I've been an atheist since I was a teenager. I have no interest whatsoever in either proselytizing reason or critiquing different religious doctrines.

While I know many here are dealing with the traumatic effects of the leaving the LDS, my primary curiosity is how did the church become so successful in the first place?

That is, from a marketing and product development perspective (think product R&D at companies like P&G and J&J that do extensive market testing), what unique "offer" did JS provide to potential converts that separated him from other competing religions?

While all religions focus on a couple main points (eg life after death, moral behavior, etc), the truly breakout stars like Islam & LDS appear to exploit certain characteristics of the general population at large.

I'm talking, of course, about property & sex. JM's genius was to offer both - in copious amounts - in an era of suppressed opportunity. As the US constitution was less than 50 years old, no one had really tested the limits of the 1st amendment until Smith pushed the boundaries with respect to multiple wives.

Reviewing the history of the LDS in both MS & IL, JM was on record as promising refugees land and estates of the former owners as the church gained strength.

Granted both property & sex were promised through mainly peaceful means. Whereas Islam, OTOH, grew tremendously fast because the "expectation" time frame was dramatically shortened: all one had to do was conquer a neighbor, take control, and reap the rewards ie property & sex.

My question to this board is: does anyone spend any time thinking about this angle? And if they do, is it conceivable to design another religion following the same basic strategy? It seems to me the religion market is fairly stagnant, with only Scientology really attempting to achieve new market share.

One of the promises of advanced DNA research, is mankind is getting very, very close to understanding completely how the brain operates & functions. If you were a political leader, would you want your supporters to be fully rational (by applying gene therapy on a population wide level) or would you want them to remain faithful to belief?

I hope you all the best in your efforts. However, the next step is to transcend what you personally experienced, and view the advances in scientific understanding as a compelling conundrum to those who enjoy power & privilege over weak minded individuals.

I'll address you main question in a second.
First, I'd like to point out that, actually, the morg *hasn't* been "so successful." Those of us raised in it were fed the line that it was, the whole "rolling across the entire earth" thing, but as another thread here recently showed, it didn't do as well as any of the other religions that popped up in America at the same time (and are still around) did, it hasn't ever even reached 5% of the US population...and as for world population %, it's not even a pimple on the bump of the planet.

As for the main selling point: eternal life with your wives (for the men), eternal life with your family (for the women). Those are the "big draws." Of course, it can't deliver on any of its promises...but that's what it sells itself on.

There are, in fact, LOTS of religions trying to achieve new market share. With few exceptions, they're all failing -- and established religions are losing market share. Personally, I wouldn't introduce a new product into a failing market, where people are rejecting the segment at an ever-increasing rate. I'd go somewhere else :)

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. While religion in general appears to be slowly losing global support (except in certain countries where apostasy and/or proselytizing is punishable by death - interestingly, all US allies), it's undeniable that out of countless movements launched over the millennia, only a handful exist today in any meaningful numbers.

The LDS by any measure is a tremendous success. It leveraged the core promise of property & sex to a huge population of landless peasants who had neither the ways nor means of acquiring land and/or wives. JS is a complete genius for recognizing both the need(s), and developing a compelling message the resonated with a large number of people. Enough, in fact, to free him from his own personal tyranny of economic necessity by coasting on the efforts of others.

But the larger question is this: what is the future of faith based systems - whether ecclesiastical such as Islam, Xian, LDS, or secular, like faith based systems like the USA - in an emerging era of scientific research & discovery. Realistically, if you were a political (or religious) leader, would you really want your faithful followers to be personally empowered through the application of gene therapy to either increase gross IQ, or mitigate the damaging effects of vestigial belief tendencies?

Do you think leadership in Rome, SLC, et al are smart enough to perceive this threat? Or are they all in complete denial of future trends?