Maybe not.
The Mormons have 3 things running against them:
1) they are a recent enough faith (<200 years old)
2) they foolish recorded tons and tons and tons of their chicanery
3) and were STUPID enough to publish a pile of it
I think we would have similar poop on many/most other faiths were they recent enough and brain impaired enough to leave a paper trail.
The Catholics, despite centuries to loose things, have managed to keep records of priests molesting children going back 1500 years. I'm sure most of the back room wheeling and dealing at the Council of Nicea is lost forever, but just seeing how the Mormons played the game (and essentially spilled the beans on the How To Make A Religion play book) is EXTREMELY informative.
We can be sure that sincerity, fealty, piety and 'God' moving their hearts towards His desired goals at that Council is definitely the last thing that might have happened. For example, when Joseph Smith and the inner circle were banging out how Mormon polygamy was going to work, they started off agreeing the Old Testament model was going to be followed to the letter. But then, oops, somebody picked up a Bible and started reading it and they found out one man could not marry 2 (or more) sisters and additionally, it was forbidden for a man to marry a mother and her daughter. Well by the time old horny Joe got around to working out the rules for polygamy, many of the inner circle were already doing it, and there were already sisters married to one man a and mother/daughter pairs married too. So, with out bothering to consult God (or Jesus, or Adam, or Michael, or Moroni) they hammered out amongst themselves what the rules were going to be and they didn't adopt any rules that would spoil anybody's fun. And they took notes about how they made those rules, and sooner or later, somebody spilled the beans.
Well, there's your 'playbook'. Religion 101, and I can't imagine why any other religion would have 'made the sausage' any differently. The amazing thing about the Mormons was they were detarded enough to take notes and then not burn them afterwards. We can be assured any other faith hammered into existence by people was done the same way the Mormons did it.
LDS gave religion as a whole quite a black eye, didn't it ?
The Mormons have 3 things running against them:
1) they are a recent enough faith (<200 years old)
2) they foolish recorded tons and tons and tons of their chicanery
3) and were STUPID enough to publish a pile of it
I think we would have similar poop on many/most other faiths were they recent enough and brain impaired enough to leave a paper trail.
The Catholics, despite centuries to loose things, have managed to keep records of priests molesting children going back 1500 years. I'm sure most of the back room wheeling and dealing at the Council of Nicea is lost forever, but just seeing how the Mormons played the game (and essentially spilled the beans on the How To Make A Religion play book) is EXTREMELY informative.
We can be sure that sincerity, fealty, piety and 'God' moving their hearts towards His desired goals at that Council is definitely the last thing that might have happened. For example, when Joseph Smith and the inner circle were banging out how Mormon polygamy was going to work, they started off agreeing the Old Testament model was going to be followed to the letter. But then, oops, somebody picked up a Bible and started reading it and they found out one man could not marry 2 (or more) sisters and additionally, it was forbidden for a man to marry a mother and her daughter. Well by the time old horny Joe got around to working out the rules for polygamy, many of the inner circle were already doing it, and there were already sisters married to one man a and mother/daughter pairs married too. So, with out bothering to consult God (or Jesus, or Adam, or Michael, or Moroni) they hammered out amongst themselves what the rules were going to be and they didn't adopt any rules that would spoil anybody's fun. And they took notes about how they made those rules, and sooner or later, somebody spilled the beans.
Well, there's your 'playbook'. Religion 101, and I can't imagine why any other religion would have 'made the sausage' any differently. The amazing thing about the Mormons was they were detarded enough to take notes and then not burn them afterwards. We can be assured any other faith hammered into existence by people was done the same way the Mormons did it.
LDS gave religion as a whole quite a black eye, didn't it ?
The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it.
