Day Three (New York and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)

First, it is too time-consuming to write these every day, so I am gonna slow down in the future.

Second, the good news: I didn't screw up today. Whew!

So today, I headed to Buffalo to spend a couple of days with my friend (and ex) Susan and her wife Tandy. Waze is just failing me. I think I might need to reinstall the app - but Google maps is working. It told me to drive down highway 14. Which I did. By not looking at a map or reading about the area, I had no idea I was driving through a huge wine region. And there was a really big lake along the drive. Very pretty drive. Turns out that I was in the Finger Lake region, and the route was following along one of the biggest lakes, Seneca. I didn't have time to stop, plus I had no idea which wineries had good wine, but I gather that there are hundreds of wineries in the region.  I did almost turn around and go to the Pompous Ass winery. Would have made a good gift.

My only stop on this route was to buy some farm eggs as it seemed like a nice - if unusual - hostess gift (and my hosts aren't wine-drinkers.) I like that is was self-serve.

The principal plan of the day - beyond making it to Susan and Tandy's by around 5 - was to check out the early history sites of the Mormons. Oops, I mean The Church of JesusChrist of Latter-Day Saints - they don't want to be called Mormons anymore. 

First stop was the Hill Cumorah Visitor's Center (right outside of Palmyra, New York.) The hill was the place where Joseph Smith was told by the Angel Moroni to dig up the golden plates, which he transcribed into what became the Book of Mormon.

Up there - there were gold plates!

And this is the place they have their annual pageant commemorating the founding of the church. About 40,000 folks come each year. But NEWS FLASH - next year is the last one! Why?? This reviewer felt it was dated and becoming an embarrassment for the church. 

I went into the Visitor's Center where they wanted me to watch a film, but I told them I didn't have time and, instead, we talked about a variety of subjects interesting to me: why religious folks are often such hypocrites, the opposition of the church to gay marriage, the dropping of using "Mormon" in reference to themselves, how damn rich the church is, and other such fun things. They liked me. Seriously, they did. I talked about all these things in a very nice way. They posed for a picture with me, bless their little hearts.

I headed over to the Smith Family Farm, where Joseph first met Moroni. First stop, the log cabin where Moroni came to visit him.

Here is a little video looking at the floor of the room that Moroni appeared. I just focused on the floor because of all the people there who might not like me filming them without their consent.

However, on the way to Smith's next home, everybody was posing for pictures with the temple in the background, so I did take a picture of this happy Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints family.

Here was our nice tour lady. She was very concerned about my broken wrist and my driving tour, just like my mom.  I truly liked her.  (She's the voice you hear talking about Moroni in the floor video.)

This next picture was the Smith's next home where the plates were stashed while he was transcribing them. After he finished the project, he returned them to Moroni and they haven't been seen since.

This is the way to the Sacred Grove, which I didn't have time to check out or figure out what the hell it was. But the tour guide pointed to it without explanation, everybody nodded - so it must be a well-known thing among the Church folks, and very sacred.

From these humble origins, the church is now 15 million strong.  It's not even 200 years old. And they had a very, very bumpy start. 

So, why am I interested even though I am an atheist, and I think this origin story is absurd?  Well, it says a whole lot about human beings - how minds work (and don't), what is important to people (and not) and the thirst for order and community for many, if not most, people.  The church excels at creating community and is certainly orderly!  It also has built-in adaptability via revelation.  They got sick of being such a hated minority back in their polygamous days so voilà - God changed his mind!  They realized their fundamental racist text was creating a whole lot of problems, so another revelation! 

In any case, it makes me well aware that I am a minority.  What I think is outlandish - pretty much all religions - the vast majority of people in the world embrace.  My brain works differently. Today was just a trip to remind me of this. I chose them because they are nice to outsiders.  They want to convert you and won't give up, even after death.

I think anybody who thinks like I do should be well aware that we are not the norm.  What we see as irrational, most others don't.  To jump to a non-sequitur, Trump's rise shouldn't surprise anybody.