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Nope. Just pointing out that early Christians and early Mormon, within the lifetimes of their religions founders, deeply believed in somethign the rest of the world found silly, and were willign to suffer for their beliefs. If you can accept that level of belief from Mormons and still think their religion is false/shaky/whatever, then there's no reason to assume early Christians were in any way special.

"If you can accept that level of belief from Mormons and still think their religion is false/shaky/whatever, then there's no reason to assume early Christians were in any way special."

I see what you are thinking here. However, the degree of conversions of Christianity throughout the Roman world - generally without any compulsion whatsoever, and the degree of punishment for joining that group, is in no way equivalent with the situation here in the U.S. with respect to Mormonism. Those two points are one of the arguments the writer is making about the Christian movement.

The percentage of Mormons in the U.S. has always been very small. Despite their attempts at proselytizing, the number of converts has in now way equaled the Christiansen of the Ancient World.

Mormons were persecuted to a very limited degree, and mainly due to polygamy, and certain actions - true or not -which were viewed as violent activities by the American community and government at large. Nobody ever threw Mormons to the lions, burned them alive, crucified them, etc. Once they renounced polygamy, they were pretty much left to their own devices and had limited impact on American society as a whole.

The historical bedrock on which Christianity is based appears better documented to me than the foundations of Mormonism. Trying to prove Jesus didn't exist is impossible. There are limited records of his existence in Roman accounts. Trying to prove he DIDN'T rise from the dead is an impossible task unless you state that no one was known to rise from the dead, ergo He couldn't have.

But saying that some guy who was illiterate was visited by an angel in upstate New York in the early 1800's and that Book of Mormon refers to an earlier civilization in North American for which no proof at all exists is rather stretching it.