Jacob, Chapter 4

1) Now behold, it came to pass that I, Jacob, cannot write but a little of my words, because of the enormous difficulty of engraving our words upon plates, therefore I take some of this precious remaining space to write about how difficult it is to write.

2) Whatsoever things we write upon anything save it be upon plates must perish and vanish away; yea, I know the invention of papyrus has not reached us yet, but verily I did inscribe my last journal entry upon the sands of the beach, and that did not work out well. Also, those Mayan glyphs etched in stone must be broken asunder eventually, wood will certainly burn, and don't even get me started on the Nazca Lines!

3) No, we labor diligently to engraven this unusually lengthy record upon plates, hoping that our children will receive it with thankful hearts. Nevertheless, despite our implied high literacy rate we do not make any copies of these words, for a copy might be copied again many times, and it may be that fragments of those copies may someday be found scattered across the archaeological record, and that would take away all the challenge for future Gentiles to obtain a faith.

4) Four, for this intent have we written these things, that they may know that we knew of Christ, or rather that they may know that we know that they actually have faith, not actually knowing, seeing as God prefers to suppress independent evidence. And we even knew Christ's name many hundreds of years before He was even born, which is not a red flag at all!

5) Behold, not just us, but all the prophets of the Old Testament believed in Christ as well. Granted, they never actually used His name, but their ambiguous and self-fulling parallels and descriptions can be convincing if your intent in the first place is to convince yourself. Behold, they totally spoke of Christ, anachronistically, centuries before his birth, and if the Bible says something stupid then that justifies it when the Book of Mormon does so as well.

6) Wherefore, we read the Old Testament, and we often proclaim that we know it is true, therefore through simple repetition we have convinced ourselves that it is true, insomuch that we have allowed ourselves to abandon reason.

7) But seeing as this is a fictional account we can embellish, therefore the very trees obey us, the mountains move at our beck and call, and the waves of the sea know exactly what to do when we stretch forth our hands in ambiguous gestures.

8) Behold, how unsearchable are the depths of the mysteries of the Lord; and it is impossible that man should ever get to the bottom of them. And no man knoweth of His ways save it shall be in a fuzzy subjective manner that can not be expressed using human language. Wherefore, brethren, ask not the prophet what the hell is going on with the doctrine, for he couldn't explain it even if he tried.

9) Behold, God spake and the world was created. Can human speech create new planets? I think not. Therefore ye see how limited your powers of communication are.

10) Wherefore, brethren, seek not to counsel the Lord, for when ye counsel the prophet it is tantamount to counseling the Lord. Instead take counsel from his hand, for behold, ye know that he is the only human that understands world-making language, and ye are all imbeciles by comparison, even when he is stricken with dementia.

11) Wherefore, beloved brethren, be reconciled with the church. Your doubts are insignificant compared to our surety that answers must exist that are too complex for either of us to understand.

12) And now, beloved, marvel not that I make audacious assertions based on this line of reasoning; for why not speak of an unseen all-powerful being that knows everything and punishes us for an arbitrary set of rules he created in the first place by lobbing unfathomable suffering upon the only one of us that is innocent?

13) Huh? Why not?

14) Now just stop, you with the colander on your head. Don't give me any more of your bullshit about a spaghetti monster that loves pirates and moves scientific results around with his noodly appendages. That's just stupid. Fucking nut job.

15) Now behold, despite his mysteries being unfathomable, the spirit of God manifests them unto us plainly. And it is because of the stupidity of the world that God hath taken away this plainness from them, and instead has given unto them a gospel that they cannot possibly understand.

16) And, being the nice guy that He is, God did this for the express purpose of confusing the shit out of them, that they may stumble. Nevertheless, it is the only complete truth upon the entire planet.

17) And now, my beloved, how is it possible that such a confounding fucked up canon of convoluted contradiction ever become the one true church upon the face of the Earth?

18) Behold, my beloved brethren, I will unfold this mystery unto you; if I do not, by any means, get shaken by my woefully inadequate apologetics, and stumble because of my over anxiety that perhaps, just maybe, I could be wrong.