Many Christians say that Mormonism and some cults are clearly false because they worship men rather than God. Mormons don’t actually worship Joseph Smith, but for this discussion, let’s pretend that they do as many Christians assume. Christians essentially worship a man the same way these other religions worship men. Christians see themselves as different because they believe that Jesus is *actually* God, whereas these other men are not. But that is begging the question. Members of these other religions would also say that the men are actually God as well, so Christians are on equal footing with these cults on this claim. If the followers of these other religions did not believe that these men were actually gods, they would not worship them. So when Christians say that the other religions are false because they worship a man, they are merely assuming that the other religions are incorrect, but Christianity is correct about a very similar claim. And they apply logic inconsistently saying X makes that religion false, but X does not make my religion false. Or X is false and X is true, which is a logical contradictions. So Christians who make this argument are making an irrational argument. So in order for Christians to be rational, they must be more accepting of the beliefs of cults who worship men.
Christians may argue that certain cult leaders clearly just wanted to get women and praise whereas Jesus didn’t, but that’s more of an argument about which belief is more *probable*, so it’s a weaker argument than the strong claim “no man can be God”. And the founding of Christianity is simply poorly documented compared to Mormonism and modern cults, so we can’t be as certain about whether Jesus got a lot of praise and women. We just have writings from believers that came years later who may have been motivated to erase anything problematic just as Mormons excommunicated believing historians who wrote about problematic facts concerning Joseph Smith.
I am a member of the Baha’i Faith, I do accept the divine origin of Christianity just like I equally acknowledge the divine origin of Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Muhammad and several others including the most recent manifestation of of God, Bahá’u’lláh all established world religions. That being said I agree with many of the points you have brought up.
Thank you.
Christians follow a lot of Paul’s texts. The contribution of Paul (Saul) to Christianity is so big that it could almost be considered equal to the contribution of Jesus. Though no one estimates Christians worship Paul.
I’m a Muslim, but I feel like this might be a bit of a strawman. Sure, there are some Christians who would argue that Mormons and Muslims are worshipping a man (Joseph Smit and Muhammad, respectively), but I think the number of Christians who make that argument is insignificantly small. In fact, I would say that most of the time when I’ve seen that argument, it has been from atheists, not Christians.