...or Muhammad, the Mormon Muslim. Either will do.
Muhammad, the inventor of Islam, claimed that the angel Gabriel visited him in a cave and gave him the revelation that Jesus was neither the Son of God, nor crucified to atone for our sins (and he delivered this new doctrine by way of choking Muhammad to the point of collapsing three different times.) "Gabriel" would show up many more times to let Muhammad know he could have more than 4 wives, and that his wives could be anyone, including underage girls and even other men's wives. In fact, it seems like every time Muhammad found himself wanting something, Gabriel showed up with a new revelation.
Joseph Smith, the inventor of Mormonism, liked this idea, but claimed that he was visited by a much nicer angel named Moroni (That's 'Moron' with an 'i') and was told to go dig up some gold tablets which were written in "reformed" Egyptian cuneiform that could only be read by wearing magical glasses. On these tablets was the story of a really, really, REALLY lost tribe of Israel that landed in America, where they split into the good white folks and the evil Indians. (Races like Asians, Arabs and Hispanics are unaccounted for because Joseph had only seen whites, blacks and Indians at the time he was deciding what the gold tablets should say.) Some time later, the good white folks were visited by "Jesus" who came from the star-base Kolob to tell them to write everything down in a book. That way, the actual, REAL whites, who would come centuries later to beat up on the evil, wicked, cursed Indian Israelites could have a way to know that everything the actual, REAL Jesus had preached in Israel was all wrong. (You know, you have to at least give Joseph Smith the 'C' for creativity, even if he was mooncricket, 9-volt battery licking crazy.) While running home at top speed (with a limp caused by a chipped bone during surgery) and carrying this 60 pound bundle of gold tablets, which no one ever saw, Joseph was supposedly attacked three times by complete strangers. The magical glasses were supposedly destroyed or lost, so Joseph had to resort to using a seer stone in a hat to come up with his liberating "visions," a lot of which were reminiscent of Muhammad's revelations. A lot of them simply let Joseph have as many wives as he wanted. This is why a lot of people call Mormonism "white man's Islam."
I mean, come on, Joseph couldn't even get his grammar right:
(1) "And now behold the Lamanites could not retreat neither way" - (Book of Mormon, Helaman 1: 31)
- "could not retreat neither way" is a double negative.
(2) "yea, if my days could have been in them days" - (Book of Mormon, Helaman 7: 8)
- This should read, "in those days"
(3) "and the one who was the most foremost among them" - (Book of Mormon, Alma 32: 5)
- "most foremost" is redundancy.
(4) "But behold, for none of these I cannot hope," - (Book of Mormon, 2nd Nephi 33: 9)
- "For none of these I cannot hope" is a double negative.
(5) "that there might not be no more sorrow upon all the face of the earth." - (Book of Mormon, Alma 29: 2)
- "might not be no more sorrow" is another double negative.
According to Joseph Smith, however, the Book of Mormon is the mostest correctest book, ever:
"I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book." - (Joseph Smith, "History of the Church," Vol. 4, p. 461)
Where does delusion like this come from, though? What makes a person think they've been visited by an angel and given a doctrine that alters or denies the gospel of Jesus?
(2nd Corinthians 11: 14)
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an ANGEL of light.
(Galatians 1: 8)
But though we, or an ANGEL from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
(Colossians 2: 18)
Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of ANGELS, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.
But what is it that earns a visit by one of these "angels?" How does one get sought after to be the liaison for these devils and their heretical "revelations?" Easy. You simply seek THEM. The Bible warns us against using sorcery and witchcraft in several places (2nd Chronicles 33: 6, Daniel 2: 27, Micah 5: 12, Galatians 5: 20, Revelation 21: 8, etc). People that use these things argue that they're real and they really do work, and they're right. They ARE real, and they DO work. But there's a reason the Bible says to stay away from them: If the power isn't coming from God, there's only one other source it could be coming from, and that's Satan. It doesn't matter how benevolent or nice it seems, it's all coming from the same place. In fact, sorceries such as "white magic," as wiccans call it, are the worst, simply because of the horrible, false sense of benevolence and security the practitioners get from them. It doesn't matter how inept someone may seem in the way of magic, either; if their intent to find something is earnest and persistent enough, something WILL eventually answer them.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Joseph Smith practiced a form of witchcraft. He was a fortune-teller, specifically, a scryer, and his specialty was locating lost treasure. When someone had lost something, or was looking for some kind of treasure, Joseph would put a crystal in a top-hat, look into the hat, and then have visions of where the item or treasure was. Mormons sometimes deny this and condemn any attempt to link Joseph Smith to occultism as being ludicrous (while they worship a polygamous version of Jesus from Star-base Kolob), but there are a substantial number of testimonies to confirm his use of divination to locate buried treasure, not the least of which was a court case in 1826, wherein he was found guilty of being a "glass-looker," a term given to impostors who used "seer-stones" to trick people into hiring them to look for treasure that didn't exist. The metaphor is pretty clear.
Folks, Mormonism, like Islam, was simply not inspired by God; It's merely the feverish concoction of a delusional, semi-educated farm boy that was just flat out possessed by something. If it wasn't something he met up with while consulting his top-hat, then it was probably something he met up with while serving the Masonic Temple, which would explain all the masonic symbols on Mormon temples, such as the inverted pentagram, the square and compass, and the beehive.
So, why even worry about these cultists? Because they call themselves Christians. And when they do that, someone out there who doesn't know Jesus hears some Mormon claiming to be a Christian, then hears the bonkers story of how Mormonsim was founded and immediately writes all Christians off as whackos. I don't mean to bash Mormons, as people, but I do mean to bash their apostate corruption of Christianity that is leading people to hell. Someone might argue that Jesus told us to love everyone, but their is no greater love than the truth.
I realize I've beat up on Mormonism more than Islam in this article, but that's simply because Islam warrants its own separate article, which I should have finished here, soon.
