What percentage of committed religious folk, of any religion or denomination, have had any formal training in philosophy?
Not many I imagine. If the average religious person doesn't even know how he would go about proving his own existence, or the existence of the world around him, or the existence of an infinite God that created the whole enchilada, then why should we care what he has to say about whether this book or that book is more authoritative or correct?
If you make the claim that the average person can't be expected to follow detailed philosophical arguments, but must instead rely upon common sense, then Mormonism seems to work pretty much better than anything else as far as supporting American traditions, the family, the business ethic, etc.
It may be an affront to our intellect to admit that one of the most sensible communities has a religion founded on such an odd and unimaginable occurence as the reading of gold tablets with special glasses, but there it is.
Only in America!
Your comment illustrates the depth of the problem with the cult of mormonism: "It may be an affront to our intellect to admit that one of the most sensible communities has a religion founded on such an odd and unimaginable occurence as the reading of gold tablets with special glasses, but there it is." Pure, unadulterated BS. WWFB, even some of the mormonism apologists at FR don't realize that Smith neither used 'glasses' (he used his diviantion peepstone' placed in his hat) or had plates at hand when dictating the BM (his 'scribe' tells that Smith did not have anything but his face-in-hat gazing the peepstone trick when dictating the BM). Additionally, the relevence of 'Philosophy' is specious on your part in referring indirectly to a Christian's reading the Bible.