Ultimate AHC: President Joseph Smith
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Wolfpaw
Banned
It is. Cult leaders don't typically do well in national politics, especially in a time of religious militancy like the Second Great Awakening.
Wolfpaw
Banned
What? He was a cult leader. All religions start out as cults; Mormonism's no different than any other faith in that. Zoroaster, Jesus and Muhammad were cult leaders too, among countless others.
Nobody ever raises objections to calling Classical faiths the "Cult of Zeus/Mithras/Isis," or Scientology for that matter. Why the objection to this usage?
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There are different definitions of cult. The cult of Isis is the same as saying 'the Isis religion.' You are using cult in the other, pejorative sense.
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cult
2: a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents
3: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cult
2: a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents
3: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents
Wolfpaw
Banned
I like how you left out the first and fifth definitions that M-W gives, which read as follows:
1. formal religious veneration: worship
5. a. great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work
b. the object of such devotion
c. a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion.
Even the first definition you have in your post would apply to Joseph Smith in a completely neutral way since he was the leader of a religious system and its rituals along with its adherents.
Only one of the definitions given is pejorative, and you've decided for yourself that it was the one I meant.
Stop trying to get me in trouble for using a completely appropriate term for the founder of any religion.
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Your statements don't make sense except with the pejorative definition. "All religions start out as religions"? Ok.
Wolfpaw
Banned
All religions start out as a small body of adherents listening to a charismatic leader, also known as a cult.
Taa-da!
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So all the other candidates waste their time arguing about definitions, leaving the way clear for Joseph Smith to... do what?
Are we allowed to dramatically change Mormon doctrines as long as they're still called Mormon? I think polygamy, specifically, would utterly sink his chances... unless we're also allowed to virtually exterminate traditional Christianity in America, which'd take a PoD long before Joseph Smith's birth.
Are we allowed to dramatically change Mormon doctrines as long as they're still called Mormon? I think polygamy, specifically, would utterly sink his chances... unless we're also allowed to virtually exterminate traditional Christianity in America, which'd take a PoD long before Joseph Smith's birth.
Did that revelation include God instructing Joseph Smith, Jr. on how to construct AK-47s and providing them with a nigh infinite amount of ammunition?
I frankly can see no other way in which Joseph Smith manages to take power over the US through a military revolt.
Now that I think about it though, 1840s Mormons armed to the teeth with modern-day weaponry, all of them committed to establishing a military dictatorship/theocracy through a revolution, guerrilla warfare-style, sounds like an extremely interesting ASB-timeline...
I remember hearing a bit about "Help yourself and God will help you" so, who knows ?
On a more serious note (well as serious as we can get considering the intent of this thread), I was thinking more of a LONG conflict then a short Coup d'état or something to that effect. The mormons conquer some land in the territories, make some converts, expand, consolidate and then repeat. Smith might be an old man by the time he gain the presidency though.
How about an Joseph Smith not being murdered and establishing a nation farther west under the name the United States of Deseret?
Technically, it still fits within the requirements of the OP.
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Wolfpaw
Banned
I was thinking of this too. It would certainly be infinitely more plausible/possible, along with making the West more interesting.
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Mrmandias, may I ask if you are Mormon? If so, I could see you being sensitive to this issue. If not, then let it go. I am Mormon, to a degree, and I have no issue with it because it is - however sadly - still a common misconception these days. And I don't think Wolfpaw's usage of the word was meant to be offensive in modern language; in the mid-19th century, however, that is exactly what Joseph Smith was and this AHChallenge is meant to take place in that era. So please, if it fits within the thread's hypothetical, if it fits with one of Webster's definitions, and if I can let it go... can't you?
Short of an armed takeover of the US government there's no plausable way that the OTL Joseph Smith could become POTUS.
Oh boy, here we go, somebody getting butthurt over religious politics agian. I thought AH.com had out grown this kind of stupidity by now. Clearly I was mistaken. You're not going to derail every thread with "That wouldn't have happened because god and jesus wouldn't have allowed it" like the last idiot are you?