As to “joining” or religious conversion I don’t know. Lots of people convert to a new religion because they marry someone of another faith, that sort of thing. Talking from a purely social science perspective here, not as someone with religious faith. There are multiple theories about why religious behavior occurs, and evolves in the world. Some are focused on individual religious behavior, and maybe fewer are focused on group dynamics. I don’t know much about the psychology of religion related to conversion. In general, I’ll go with Durkheim who said that religion is a way for people who do not share kinship bonds to establish community. That’s actually quite profound when you think of it.
That might depend on what version of Islam a person is exposed. Radical Islamic groups like ISIS look pretty different to me than the thousands of Persian immigrants who have been living in peace in my area since the time of the Shah. I have many Muslim friends and neighbors.
We’ve had lots of people motivated by peace look at Eastern religions and meditation, so this wouldn’t surprise me at all. I’m not Buddhist but I have kept Batchelor’s Buddhism Without Beliefs on my nightstand or desktop for years, and I started attending a Buddhist meditation practice last fall because I wanted to learn how to meditate and was having trouble on my own. People are drawn to Eastern philosophies, and Western religions for lots of reasons.
If so, he’s more than 125 years too late, Raj! Not everyone has a lot of exposure to Mormons, so I’ll give just a bit of history here. The LDS practice of polygamy involved a small percentage of members from the early 1840s until 1890. FYI, during the 1800’s there were more than 200 religious groups in the US attempting various types of communal living, holding property in common, attempting to care for the poor, and so forth. The Shakers and the Oneida community are two notable examples. Back to polygamy, from the 1860s to the 1880s, the US began passing law to make this religious practice illegal. These laws were eventually upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, and the church complied with the law. We are a law abiding people.
FYI, some of my ancestors fleeing for their lives across the Rocky Mountains had much less to do with polygamy, than with a large influx of Northerners and people from the UK and Scandinavia moving into slave states and creating a voting block that threatened local political sentiments. There are still a few fringe groups who practice polygamy, but they are no longer part of the LDS church.
In answer to your question, I think very few people would seek that out, since there are far easier, more socially acceptable ways to have multiple partners without the sacrifice that would go along with joining a fringe communal religious group. You could ask Hugh Hefner. Ha!