So there's my version of how we ended up with two Bibles. After 3000 years of slinking around expecting to get their pathetic butts smited at the drop of a hat,. the people were primed for a kinder, gentler, less smite-crazy God. And that was Jesus, at least as the 12 apostle PR men went on to memorialize him in what became The New Testament. Jesus was their client, their only client, and even in death they figured out how to keep their thing going. Which explains how the New Testament came into being, sparking the Energizer Bunny of religions.
Now Mitt Romney has to explain that third book, the one they claim completes the Biblical set - The Book of Mormon (BOM). I've read it..or at least tried to read it. How is it? Well let's see. Take any one of the Harry Potter novels, drain any semblance of personality from the characters, remove the plot but leave in the fantasy, magic and imaginary people and places -- and you get a rough idea. (Twain called it, "Chloroform in print." Actually it's more along the lines of chloroform and LSD in print.)
Which is why I figure Mitt has job cut out for him Thursday. I suspect he won't go anywhere near the BOM during that little televised chat. Because he sure as hell doesn't want to try explaining to Mildred and Willard Smith of Dog Flats Iowa just how some American Indians became one of the lost tribes of Israel. (Jewish Indians? Yoi Ve) Or how Mormon founder, Joseph Smith used a magic stone (a "seer stone") to translate long dead (and even never existed) languages in English. Or how living the letter of the law, as outline in the BOM, gets rewarded with your own planet to rule over after you die.
(Houston, we've got a problem -- Deep Space One here. We've discovered a really weird planet ruled by some guy claiming his name is Jack Monroe, formerly of Salt Lake City, Utah. He says he wants to transport a couple of neatly-dressed young men to our ship for a little chat. Please advise Houston.)
No, Mitt will have to steer clear of the details of his Mormon faith. Because if voters knew the kinds things he believes are true they'd never let him within a hundred miles of the Oval Office.
The bottom line is that most (sane & well-adjusted) modern humans have a built-in credulity fuse. They can only internalize a certain level of metaphysical nonsense before that fuse blows.
And Mitt Romney's Bible Vol. No. 3 -- the Book of Mormon -- is a real fuse blower.
Stephen Pizzo has been published everywhere from The New York Times to Mother Jones magazine. His book, Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans, was nominated for a Pulitzer.
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