Open Origin Religions?

[Brometheus]

Quick question for you all:

a.) Judaism was founded when Moses went up Mt. Sinai on his own, and received the 2 stone tablets with the 10 commandments written on them.
b.) Christianity was founded, at best in Jesus' mind, or at worst in Paul's.
c.) Mormonism was founded when Joseph Smith got special glasses to read his magical rock.
d.) Islam was founded when Muhammed singularly received revelation from Allah.

It seems to me that all religions I am aware of were formed by single people, with experiences that only they experienced. Do you know of any religion that was formed by committee, meaning it was open-source, and many people experienced whatever phenomenal thing was being reported?

[robvalue]

I'm thinking FSM and Satanism? Although obviously there was no phenomena.

[Spooky]

I would probably look to paganism for your answer. Or some of the nature worshipping ones.

[robvalue]

"I just had a dream where God talked to me and said I'm the leader of everything and to all do what I say forever!"

"OK, sounds legit."

[vorlon13]

Hate to be persnickety, but the Mormon church has evolved sufficiently that old Horny Joe would:

A) no longer recognize his church

B) he would be excommunicated for polygamy, and believing in his original versions of all the revelations, and probably 50 other things.


I guess this means LDS is a committee formed religion.

[Spooky]

"I just had a dream where God talked to me and said I'm the leader of everything and to all do what I say forever!"

"OK, sounds legit."

Damn. Where's that like button?

[Pyrrho]

Your a and b are by no means certain.  It is uncertain whether or not Moses existed.  We really do not know who started Judaism.  And as your pair of options indicate, we do not know who started Christianity either.  So we cannot be certain that they were started by an individual or not.

Additionally, with the others, like Mormonism, although we know that Joseph Smith started it officially, that does not mean that there were not confederates in on the scam.  Indeed, it seems likely that some of them were, since, supposedly, there were three witnesses who claimed an angel showed them the tablets in a vision:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Witnesses 

And there were supposedly eight more who said that they saw the golden plates:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Witnesses

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon_witnesses

Of course, we can speculate about how many of them were in on the scam, and how many of them were duped, but it is difficult to know precisely what the status of everyone was.  In short, we do not know if Mormonism was started by a group or committee, or if the scheme was purely dreamed up by Joseph Smith, who later added confederates who were in on the scheme, though it seems likely that some of the early converts were simply stupid fools who were easily suckered into believing Smith's nonsense.  But it isn't as if the machinations of Smith were open to public scrutiny, so we are left without knowing exactly who dreamed up which bits of Mormonism.

[robvalue]

From what I've heard, Moses is fictional, in fact just a copied character from an earlier religion.

Don't quote me on that though. Unless I'm right.

[Brometheus]

Your a and b are by no means certain.  It is uncertain whether or not Moses existed.  We really do not know who started Judaism.  And as your pair of options indicate, we do not know who started Christianity either.  So we cannot be certain that they were started by an individual or not.

I was giving some benefit of the doubt by premising my assumption of the singularity of the founding on their own record.

[Minimalist]

Apparently "god" is shy around crowds.