I've been "on the road" the last few days. Lots of thinking and window time. I've also been reading, "No Man Knows My History," by Fawn Brodie. See, I have this weird fascination with Mormons. This worldwide religion managed to get up and running and continued on past it's shaky inception regardless of the what should be obvious absurdity of it's doctrines. So I've been thinking about what people will think about Joesph Smith in 300 years. The Gospels of Jesus were all written a good 30-100 years after his death/not death/world-salvation, long enough for a generation to not know the man personally and have dinner with him and his gang. This is a goodly amount of time to forget stuff about stuff, and they didn't have the internet either.
Ummm.... point... yeah...
So this religion started 150-200 years ago and the driving force of the religion was the Charisma of Joseph Smith. There are many religions that start with a charismatic leader but dwindle as soon as the leader is gone because most people see the person only as a person. Somehow Joseph Smith managed to have divine dustings, Communique with God, and despite the crazy of that, people still went along with it.
Alright. I'm losing focus. I need to get back to the road.
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2 comments:
It's because he wrote things down. The trouble with David Koresch was that his cult hadn't yet taken up publishing. Think I'm kidding? Dianetics.
Over at marcmaron.com, a guy said Jesus was the L. Ron Hubbard of his day. I kinda went off on him.
Said something like: "Yeah, Jesus wrote the entire bible. Even the parts before him! Dude had so many papyrus scrolls around him that he had to hire a look-a-like to do his 'miracles.'"
Then I got meaner as well as saying what you mention here about 30-100 years after the guy's death and a bunch about consistency with the description of events.
Yeah.
And where are you "on the road?" Certainly not on the road to Chicago. Hmmph.
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