Thread by @QOrigins

MORMON HISTORY MOMENT (because it’s my account and you can’t stop me):

After Joseph Smith died, Brigham Young *did* claim control of the main body of the church & eventually moved it west.

But there were other claimants, including Smith’s first wife, Emma. Let’s talk about her!

https://twitter.com/qorigins/status/1458492592467763200

Emma Smith started a Mormon offshoot church (which still exists to this day!) based, essentially, on her profound, BURNING need *not to admit* — not to the public, not to her son, and maybe not even to herself — that her late husband had had dozens of wives.

This is what I meant in the OP (or the thing I quoted in the OP) when I said the claim you make when starting a new religion, or a new conspiracy theory, or a new political movement, doesn’t have to be true.

It only has to meet your emotional needs, & maybe feel truthy as well.

The offshoot church — previously called the Reformed Latter-Day Saints and now called, unless I misremember, the Community of Christ — is a pretty chill, liberal version of Mormonism.

It has a splendid temple in Independence, MO that’s well worth a visit if you’re in town.

I don’t really know what I think about the founding lie (because it IS a lie) that gave birth to the RLDS.

I can see why Emma would want to build a world where the most painful fact of her life Just Wasn’t True(tm). I can’t say I blame her for doing it, either.

History is weird and people are complicated and life is very hard and very painful.

And maybe that should make me feel more sympathetic to the MAGA mob. Maybe. But… it’s hard to do that when the wellspring of *their* reality inversion field is a desire for Trump to be dictator.