Whyme suddenly changes focus:
I think that this kind of comparison comes from critics who are almost out of ammunition. When all is lost, lets bring up Koresh. And yet, it is a very poor comparison. For the comparison to have validity, the LDS church would have had to disappear in 1844 with Joseph Smith and his flock committing suicide facing the US army.
You have a short attention span. This is what you originally asserted:
If I were a fraudster and establishing a successful following I would not have touched it [polygamy]. But Joseph Smith was a different guy. Since he believed it to be an obligation he went through with it reluctantly. But yes, if he was a fraudster, he would be an idiot. But I don't see him as such an idiot. And if sidney wrote the book, I WOULD have been pissed if I were sidney and I would have killed him myself for risking my book and fraud. But...we see something different, don't we? We see Joseph Smith has a guy who found himself between a rock and hard place. Not easy at all. He knew that if this became public, more violence would follow. But he had to do what he thought god called him to do. And he did it at the cost of his life. He could have enjoyed his success at Nauvoo...resting on his laurels if he were a fraud.
You clearly insinuate that a fraudster would not be engaging in behavior that would incur social wrath, like polygamy. You clearly insinuate that the only reason Joseph Smith “touched” polygamy is because he had a religious obligation.
So several of us immediately provided evidence that shows that manipulating the group mores to allow the leader sexual access to more women is an extremely common trait of charismatic religious leaders. The fact that Joseph Smith did so makes him
just like other charismatic religious leaders.
When confronted with that information, suddenly you change focus. You seem to completely forget your original assertion, and act as if you have no idea where these comparisons are coming from.
by the way, if the LDS church had not given up polygamy, they likely would have been destroyed in some fashion or the other – just like many of these other groups. So it wasn’t Joseph Smith’s behavior that allowed the LDS church to be differentiated from these other groups, but later leaders who were willing to alter what Smith had instituted in order to survive.
