In Reply to: Berg's persona and behaviour posted by Rocky Top on April 13, 2005 at 07:12:44:
Along those same lines, someone recently recommended I read "Under the Banner of Heaven" by Jon Krakauer, which is an exposé of Mormonism. I'm only half way through but it's really blowing my mind how similar Berg and TF are to Joseph Smith and the Mormon church, both the mainstream one and the fundamentalist off-shoots. You could replace Berg for Smith, TF for Mormons, and the Law of Love for polygamy and you'd think you were reading a the history of TF. There is something that astounds me on every page. The evolution of the doctrine of polygamy is particularly striking. Look at this intro to chapter 11, for example:
"It was Kirtland...that Joseph began to tamper delicately with one of the most basic mores in Occidental society. He looked upon that society with singular detachment that can come only to a man satisfied with his ultimate authority and possessed by a longing to remold the world closer to his heart's desire. Nothing was so sacred that it could not be recast into a new utility or a new beauty.
"Monogamy seemed to him -- as it has seemed to many men who have not ceased to love their wives, but who have grown weary of conubial exclusiveness -- an intolerably circumscribed way of life. 'Whenever I see a pretty woman,' he once said to a friend, 'I have to pray for grace.' But Joseph was no careless libertine who could be content with clandestine mistresses. There was too much of the Puritan in him, and he could not rest until he had redefined the nature of sin and erected a stupendous theological edifice to support his new theories on marriage."
The chapter goes on to reveal that Smith used the same reasoning that Berg did for his Law of Love, that since his desire for other women, and the fulfillment of that desire, were so pleasurable God must have intended it so. (no surprise the same didn't hold true for women) How could it be a sin, he thought, so he set out to formulate his theological justifications for his own carnality.
The mainstream LDS church eventually abandoned that doctrine for the sole purpose of gaining respectability (sound familiar), yet the basic teachings of Smith and other Mormon "prophets" on that subject continue to be acted on by legions of fundamentalists. And even the mainstream theology, which still completely subordinates women, indoctrinates believers to the point that it enables situations like that of Elizabeth Smart to happen. She was the 14-year old mainstream Mormon who was kidnapped out of her home at knife point by a self-appointed Mormon fundamentalist prophet. She had been so indoctrinated by her church that even after this guy raped her and took her as his second wife, she made no attempt to escape from him when she had the chance to on several occassions. He knew the Mormon scriptures so well, and she was trained to obey absolutely Mormon authority figures (all male), that it was easy for him to manipulate and control her through fear.
Smith and Berg, two American cons grown from the same soil.