hill cumorah: WTF?

so, basically, i detest religion (your basic monotheistic ones). i think that religion has caused overall more suffering than joy, world-historically speaking, and i think it gives people an excuse to not face the vagaries and inconsistencies of life ethically or with difficult thought. i really really hate that it helps people think they're doing the right thing, just because they feel pious, even if many people will suffer horribly as a result of their actions. i think that religion is responsible for this anti-woman world we have on our hands. i hate that religious (in this case, christian) people in the U.S. tend to be pro-death penalty, and therefore actively want to kill people, whereas they feel pious by comparison to pro-choice people, who don't actively want anyone to kill anything. and btw, i know what of i speak, having logged a good twelve years in catholic schools being told it's really important that i consider myself to be shit even as the church lives in deep hypocrisy. what about a world in which people like themselves and are ACTUALLY, materially, good to each other for some reason other than conformity to an abstract principle? i hate that jesus is the ultimate victim and i really really hate fakey niceness almost as much as i hate martyrdom. so many reasons, so little space. i also happen to have the luxury of being fine with the idea that life doesn't mean anything in an ultimate sense, and therefore i have to muddle my way through and live with myself along the way.

that said, i know lots of religious people who aren't righteous or pious and actually help poor people, personally or by supporting various policies, and take jesus to be the socialist and pacifist he was, and who are kind and tolerant and welcome difference and are curious about and open to the world that is Not Them. though i secretly think they are like this in spite of religion rather than because of it. i also understand the need for ritual and community. the point is, i am capable of respecting and feeling love toward a religious person in spite of my intense hatred for the institution.

anyhoo. this was the background i brought with me as chad and B and i sought out some western NY history and went to see the mormon world's cecil b. demille/leni riefenstahl-esque hill cumorah pageant. for those who don't know, the hill cumorah, in nearby palmyra NY, is where good old joseph smith, founder of the mormon religion, found some gold plates thanks to an angel's help, and smith translated those gold plates and they are now the book of mormon. you'll pardon me if i engage in a wee bit of meanness when i point out that those golden books from god have been misplaced. anyway, the pageant: with a cast of hundreds, and in carefully designed tableaux with elaborate special effects, the pageant depicts the series of prophets with decidedly hokey-sounding names obviously meant to sound Old Testament-ish (but not "jewy," to use a word i have heard jon stewart use) who predicted that jesus would be born and get killed and then rise from the dead and go to america, and then also the prophets and angels that wrote down mormon history and that bravely protected it throughout the ages.

yes, jesus went to america, except no one there had seen him get killed or buried, so it is hard to imagine why his appearance there was so impressive to anyone. so we learned that bit of history, and also that way back when the first proto-mormons came to north america, there were other people there, too. (this was a side note and we never heard anything further about these other people.) we learned that evil kings (who laugh like this: muHAHAHAHA) levy taxes. (this last seemed such a blatant bit of contemporary political propaganda we all laughed out loud and i expected next that the evil king would take everyone's guns away and provide universal health care. while drinking a latte and wearing a black turtleneck.) we learned that mormons have always been persecuted by non-believers, though it would seem they have never once persecuted anyone else or caused any suffering. we learned that sometimes pain and suffering is inflicted as punishment for sins, but when it is undergone by the pious, it is noble. we learned that the entire land mass of the americas is for the mormons. oh, and but the pageant left out the part where a very bad tribe (though that sounds too israelite or native american: passel? group? pride? herd? what is a group of fallen mormon's called?) that is vanquished had dark skin.

i mean, i guess mormonism doesn't ask its believers to buy into anything more impossible or improbable than any other religion, but somehow it ends up seeming a lot more goofy. maybe because it's new? maybe because so much of it seems shamelessly tacked on to other, more established stories? maybe because it's so incredibly earnest and humorless? maybe because the LDS church is also a very successful corporation? what i do know is that the widespread suspicion of mormonism and hostility toward it only makes them more sure that they are right because unpopular and persecuted. which means my criticizing their culture and beliefs only makes them even more mormon. bah. to wit: a sign posted at the entrance read something to the effect of "please be courteous to those who would try to disrupt our show." pre-emptively holier-than-thou. bah.