I don’t know which has a more absurd origin story, in terms of how ridiculous it is to believe it given the history of how it started (irrespective of the actual dogmas), Mormonism or Scientology.
American ideologies. If they didn’t make it to crazy religion status, they died trying as a crazy cult. And all the rest are about getting rich despite the odds and humanity.
Scientology has grotesque space aliens flying across the universe in jumbo jet shaped space craft and dumping millions of souls into volcanoes that later attach to your soul and hinder your life.
Mormons have dumb stories about land bridges and magic dudes doing extra magic to hide secret texts for bigamists to find.
Uh uh, I specifically said I was only talking about how each religion got started. So in Scientology we’re talking about a science fiction author who had previously said the way to get rich is to start a religion. The nature of that religion is irrelevant.
For Mormonism, we’ve got an American treasure hunter who happened to find American-Jesus fanfiction written on some plates, translated them by looking into a hot with a rock, and then when asked to repeat it to verify it said “whoops, I lost the plates, but here’s some other ones that tell the same story but slightly differently”. And nobody outside his inner circle was ever allowed to actually see the plates to verify their existence.
So in one we’ve got a wild story full of very lucky coincidences and circumstantially-suspicious claims. And in the other we’ve got a much simpler story, but it’s pretty explicitly telling us it’s a scam.
Well don’t ya know, Jesus came 1800 years earlier on the other side of the planet to set up his fav country. All others he doesn’t bless.
I don’t know which has a more absurd origin story, in terms of how ridiculous it is to believe it given the history of how it started (irrespective of the actual dogmas), Mormonism or Scientology.
American ideologies. If they didn’t make it to crazy religion status, they died trying as a crazy cult. And all the rest are about getting rich despite the odds and humanity.
Scientology has grotesque space aliens flying across the universe in jumbo jet shaped space craft and dumping millions of souls into volcanoes that later attach to your soul and hinder your life.
Mormons have dumb stories about land bridges and magic dudes doing extra magic to hide secret texts for bigamists to find.
I think Scientology has got this one.
Uh uh, I specifically said I was only talking about how each religion got started. So in Scientology we’re talking about a science fiction author who had previously said the way to get rich is to start a religion. The nature of that religion is irrelevant.
For Mormonism, we’ve got an American treasure hunter who happened to find American-Jesus fanfiction written on some plates, translated them by looking into a hot with a rock, and then when asked to repeat it to verify it said “whoops, I lost the plates, but here’s some other ones that tell the same story but slightly differently”. And nobody outside his inner circle was ever allowed to actually see the plates to verify their existence.
So in one we’ve got a wild story full of very lucky coincidences and circumstantially-suspicious claims. And in the other we’ve got a much simpler story, but it’s pretty explicitly telling us it’s a scam.