The LDS church has gone 180 degrees in the opposite direction today. People want to be on the cutting edge with innovation and comprehension. JS faked this by claiming he knew things about the relatively new discoveries in South America regarding Mayans. He rewrote the Bible in the form of the BofM to make it seem new and improved. He claimed that God was back in the business of giving new revelations which the highly religious population of the time was eager to embrace.

Today it's all different. LDS, Inc. is trying to rehash old, tired, outdated ideas and practices. People are sick and tired of the old guard. Even Bednar admitted he didn't have the knowledge or background to give appropriate answers to everyone's questions. That's not what people want today. They clamor for instant gratification and instant, impressive and mind blowing answers from men who are "God's chosen". If LDS, Inc. is just a bunch of tired old men clinging desperately to old ideas, old beliefs, old doctrine, old revelations, old practices, old writings, and culture norms that are hopelessly irrelevant, what does this religion offer? Less and less every passing day. The old are the only ones who want to keep hearing the old stuff. LDS, Inc. has gone so far away from the original and successful model of Joe Smith's innovative religious practices that I don't understand how they ever expect to turn the tide. The current men in suits in corner offices are just clutching onto the status quo so tightly that an innovative idea would shrivel to death from lack of air.

Just my personal observations.

Joseph Smith gave people concrete answers to life's BIG QUESTIONS.

Unfortunately, when unambiguous answers were offered and people gobbled them up, JS and his lackeys, seers, and revelators started embellishing and changing things to keep the masses ooh-ing and ahh-ing (and not thinking) in adoration without double-checking the original.

Hilarity, cog-dis, turning a blind eye, obfuscating, dancing in circles and shelf-crashing ensued....

Chicken N. Backpacks Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Joseph Smith gave people concrete answers to
> life's BIG QUESTIONS.

The people loves themselves some certainty.

The 15 today couldn't lead if you hooked them to a plow.

Pooped Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The LDS church has gone 180 degrees in the
> opposite direction today. People want to be on the
> cutting edge with innovation and comprehension. JS
> faked this by claiming he knew things about the
> relatively new discoveries in South America
> regarding Mayans. He rewrote the Bible in the form
> of the BofM to make it seem new and improved. He
> claimed that God was back in the business of
> giving new revelations which the highly religious
> population of the time was eager to embrace.

SCHREEEEEEEECHHHHHHHH!

No, he obvously found a few thousand crackpots that bought his new-fangled religion, but America in those days was far LESS religious than it is today. I'm not going to bother to look up the statistics which I first learned a decade or more agao, but it was something like 15% of 'mericuns were regular churchgoers in the early 1800s.

The Second Great Awakening.....



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Awakening

No, the people of the time were not "highly religious." They were far less religious than today. About 15 percent were regular churchgoers, far far less than today's America.

Hey, what just a minute as you forgot the most important reason Joey's plan succeeded.

He kept his inner circle very happy and content (!) indeed by telling them that POLYGAMY was sent to them in the here and now by God himself through none other than the most amazing and farsighted prophet of time, the talented Joey Smith.

He also had a bar at his boarding house and a very smooth tongue and short memory for those of his inner circle who misbehaved.

He was just what Doc Bennett ordered. Take a nightly dose of this and this (you fill in the details) and you will wake up feeling refreshed and ever so ready to con again.

Just like PT Barnum.

Even back then, men must have heard of harems as descibed in the bible; they were old school.

"But such a great idea! Now, what do we have to do to make harems a holy thing again...?"

"...What sort of miracles will I need? ...I know fellas who are going to LOVE this!"