D
Deleted member 577981
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Well, that would pretty much be my evaluation of them all, just saying.
There are actually no parallels at all with the Buddha or Jesus and Joseph Smith. Authentic religouse traditions are began by sincere and honest people who have attained an extremely high degree of spiritual insight and transformation. Their transformation is measurable and repeatable/reproducible by the systems they generate. The means by which they go about that transformation maps with human psychology well enough that the change they offer can work reliably.
People like Joseph Smith are actually con men. Their transformation is non existent, their mystical.experinces are made up and are usually lies that didn't happen or else a phenomenon of mental illness and the means they offer others for transformation are not reliable and repeatable and do not lead to very high degrees of transformation that authentic religion does/can.
The question of whether or not there is a God is pretty much irrelevant to the discussion we are having. Authentic religouse leaders have authentic mystical experiences that are a function of the human brain, a function of transformation and change that is quite radical and good and this is what a person means when they say they have been touched by God. They have had an encounter with a force, you may think of it as an incredibly powerful psychological force if you like, but whatever name you call it it has really been experienced and the change it produces is stable and permanent and repeatable/reproducable.
Not so with people like Joseph Smith.