Comment by elcritch
3 years ago
Visiting some of the historical museums I found there was a, brief, time when the Mormons tried making their own script and empire. I believe it was called "Deseret". Later they tried to get it accepted as a state.
Interestingly, I've found a lot of parallels between early Islam and early Mormonism. Both of their leaders had similar tendencies and both were evicted from their original location where they claimed their new Zion. Though Mohammed was more successful in retaking Mecca whilst the Mormons were forced out of Missouri (1).
In no specific order:
- Prophet's with dubious histories prior to their revelation - Both given new revelations from an angel - Both claim a that the Christians or Jews had corrupted the original gospels - Focus on political power early on - Polygamy prominent among early leaders - No alcohol - Strong focus on certain forms of "purity"
> their own script and empire ... Deseret
On the empire topic, one might consider Utah. It was originally desired for the name to be Deseret and one of the two primary competing news organizations locally is called Deseret News[0]. In practice it's not really an empire (for all of the obvious reasons) but it's also kinda hard to ignore the influence that the church has on most of the population.
[0] https://www.deseret.com/ I didn't know this was the domain until now. There you go, I guess.
>> tried making their own script and empire. I believe it was called "Deseret":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_alphabet
It was a phonetically correct alphabet for English.
In case you are unfamiliar, in many languages, the language is written exactly as it is spoken. For example, in Spanish and Italian, words are written exactly as they are pronounced. If you can read the word, you can pronounce it though you might not know the meaning.
Children in English-speaking places will usually have to study "spelling" where they learn how to correctly spell words.
Deseret alphabet was pronounced exactly as it was written which shows which spoken accents the speakers had.
There's a restaurant in the Salt Lake city airport, White Horse Spirits and Kitchen, that features a large logo on their wall written in Deseret. Though, as you pointed out, it's technically a phonetic alphabet so the restaurant's sign technically says "W'hitey Horsey" which cracks me up every time I walk past it.
After reading the deseret alphabet pronunciation guide, it took a second to get used to but I don't hate it.
Not really sure how Mohammed can be said to have a "dubious" history. If you don't want to believe the traditional accounts, that's fair, but late antiquity was not a golden age of objective recorded history lol, so there isn't much better info to go off otherwise. I would refer people to r/AcademicQuran on issues of early Islamic history.
I can't say whether Smith had a "dubious" history, but I'm not inclined to take this view because people think it's ok to bigoted and dismissive of the Church of LDS, and I think it's unfair.
Also polygamy was part of pre-Islamic Arabia, whereas it was contrary to custom and law in the context in which the LDS Church developed. Comparison on this point is superficial.
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This is a stupid and bigoted comment that doesn't even make sense given that r/AcademicQuran is full of people citing secular academics.
Mohammad is a Shi'ite now? Is this like Muslims sacking Taxila before they existed?
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Many early apostles including Brigham Young, and even Joseph Smith, drank alcohol.
The Mormons own a pretty big chunk of Missouri where they believe Zion is. I think the idea is that when the End Times come, they'll be the ones doing the evicting.