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I feel like I'd also apply this criticism to Mormons: the origin story is, to put it kindly, a bit hokey. That said, the organization as a whole seems to produce members that are, at least when I've crossed paths with them, consistently reasonable people. Clearly it's at least possible for an organized group to transcend the "quality" of its founding documents, even though I think they still believe them earnestly.
Mormons have a central authority that can quickly creatively reinterpret the doctrine when threatened by the American government. Splinter groups that rejected the new interpretations are small and practically powerless. Conversely, Muslims have no single recognized leader since the death of Ali and live in multiple countries.
A country less scrupulous about the whole "freedom of religion" thing could insist on recognizing a single, "traditional" form of Islam in its borders and demand it had a legible leadership hierarchy it could bully into submission (pun intended). The US, with its dozens or hundreds of bottom-up Christian denominations, doesn't have the institutional knowledge to do this, and was lucky Mormons were so centralized.
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I would agree that the Mormon origin story is, like you said, "hokey." Or even just straight-up BS. That one book review on ACX pretty thoroughly eviscerated it, IMO.
That said, I like Mormons. They seem like genuinely nice people, with some good moral values, even though I disagree with them on a lot of things. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many of my favorite sci-fi authors are Mormon.
I can't say the same for Islam. I feel like the so-called "Islamic golden age" was mostly just leftover Greek knowledge mixing with Persian culture and the silk road at a time when Islam hadn't yet fully dug in its claws.
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Would you call them Joshepites, like you would Mohammadeans?
Pre-Script, when I searched Mohammed to see if that was first or last name, before I even got there, I read this:
Learn about the career of Muhammad. Genuine miracles, guaranteed. Oh by the way, he's messenger of God. What the fuck is the blurb, this summary, and where does it come from?
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