Ronny Rasband criticized

I think it's only fair that we take a look a the words of our newly called apostles. Which ones were visited of Christ on the road to Damascus? Which ones were chosen Michael Corleone-style ("I don't need tough guys. I need more lawyers")? Let's start with Elder Rasband as he's highest on the ladder. What follows is his recent General Conference talk with my comments.

My dear brothers and sisters throughout the world, I’m very grateful to the First Presidency for inviting me to share my humble testimony this Sabbath day. The words of a favorite Latter-day Saint hymn describe my current feelings:

I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me, (Jesus? I thought you were talking about your gratitude toward the First Presidency.)

Confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me. … (Are you hiding sins from him? Repent!)

I marvel that he would descend from his throne divine

To rescue a soul so rebellious and proud as mine, (It's definitely a rare trip for him.)

That he should extend his great love unto such as I, (Give yourself a break! Remember, he made you the way you are so he'd have to be a total jerk to deny you his love because you're a flawed being.)

Sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify. … (I could probably do without you, if that makes you feel any better.)

Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me! (It's always all about you, isn't it?)

A few days ago I had the great privilege to meet with the First Presidency and receive this call from our dear prophet, President Thomas S. Monson. Not from Jesus? Are you just trusting Tommy is passing along JC's divine word? If so, how does that make you a "special witness of Christ"? I want to witness to all of you of the strength and love President Monson had as he said to me, “This call comes from the Lord Jesus Christ.” Later in this conference we got to see some of that strength as he finished a talk entirely slumped over the pulpit. It sounds like you're putting all your bets on the charisma of an elderly man and none on an experience with divinity.

I am overwhelmed and shaken to my very core to consider the import and significance of those words so tenderly spoken by our loving prophet. This is the second time you mention love, but what about reality or truth? Lies and falsehoods can be spoken in loving tones. President Monson, President Eyring, President Uchtdorf, I love you and will serve the Lord and you with all of my heart, might, mind, and strength. Way to kiss the ring, buddy.

Oh, how I have loved President Boyd K. Packer and Elders L. Tom Perry and Richard G. Scott. Oh, who cares? What's important is that you can bear "special witness" of Jesus Christ. I dearly miss them. I assume they were friends of yours to some degree. I'm sorry for your loss. I am blessed to have been trained and taught at the feet of these dear Brethren. The ass kissing here isn't warming my heart. Sorry. Not in the smallest part am I able to walk in their shoes, yet I am honored to stand tall on their shoulders and carry on in the Lord’s ministry. WTF? This exaggerated humility thing is repugnant. Can you, or can you not testify to having seen and spoken with the resurrected Jesus?

When I think of those who have helped make me who I am, I think first of my sweet and selfless eternal companion, Melanie. "Sweet"? Of course, that's how Mormons like their women, sweet and self-sacrificing. Through the years, she has helped mold me like potter’s clay into a more polished disciple of Jesus Christ. Like in the movie Ghost, right? That's some sexy shit. Her love and support, and that of our 5 children, their spouses, and our 24 grandchildren, sustain me. Really? You had to share the numbers? When are Mormons going to stop bragging with posterity tallies? To my dear family, I love you. This is the best line of your talk so far.

"This represents the penis of our Lord. We seek after this thing."

Like Nephi of old, I was born of goodly parents in the gospel and they of goodly parents back six generations. Huh? Are you dissing your ancestors seven generations back or just prepping us for a brag about your long LDS lineage? My earliest ancestors who joined the Church were from England and Denmark. Like everyone else in Utah. These early pioneers gave their all to the gospel of Jesus Christ and leave a legacy for their posterity to follow. Low education and a propensity for credulity? I am so grateful for a multigenerational Latter-day Saint family, and I know this is a worthy goal for all of us to strive for. Are you shitting on people who don't have a multigenerational LDS family "legacy"? What's so great about it anyway?

Many others have contributed to preparing my life for this new call. They include my childhood friends and family, early leaders, teachers, and lifelong mentors. This sounds a lot like my mission farewell talk. It also sounds a bit like an award acceptance speech. I hope you thank God or Jesus here soon. I must include those from my early mission to the eastern states and our beloved missionaries from the New York New York North Mission. Ah, I get what this is. It's your Mormon resume. You have to let us know why you were hired for the job. For the many who have influenced and shaped my life, I am most grateful. You're most welcome, probably. 

I have cherished serving with my Brethren of the Seventy. For 15 years I have been in one of the greatest quorums and loving brotherhoods of the Church. Thank you, my dear fellow servants. Now suck it, cuz I'm a mo'fuckin' apostle, bitchez!! Now I look forward to belonging to a new quorum. A quorum not shared with anyone who isn't white and sporting two really big testicles. President Russell M. Nelson, my love is deep for you and each member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I'll "anoint" you with oil any time you want.

Sister Rasband and I have been blessed to visit members during many assignments in congregations and missions around the world. We love the Latter-day Saints everywhere! Naturally. Your faith has increased our faith; your testimonies have added to our testimony. You know what, I'm going to have to agree with you on this. There's something empowering about traveling the world and seeing Mormons abroad do their best to be like you and adopt your way of thinking. It makes you feel like your way really is the right way and you want to cheer them on. It's pretty much an imperialistic ego boost, but it's there. It's real.

Now, if I could leave one small message with you today, it would be this: the Lord has said, “Love one another; as I have loved you.” That's one of JC's finer messages. I’m confident that there is no choice, sin, or mistake that you or anyone else can make that will change His love for you or for them. And yet you quoted a song at the beginning of your talk that expresses a sort of disbelief that he would love you at all. Isn't that a bit inconsistent of you? That does not mean He excuses or condones sinful conduct—I’m sure He does not—but it does mean we are to reach out to our fellowman in love to invite, persuade, serve, and rescue. What makes you so sure that he doesn't "excuse or condone sinful conduct"? Did he talk to you about it? I also don't understand your transition from "Jesus loves you" to "that means we have to reach out and save people". Jesus loves us so we have to reach out and save? If he loves us why doesn't he reach out? And why do we have to save people when Jesus, the Savior allegedly already took care of that? Jesus Christ looked past people’s ethnicity, rank, and circumstances in order to teach them this profound truth. But he took special care to select white men in Utah to teach this... um... "profound truth".

I have been asked many times when I received my testimony. I can’t remember not believing in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Because you were born in an active LDS family that took special care to effectively cultivate you. Had you been born in another part of the world, just imagine what you wouldn't remember not believing. I have loved Them since I learned of Them at the knees of my angel mother, reading scripture and gospel stories. "Them"? You're a polytheist? "Angel mother"? Are you putting your mother on some ridiculous pedestal or are you semi-divine? That early belief has now grown into a knowledge and a witness of a loving Heavenly Father, who hears and answers our prayers. A knowledge based on what? YOU SAW HEAVENLY FATHER??? Why did you switch from a first person singular (I) to plural (our)? My testimony of Jesus Christ has been built from many special experiences in which I have come to know His great love for each one of us. What "special" experiences? It sounds like you're trying to justify your calling to apostleship, but you're definitely avoiding a description of any experience that would undoubtedly qualify you for this position. This whole talk is about laying out your resume and this is the one line that matters. Why leave it out?

I’m grateful for our Savior’s Atonement and wish like Alma to shout it with the trump of God. Comparing yourself to Nephi and now Alma? You're fucking awesome! I know that Joseph Smith is God’s prophet of the Restoration and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. How do you know that? Good feelings? And I know that President Thomas S. Monson is God’s true servant and prophet on the earth today. Because he gave you a promotion?

As we follow our prophet, I pray that we may have charity in our hearts toward others and that we will become a living witness and indeed “stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers [us].” WTF? You just threw a bunch of nice sounding stuff into a sentence without worrying if it made sense or not. Rewrite. Oh, may it be “wonderful, wonderful to [you and to] me.” In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Ronny, I believe you have mastered Mormon speech like a true Utahn. I believe you'll make a great non-prophetic, non-revealing, non-seeing apostle of the LDS Church.

Mormon vs. secular - where we're going

WHERE AM I GOING? WHAT HAPPENS AFTER I DIE?

We all ask ourselves these question from time to time, don't we? They're two of life's greatest mysteries... unless you're a Mormon. If you're a Mormon you're pretty sure that you're not going anywhere. Check it out. When you die you'll roam the Spirit World (probably just another dimension of our physical earth) as a missionary seeking to teach of Christ and convert the spirits restricted to Spirit Prison (yet another earth dimension?) to the One True Church. Then you'll be resurrected into a perfect body! Then you'll be judged by Joseph Smith or whoever he's delegated judgment to. But you'll be found spotless because you've truly repented and been saved through Christ's Atonement! And you'll be welcomed with open arms by Heavenly Father, the Great Elohim himself, into the Celestial Kingdom, which just happens to be... EARTH! But not like it is now. Earth will be exalted and perfected as well, which means it will be a gigantic seer stone, or Urim & Thummin. It will be beautiful and we'll all be immeasurably happy forever.

Now if you're not good enough you'll still have a perfect resurrected body (so that's good news) but you won't get to live on a crystal ball with the rest of us and if you're really, really bad (like, apostate bad!) you'll have to float around sadly in absolute nothingness with Satan and his defeated angels. That would totally suck, so for the love of God don't apostatize please.

Secularists really have nothing on this happy explanation. They think our bodies just decompose and enter that whole stupid scientific circle of life bullshit, and make no claims about an eternal spirit (because they're too afraid to make BIG CLAIMS without any backing evidence at all!). How is anyone supposed to be sold on something so... natural? It's like they think we're supposed to observe the world and somehow conclude that we human beings are just a part of it instead the purpose for it!

Mormons clearly have the better explanation. Never mind that it produces an endless string of unanswerable questions that quickly lead to ludicrous and infantile notions of what life after death must be like. Thinking too much about it might lead to doubt and we don't need any more of that!

Mormon vs. secular - the meaning of life

The LDS Church is very proud of how it answers the question "why are we here?" Mormons totally know what it's all about:

CHOICES!

"Pick a side, breh!"

Life, dear brothers and sisters, is one big test. Heavenly Father wants us to prove to him that we can make the right choices while in our mortal bodies (hint: choose the right, y'all!)

Here's how it works: Heavenly Father gave us free agency on earth in part so we could experience the joy of being wrong from time to time in order to learn how to be right all the time. God wants us to be perfect, just like he is, but that requires a fierce trial of our faith (God's very into testing our fidelity, BTW).  Part of that trial involves an invisible host tempting us and trying to deceive us. We have to figure out when those devils are speaking to us. See, God wants us to make mistakes so we can learn, BUT he also hates mistakes because they're either totally below him or just down right evil (he refers to many human shortcomings as sin) and won't let anyone around him who makes them. So what he did was make a law that it's OK to kill a perfect someone (in our case Jesus) to somehow make up for all the bad decisions we're responsible for. So we're responsible for learning to being better but mostly just responsible for learning about Jesus and being grateful to God for killing him sacrificially to himself for us. In other words, he needs to know that we are smart enough to accept the Atonement for all the mistakes we've made, and we do that by being baptized and then joyfully sitting in church for three hours on Sunday and various other long hours throughout the week.

Sign us up for team Most High God!

It's not too hard to see why someone might not get on board with this plan right away - mostly because that whole vicarious sacrificial atonement part makes absolutely no sense. Satan (our spirit brother formerly known by his Latin moniker, Lucifer) was one of those spirits who didn't like God's plan, and - even though God's plan clearly called for a bunch of rebellious spirits to trip up the non-rebellious as best they could - somehow he was too fucking stupid to realize that by not accepting God's plan he would totally become the sorry ass evil spirit to plague the children of men. So this totally fucking stupid Satan made his own ludicrous plan, in which he would somehow force everyone to behave themselves by somehow denying them any kind of autonomous control of their thoughts and actions (we don't have any more specific details than that) so we'd never make mistakes and all be perfect so God wouldn't have a problem with us being around him after we die. The problem is no one can learn and be happy with someone else making all their decisions for him or her.

Satan's sad evil drone clones.

Now we come back to where we started, according to Mormon thought, to be happy we must make our own decisions. If you don't believe it, just look how unhappy people are under dictators! So make your own choices, learn, and learn to be happy. Just make doubly goddamn sure you believe killing Jesus magically liberates you of your every sin and weakness, get baptized, become a member of the One True Church, pay 10% of your gross income to the Church, attend your weekly Sunday meetings, eat enchanted bread and pretend it's Jesus meat, drink enchanted water and pretend it's Jesus blood, think how the Brethren tell you to think, find another Mormon of the opposite sex who does all of the above, marry that person of the opposite sex in the House of the Lord, have sex, make babies, and teach them these marvelous truths... because otherwise God's going to be pissed and he won't let you hang out with him ever again!

"Shoo!"

What's that? You don't like how this is panning out? It doesn't sound meaningful enough? It sounds downright arbitrary? Really? Well what does the secular world offer you here? Is it any better? What according to the secular thought is life all about? I'll tell you: NOT MUCH!

Lame! You stole this from Jesus!

Waaa! You're so persecuted!

Secularist think you can make up your own meaning of life! They actually think you have the ability to come up with your own reasons for living! It's absurd! Find your niche and thrive in it, they say. Where would such absolute autonomy over your own life come from? Why not just accept and conform your life to Mormon meaning of life? It's easier and guaranteed to make you a god.

The evilest world

If there are so many other worlds inhabited by the children of God throughout the Universe, why were we here on Earth so lucky to host the Only Begotten of the Father? Well, the way I learned it was that the inhabitants of Earth were the very worst of everyone everywhere - the only people bad enough to kill the Son of God - and therefore needed Jesus the most.

First off let me say that whoever came up with this idea was an ass and Joseph Smith was a bigger ass for endorsing it. Why would our spirit brothers and sisters be any different than us when they have the same spiritual parentage, were exposed to the same ideas and learning processes in the Pre-Existence, fought in the same War in Heaven over the same issues, have to undergo the same "test" of faith and have the exact same potential to become like God? Do they have better access to angel messengers? Does Satan have less influence on them (because he was cast down to Earth and not Outer Darkness or Outer Space)? And if everyone is saved only through Jesus doesn't that mean that every single spirit child of God needs Jesus to exactly the same degree, or do people who don't swear and always tell their moms they love them only kind of need Jesus a little bit? The way I heard it growing up, even the amazing Joseph Smith was in dire need of the Atonement the same as all the other prophets.

Why do we sit through lessons on this stuff and humbly absorb it? Why don't we speak out against this drivel? Are we really so enamored with guilt that we can't shut this kind of shit down?

Aliens - other worlds

Did you know that you have long lost spiritual brothers and sisters living out on other planets? Well Joseph Smith did!
 
I remember being taught as a little kid that Earth is just one of the many populated planets that Jehovah (Jesus) had made under the direction of Elohim (Heavenly Father). Do Mormons believe in aliens? You had better fuckin' believe it! But not the weird Star Trek kind, just normal, Homo sapiens kind.

In fact you don't have to go too far to find some of these brothers and sisters. Joseph Smith found tall Quakers on the Moon

and Brigham Young found that the Sun is inhabited.

Science has shown that they were totally right, right? No? Well it will! For now all you need to know is that Jesus died for all aliens, not just for us.

Christmas confusion: God's take

Does God like Christmas? Does he have any opinion at all about it? I don't think he's ever suggested we celebrate it. There are no scriptures instructing us to throw Jesus a big birthday bash every year, are there? Does God just feel all sorts of wonderful whenever he sees us putting up our nativity scenes?

The funny thing is that even Mormons tend to discredit Christmas in their own way. Mormons insist their preference is to celebrate the adult, atoning Jesus over the wee baby Jesus (let me tell you, LDS Easters are freakin' great!), but when it comes to Christmas Mormons simply go with the flow.

"Relax, dude, God loves all this shit."

For me it feels less than inspired.

Jesus and the infinite atonement

How does it make any sense whatsoever that because Jesus suffered for our sins and shortcomings everything will one day be restored to perfection? How does it make any sense that one event that took place thousands of years ago is making things right today? Try anticipating your great-great grandchildren's debts and having the money ready for them in their exact moment of need. Try doing something today to absolutely guarantee your house will be clean in 100 years.

You can't do it, can you? Well God did. He did it for everyone. It was easy. He just had to kill his demigod offspring.

It works that way, promise! I know you don't have any demigod children of your own, but I'm sure that sacrificing one of your regular mortal children should at least take your mind off dinner for a week or two. Just make sure to burn the fat for Jehovah.

The forgiving god

God forgives generously. Think of all our horrible, awful sins. Swearing, selfishness, lies, stealing, fighting, lust, backbiting, sleeping in church, not blessing your snacks, not doing genealogy, loud laughter, and the list goes on. How can a Perfect Being possibly put up with such shenanigans? Then again I'm not sure how much God even cares.

But let's pretend God does care. I have some serious doubts about him being forgiving. If he's so forgiving, why did Jesus have to pay for our sins? I mean, if Jesus paid for our sins then there's no need to forgive them. FORGIVING A PRICE THAT'S ALREADY BEEN PAID MAKES NO SENSE. It's like hearing your waiter tell you your meal's on the house right after the bill's been paid.

Did Jesus pay the price or not? If he paid the price, God doesn't have to forgive shit (and neither does Jesus, apparently), and teaching that he forgives is nonsensical. If Jesus' brief suffering didn't quite do the job, then I guess God might still have a chance to prove how forgiving he is.

Well, as long as we repent first.

Heavenly fatherliness #39 - Protection

According to popular wisdom, a good father protects his family at all costs.

As the story goes, God cursed us with pain and disease and death. That's the opposite of protection. But that's because Heavenly Father's concerned mostly about protecting our ability to make choices and less concerned about protecting us physically. That's why he was willing to permanently exile a third of his spirit children - because they were anti-choice. That's why God placed us in a crazy, mixed up world, so we can try to navigate it by making righteous choices. Righteousness will then protect us from sin and pain.

OK, that's not really true. No mortal man can be righteous enough to avoid sin, and even the most righteous are still vulnerable to the all sorts of painful experiences, like accidents, sicknesses, natural disasters, deaths of loved ones, ugly breakups, disappointment, and all the rest. All righteous choices can do is make you a prime candidate for the Celestial Kingdom. It's the kind of protection you might expect from a shady insurance company, but with even foggier details.

When it comes to the cost of all of this, apparently it was enormous: the blood sacrifice of one perfectly righteous demi-god. Never mind that that God got a full return on his investment within a few hours. Which one of your children would you give up to die horribly if you knew you could get him or her right back?

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #36 - Compassion

According to popular wisdom, a good father shows compassion.

Though I seriously doubt a perfect being has the ability to feel what we feel, Heavenly Father is all about compassion, the Bible says so in more than one place. Proof in the pudding when it comes to God's compassion is, once again, Jesus' sacrifice for humanity as the greatest sign of compassion the Universe will ever know. (Yeah, I know, we run into the whole issue of Heavenly Father delegating responsibilities.)

I'm reminded of a father who recently did his best to put himself in his son's shoes. That father made a real effort to understand and to feel. To share in his son's suffering, if only from a distance (impossible as that is). Does God do that at all? How would he?

The thing about compassion is that it's about the hear and now (the Afterlife is about justice). So where is God here and now? Why is he leaving suffering people with nothing more than a promise that he'll fix all our problems later?

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #35 - Unconditional love

According to popular wisdom, a good father shows unconditional love.

Oh man, Heavenly Father loves us so much! He loves us unconditionally and has shown us that love through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which saves us from an otherwise inevitable damnation. It's so easy to see that he's a great dad!

Except in Mormonism we have to deal with the whole sticky issue of God's full blessings being entirely predicated upon a long series of conditions called commandments. If we're even lukewarm about things God will find us disgusting. If we oppose his One True Church and willfully sin against him, he'll count us as enemies and royally fuck us up.

Just look at Satan and his followers. Does God ever mention loving them after their rebellion? If he still loves them, why hasn't he forgiven them? It seems to me that God's love is by definition conditional.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #30 - Work ethic

According to popular wisdom, a good father has a strong work ethic.

We all know that God worked very hard when he created everything and declared it all to be very good. Then he rested a lot. He also works to bring about our eternal happiness. Works... Worked. Well maybe not him, but Jehovah-Jesus worked. God kind of delegated everything to him, remember?

Jehovah (who is pre-mortal Jesus, according to Mormon doctrine) created the Universe and was the god of the Old Testament. Then, when Jehovah took on a tabernacle of flesh, he changed his name to Joshua (a.k.a. Jesus) and took a couple of hours to die for everyone, at which point he declared "It is finished." Work's over, time to go home.

But we can't say Heavenly Father's not pulling his load just because Jesus gets to do the all the heavy lifting: creating, self-sacrificing, and final judging. Let's not forget that someone had to come up with the blueprints, the plan, and the laws. That's a lot of big brain business. I'd like to see you orchestrate something as detailed and time sensitive as setting up a purebred Joseph son of Joseph (descendant of Joseph, who was sold into Egypt) finding ancient scriptures before anyone else. I'm sure he really had to sit down and think that thing through.

Then again, how hard can this kind of organization be for God? Can we really believe the Man who knows everything and has all power does anything that he himself might call work? What kind of effort would actually register on the scale of God's infinite abilities?

I'm not seeing how this adds up.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #12 - Initiative to help

According to popular wisdom, a good father takes pity on his wife and children and takes the initiative to help them.

Once again we run into the issue of a Perfect, Infinite Being having the capacity to relate to and feel anything for such lowly creatures as man, but let's just pretend he does. The issue here then becomes whether or not God takes the initiative to help out.

You've maybe heard that God works many miracles among his children everyday for which we all should be amazingly humbled and grateful. Sounds totally legit, right? One quick look around and it's totally obvious that God's being a Big Help around here, isn't it? Maybe not. It seems he basically just uses us as miracle helper pawns. So is it God or is it us? For some there might not be a difference, I suppose.

Just consider that God doesn't want to just give his goods and services away, we at least have to ask first. The initiative, it would seem, is ours.

I'm pretty sure there are people the world over praying for a hand. Nonstop prayers all asking for a little recognition from an All-powerful Being, but once again whoever considers the extent of human suffering in the world - even in a single historical moment - or takes the time to recall the endless production of carcinogenic material all over the world will probably wonder where the hell God is. 

Oh wait! God already took care of our suffering souls when he killed Jesus... or let Jesus die... or let Jesus let himself die... or kill himself... or whatever that was. Can we clean things up Heavenly Father's way and just kill our firstborn children and then resurrect them again? It seems logical enough, right?

Heavenly Father's also got the whole environmental mess taken care of too. How could I be so silly? God's totally a helper.

*These attributes represent the popularized and popularizing thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #6 - Allowing differences

According to popular wisdom, a good father accepts that his children are not like him.

I've been told that God knows we are imperfect and mortal, but we are his children and can become like him through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. So even though we're not like Our Old Man, we can be if we just drink the Kool-Aid. If we don't become perfect through Christ, we will be alienated from God. That's the rub - conformity to his perfection is absolutely essential. If you are not perfect, as he is, you do not qualify for his highest kingdom.

He sounds like the Worst Dad in the Universe to me.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Jesus, our Lord and Annihilator

Torture and death can really change a man. Take Jesus for example. Just before dying on the cross he offered this prayer:

"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34)

That was pretty big of Jesus and must have been really hard for God. Shit, let's be real! It might have been hard for Jesus too. However it doesn't seem he had much forgiveness left after keeling over. Look how unforgiving the Savior of the World is toward folks on the other side of the world just moments (hours?) after his crucifixion.

"And it came to pass that there was a voice [Jesus'] heard among all the inhabitants of the earth, upon all the face of this land, crying: Wo, wo, wo unto this people; wo unto the inhabitants of the whole earth except they shall repent; for the devil laugheth, and his angels rejoice, because of the slain of the fair sons and daughters of my people; and it is because of their iniquity and abominations that they are fallen! Behold, that great city Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof. And behold, that great city Moroni have I caused to be sunk in the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof to be drowned. And behold, that great city Moronihah have I covered with earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come any more unto me against them. And behold, the city of Gilgal have I caused to be sunk, and the inhabitants thereof to be buried up in the depths of the earth; Yea, and the city of Onihah and the inhabitants thereof, and the city of Mocum and the inhabitants thereof, and the city of Jerusalem and the inhabitants thereof; and waters have I caused to come up in the stead thereof, to hide their wickedness and abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come up any more unto me against them. And behold, the city of Gadiandi, and the city of Gadiomnah, and the city of Jacob, and the city of Gimgimno, all these have I caused to be sunk, and made hills and valleys in the places thereof; and the inhabitants thereof have I buried up in the depths of the earth, to hide their wickedness and abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up any more unto me against them. And behold, that great city Jacobugath, which was inhabited by the people of king Jacob, have I caused to be burned with fire because of their sins and their wickedness, which was above all the wickedness of the whole earth, because of their secret murders and combinations; for it was they that did destroy the peace of my people and the government of the land; therefore I did cause them to be burned, to destroy them from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up unto me any more against them. And behold, the city of Laman, and the city of Josh, and the city of Gad, and the city of Kishkumen, have I caused to be burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof, because of their wickedness in casting out the prophets, and stoning those whom I did send to declare unto them concerning their wickedness and their abominations. And because they did cast them all out, that there were none righteous among them, I did send down fire and destroy them, that their wickedness and abominations might be hid from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints whom I sent among them might not cry unto me from the ground against them. And many great destructions have I caused to come upon this land, and upon this people, because of their wickedness and their abominations." (3 Nephi 9:1-12)

Can you say "take it easy, Jesus"? That's A LOT OF REVENGE! This Book of Mormon Jesus just wiped out thousands of people. Entire cities. Men, women, and children. Wow! And this right after dying for their sins. Weird.