Click to Listen: Episode 55: Alma 61-63
More battles! And this one even has a little civil war thrown in too! But then we say goodbye to all our friends like Moroni, Helaman, Teancum, Ammoran, and Shiblon. While that might seem sad, we also get to meet a new Goddess!
“Drink” Count – 53
Almost 9 beers!
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And don’t forget to check out David Michael’s interview on Mormon Stories Podcast!
My Book of Mormon 
December 15, 2014 at 7:13 am
Congratulations on finishing the Book of Alma! See, that wasn’t so bad. The entire last third was battle chapter after battle chapter. I appreciated hearing those one after another, because reading one chapter per night as a teenager, I didn’t quite realize how repetitive and implausible some of the battle strategies were. But then, to a believer it’s probably considered proof that the story is true that Moroni could get an entire army over the city walls while the Lamanites slept through and didn’t notice, and didn’t even post guards. That makes it a miracle, right?
What’s the big deal about the standard of liberty? Your guess is as good as ours. Like you said, it’s basically a flag. As such, it’s just a symbol, I guess, of what Moroni wanted his country to be like, a land of liberty (“unless you disagree with us”). This spirit carries on today, and for some reason, this “Standard of Liberty” symbol really resonates with the far-far-right of Mormonism. Check out this link, if you want to throw up in your mouth a little: http://standardofliberty.org/
Once again, as soon as a major storyline comes to an end, all the main characters die in short order, now that the story doesn’t need them. This was the case when King Mosiah and Alma Sr. coincidentally died in the same year. At least in this case, Helaman, Moroni, and Shiblon at least spaced their deaths out by a couple of years.
The story of Hagoth and his ships is a fun one for Mormons, because it invites so much speculation. That ship sails off to the land northward and is never heard from again. The record speculates that they drowned, but it doesn’t claim to know that’s what happened. Also, it mentions another ship that just went off, and no one knew where it was headed. From this story you get all kinds of theories among Mormons. Maybe one of Hagoth’s ship was blown off course, and made it over into the South Pacific isles, and those people became ancestors of the Polynesians? Maybe one of those ships made its way up the Colorado River, and other plates of records may yet be found of those people in southern Utah? I’m sure there are other ideas I’ve never heard before. Some Mormons eat this stuff up.
December 16, 2014 at 4:03 pm
My mom firmly believes that the Polynesian people are direct descendants of Hagoth and his ships. She also firmly believes that Bigfoot is Cain.
December 16, 2014 at 4:04 pm
Although, it does beg the question… why would the Polynesian people be dark skinned if they are descendants of the Nephites?
December 16, 2014 at 5:04 pm
They obviously turned EEEEE-VIL at some point.
January 17, 2015 at 8:11 am
I am Polynesian and do not believe that the Polynesians are connected to Hagoth nor the Nephites. Polynesian have our own stories where we are from. How can the Mormon church say such story but when we look into it, the storyline is unclear. If Hagoth or the Nephites sailed to the South Pacific, perhaps the Polynesian islands were already populated by its own people. No where in our Polynesian history, legend, chants, and the names of Hagoth and Nephi are mentioned.
December 15, 2014 at 9:41 pm
Duke… so true! Ask any polynesian mormon (and there are a lot! 57% of the Tongan population claim to be Mormon) and they claim not just book of mormon blood but Nephite blood (they weren’t wiped out because many sailed away to the islands of the sea, i.e. Hagoth)
December 15, 2014 at 9:47 pm
^^^ edit ^^^ of course, the 57% is the LDS church claim, while only 18% of individuals actually claim they are mormon in Tonga, according to the all wise wikipedia 🙂 This is another contemporary example of how the church counts everyone it baptizes as members until they are 110 years old, regardless of what the person later identifies themselves to be. Even though I have officially resigned my membership, I believe I will still be counted as a mormon in the church’s records until the year 2080 (I was born in 1970 lol).
December 15, 2014 at 10:50 pm
Thanks david for helping me get through three months of lessons with the missionary sisters without having to read past the introduction myself.
I swear to god I wouldn’t have understood a word of it if I was reading it myself.
Don’t worry i am not converting, the Sister from Arizona was smoking (hot that is).
She’s back stateside now, hopefully I managed to plant a few seeds of doubt before she left but I am not betting on it.
Anyway keep up the good work I am in it for the long haul if you can keep it going. I have become alittle obsessed with the crazy religion and it’s dubious origins – christianity and judaism 🙂
Cheers,
John
December 16, 2014 at 6:09 am
“Alma Junior” always makes me laugh, Mormons call him “Alma the Younger” though I’m sure David’s heard that by now at least once. I don’t remember any particular special name for Helaman’s son who was named for him but it’s been more than fifteen years since I last read the Book of Mormon all the way through.
It appears in my relatively short search that patronymic naming conventions are not properly represented in the Book of Mormon. Jews had a tradition of naming their children ____ son/daughter of ____ rather than direct father/son name sharing which seems to be more of a Western European tradition.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/01/08/ashkenazi_names_the_etymology_of_the_most_common_jewish_surnames.html