@NEETzsche @caekislove Sure, and I like to think I’m fair to the LDS as well.

The LDS church is organized brilliantly. Joseph Smith accurately predicted the American Civil War, and the exact location where it would start. It’s in the oldest facsimile printings of the D&C you can find, no one can deny that.

The man is also genuinely trying to figure things out in his private journals. If he was a liar, he did it enough that he believed his own stories. I tend to think he really did communicate with some kind of spirits, probably demons.

We see a similar pattern with Islam, which gets a lot of basics of morality and discipline right, but deviates just enough to undermine the precise nature of Christ’s saving work.