(May 5, 2015 at 11:30 am)vorlon13 Wrote: Let's say the Mormon poobahs finally tire of all the bullshit and folderol, and admit Joseph Smith pulled a fast one and the entire edifice of LDS is built upon the mass gullibility of some really, really flawed people.
Would they be subject for criminal prosecution for persisting in their scam for decades after it became obvious to them they were furthering a criminal enterprise ??
Unless it could be definitively proven that the LDS leaders were embezzling, were demonstrably (provably in a court) committing some kind of con in order to defraud members, or something I doubt there would be any grounds upon which you could level a court case at them.
If they're a non-profit and they could be demonstrated to be conducting for-profit ventures (*ahem* City Creek Mall) there might be something there, but you'd have to prove that the development was paid for by the church and that the revenue generated went into church coffers and demonstrate some kind of corruption.
But that opens up a huge can of worms for court cases against religious institutions all over the country which means a lot of people have a lot of vested interest in keeping a lid on those sorts of cases.
Quote:Also, we all know human nature well enough to realize even if all the poobahs fess up, there might yet be a willing majority of Mormons that do not care, and desire to persist in their error.
Knowing something about the Mormon propensity for revisionism, they'd probably ex all the General Authorities who make such confessions, install new, "true" GAs and claim that they "knew all along" that the exed GAs were crooked (they have the spirit of discernment, after all) or write it off as "our leaders are human, they make mistakes just like everyone" and carry on with the new GAs as if nothing ever happened.
Teenaged X-Files obsession + Bermuda Triangle episode + Self-led school research project = Atheist.
