utah, I've said before you'd never know I hadn't been a Mormon from my issues in therapy.

You can also model "outside the pew thinking" to help others as they acquire an authentic "non-Mormon sense of self."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2016 04:04PM by SL Cabbie.

You of all people would be the last one I would of thought of as a never Mo. ROFLMAO. Wow, now that is a revelation.

:)

As noted, I come from an honorable line of Jack Mormons, and one of my grandfathers is a cousin to the Kimball Clan (RFM regular Ihidmyself is his spitting image; my dad is still alive, and I'm going to try to arrange a meeting but seriously, Pop will think he's seeing a ghost).

Last name is also minor "Mormon royalty," and one grandfather filled a mission to the South Paciific and was horribly upset the way Maori families were being split up after some would convert and some wouldn't.

He came back, majored in philosophy, and married my very Mormon grandfather and led her into inactivity (nobody was exed in those days, although an aunt was tossed for marrying a Catholic and ignoring a church summons). My g-grandfather referred to him as a "snake-in-the-grass" until his dying day. My dad--also an unbeliever these days--figured out the church in his early 20's. Until then, my mother was worried they might be married in the Temple.

As for me, they sent me to church on Easter Sunday way back when I was in first grade. Sister So-and-So asked if I was just there for the holiday, and I wanted to belong so I volunteered to say the opening prayer the next week.

The Universe intervened, however, and I came down with the mumps that week.

Fast forward to junior high and an idiot biology teacher (a TBM who believed in Bigfoot) and a geometry teacher who was an even bigger headcase; he believed in UFO's and later became an apostle in the Allred Polygamy sect...

I wound up in the English department in "psychological self-defense," and I started reading letters to the Tribune--and writing them as well. My hero was my old elementary school principal, a friend of Sandra Tanner--BTW, for the conspiracy folks out there, he and I and Steve Benson were all in the same room on November 22, 1963--who was exed over the black priesthood issue...

And then there was falling in love with the bishop's daughter--after being the "ward project" for several years; they assimilated all of my friends, but one of them is a definite "golden contact" now that I'm on my senior apostate mission.

Maybe if she hadn't been so fast to react when my hand reached under her sweatshirt--she'd purposely "tempted" me by going braless--things might've been different... She dumped me a few months later for an RM who said he'd had a revelation they were going to be married (they weren't).

I've been getting even with the collective ever since. Posting on RFM is way healthier than my first choices, which involved getting drunk and smoking cigarettes.

Happy Spring Fertility Festival, everyone.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2016 02:24PM by SL Cabbie.

"Is it OK for a NeverMo to occasionally post..."

Personally, I like the perspectives that NeverMos add to the discussions here on RfM.

Welcome to RfM.

There are quite a few never Mos here who participate in the forums, for whatever reasons they find RfM fascinating. Tevai, one of our moderators, is one. There are others. Tom from Paris comes to mind. Both have been here for a long time. You'll fit right in.

As for BoM, Mark Twain called it "chloroform in print."

He also had this to say, "Wherever he found his speech growing too modern -- which was about every sentence or two -- he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as "exceeding sore," "and it came to pass," etc., and made things satisfactory again. 'And it came to pass' was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet."

In the modern edition of the BoM the "And it came to pass" is used 1247 times. Compare that to the King James bible where it's used app 500 times. Joseph tried *really hard* to make it look like the bible he was plagiarizing, by adding these words as many times as he did - making it even more redundant.

Hi stevespoonemore, never mo here. This is such an interesting site and I have learned a lot.

I am a never mo but there are mormons in the family on my late husband's side. So in-laws lol.

Whether any are practicing anymore, who knows? Some of the family is really into genealogy though.

Also, once you made it that far, you've basically read the whole book. After that, the same shallow, infantile, black and white, good guy bad guy narrative gets repeated over and over again until everybody is dead. The end.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2016 09:41AM by rt.

Can nevermos post? Yes, please, we love it when you do, your perspective is very helpful and needed.

2 Nephi: I marvel at the chutzpah of JS when he said something like: "Isiah is easy to understand when you are as fantastically intelligent and righteous as me". A bunch of momos and wannabe intellectuals still love to spout that party line. The emperor and his new clothes come to mind. I'm going to call it what it is by drawing a comparison from an actually useful story in the movie, The Big Short. They were talking about risky mortgage bonds and even riskier CDO's and putting it into terms that are pragmatic instead of pretentious.

Isiah is dog shit. 2cnd Nephi is dog shit wrapped in cat shit.

Best laugh of morning.

I have always thought the Isaiah were the best ones in the BoM. It can mean anything you want and is like reading a psychedelic dream. Much more entertaining than the rest of the book.

Yes. Stay and post.

When I first came here there were a few never-mos and barely-ever-mos that helped me with persoective. Your posts can be examples of a mind that didn't-wouldn't-couldn't believe in Kolob, for example. Very useful for the board. Your questions could be like revelations for some of us.

Nevermo here, but with TBM relatives that someday I hope to hit them with both barrels (gently) and help them realize they have thrown their lives into a cult (both converts and he works at COB).

It always amuses me to see the LDS propaganda of earnest young people or families "studying" the BoM as if some great hitherto unknown but universal truth is glowing from its pages.

NeverMo here too! I found this site years ago, and the great and gracious folks here have been awesome, answering questions and helping me understand the frequently whacky antics of my brother and the TBM girl he married 30 years ago.

I don't post daily, but generally visit daily. At this point, roughly half of my extended family is Mormon, not to mention a network of friends and their families, although the nuisance factor and problems they generate is disproportionately high. I'd add a winky emoticon, but sadly it's true.

In all fairness, though, TBMs don't have a monopoly on disfunction, and my family was pretty screwed up before my brother was lured in as a teenager. In fact, I believe the disfunction is what made him a prime target, not to mention susceptible. He was the youngest, and so the last kid living at home. My dad was newly re-married to a woman half his age and had abandoned us kids for all intents and purposes, including financial and moral support.

My brother told our mom that he was going to ROTC drill team practice every day at 6am, but we learned later that he was really going to "seminary" (so, he learned early to lie "for the lord"). During his senior year he moved into his gf's house, and they were married in the summer after graduation, so I think it's fair to say that he was a hormonal convert.

Anyway, all that to say that this is a pretty welcoming place. You can find HONEST answers to the questions you have, and can also find common ground on any number of other real life issues too!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2016 12:53PM by nomonomo.

My DH is also a nevermo and will enjoy hearing what you have to say.