ladylawyer. I still hold that your cognative dissonance is amazing. It is clearly understood that the reason Joeseph Smith Jr. started his little religion was that he claimed that God himself told him all current “religions” were an abomination. It was YOUR guy that started this little spat. You apparantly are unwilling to accept this fact. Again...remind me to never hire you as my attorney. Your eyes are too glazed over.
I’ll ignore the ad hominem.
Joseph Smith’s position was no more or no less provocative than the position of Protestantism, generally. There would be no Protestant churches if there had not been a belief that Christianity at that time — i.e. the Catholic Church — had become corrupted.
In other words, you would be a Catholic if your spiritual forefathers had not rejected Catholicism the same way that Joseph Smith rejected the Protestantism which surrounded him. So what?