ROFL. Oh, OK, so just based on what all the doctrine states I am correct, but that is all that has been revealed, it could be different. Hard to have a discussion with responses like this. Sorry.
When I left the church my bishop sat me down and asked me why I was leaving. I gave him many things that didn't make sense to me to the point I couldn't continue as an active member, including these (abridged).
1-The inconsistency of the "missing pages". The small plates are very vague, written different than any historical test (names were important back then). Essentially the story becomes much more detailed towards the end of the section where the small plates were still being translated.
2-J. Smith was convicted of glass looking in NY over two years before he translated the BOM. Essentially he put special stones into a hat and told farmers if they gave him $ he'd find treasure on their lands, and of course, he never did. This was three years before "translating" the BOM in much the same manner. An additional charge of glass looking was brought but JS fled out of NY before the trial.
3-Historical inaccuracies in BOM, glass mentioned but did not exist. Horses, cimeters (Scimitars), elephants, steel, silk, Barley, wheat, goats, pigs, etc., did not exist at the time or had not been brought to the Americas.
4-Moroni and Comoros (Moroni and Comorah) were in William Kidd treasure hunt books that were very popular at the time.
5-No one but JS physically saw the golden plates (spirtual eyes).
6-Jaredites and Nephites shared names despite the Jaradites being of a different time, place, and language than the Nephites.
7-The Book of Abraham/Egyptian burial scrolls
8-A lot more, but the above were the ones that concerned me most
My bishop has answers for everything, and every answer, while probable, seemed unlikely. My response after our discussion, in shorthand, was essentially the aphorism "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras". Every justification I hear is zebra. But the worst one was, well, yeah, that may not make sense but that is just what has been revealed. Sorry, carries no weight.
I don't do the ROFL thing.
I think intellectually-oriented thinkers will have issues with any religion. I could do this whole routine with any Christian religion, and with any other religion as well. I realize that the aspect of human nature that flows into religious faith is keyed on other aspects of our whole beings. If we were not willing to make wholesale concessions to participate in religious communities, we would have no religious communities. Even OB can see that if I required my religion to comply with all my little scruples, I'd have no community to support, and if everyone did that, there would be 7 billion religions.
It appears to me, since I got myself a textbook on Egyptian language and writing, that the Pearl of Great Price has nothing to do with the scrolls which were adduced as the text the "translation" was based on.
Some of the objections based on estimates of ancient American resources and technologies don't stand up to actual materials on exhibit in museums in the Hopewell area.. . the mound people did have cement, steel, and some other stuff the B of M mentions, and there is evidence supporting a genocidal war at the end of the Hopewell age, about 400 AD. I am sure the deep layers of bones in some areas excavated for the Erie Canal, and other Hopewell artifacts surfacing in the early 1800s fuels notions of wonder at the people who lived there anciently, like Solomon Spaulding. . . . who I believe is a relative of mine. . . . . who wrote little romances about it like "Manuscript Found". He was familiar with the iron-making skills demonstrated by ancient people in the Ohio area.
What I find most compelling is the historical account of Joseph Smith reading the Book of Mormon in Carthage Jail when he knew the mob was assembling and reasonably concluded that it was his last day among the living. Joseph Smith believed the Book of Mormon.
If I was charged with translating or producing a "faithful" text as I believe he was, I'd probably have a lot of critics who could reasonably question me on the basis of my past as creative writer and spinner of tales, and working for various people in various jobs. I think I've even played with little "peep stones" at some point, but it was just some kind of joke.
The larger criticism of the Book of Mormon is the post-Christian theology it lays out. Jesus in His lifetime believed he was a Jew, and some of his followers were attending synagogue in Jerusalem long after his crucifixion, and it required Paul arguing with Peter to move the believers over to being a religion for the whole world. I like the Book of Mormon, but it is obvious to me when I read the theology of Paul in it throughout.
But I can't argue with what I believe because of my own relationship with God, as I think I have cause to believe, and that belief fits with nothing but Mormonism.
The LDS Church policy announcement, while I understand the sort of life it makes for kids, is OK with me. When I was a missionary, I knew of a family where the children and mom all wanted to be active baptized Mormons, but the father refused to give consent because he met the proselyting elders in the local red-light house one night. The elders got excommunicated, and he lost respect for the Mormons. I think basic lifestyle issues are valid concerns for any religion or belief system, and we get to make our rules where we think it makes a difference. I am sure there will be kids who can persuade their local leaders to permit them to be baptized regardless of their parents' lifestyle. Those kids will affirm their belief in eternal marriage for heterosexual monogamists, and their parents will say "yeah, he/she really doesn't believe we're a good example of eternal marriage, we won't quarrel with one another about it."
I support the policy announcement because it is consistent with the Mormon basic belief set, and a lot of people need that clarification for their faith.
