To me, it serves as a warning and a life long lesson. I was formally mormon and didn't get out because the thought of a all powerful man in the sky made me extra special was silly. I got out because I looked into the history of the church and found that the founder and his successors were obvious con-men. Like, so obvious that years of indoctrination ultimately gave way.
Had the founder any moral character and I frankly might still be a mormon today. (though, tbh, it was likely because of his immorality that mormonism has survived. I'd probably not be around as I'm from a large family that likely wouldn't have happened without mormonism).
The lesson I took from that is to challenge my world views, don't take assumed knowledge for granted, and to be extra super wary of anyone trying to tug on emotions to motivate me into action.
The translation of the Golden Plates has always struck me as insane. And that people would take a man at his word on all of the details… even more insane.
> Smith said that he found the plates on September 22, 1823, on a hill near his home in Manchester, New York, after the angel Moroni directed him to a buried stone box. He said that the angel prevented him from taking the plates but instructed him to return to the same location in a year. He returned to that site every year, but it was not until September 1827 that he recovered the plates on his fourth annual attempt to retrieve them. He returned home with a heavy object wrapped in a frock, which he then put in a box. He allowed others to heft the box but said that the angel had forbidden him to show the plates to anyone until they had been translated from their original "reformed Egyptian" language.
Oh and the plates have never been found or seen by anyone else.
Oh yeah. It's really just totally insane. As someone born into the faith you are taught it's just another miracle like Jesus/Peter walking on water or coming back from the dead. Even though those events were recorded (according to most biblical scholars) around 100 years after they supposedly took place.
Quiet literally the same as if I wrote about how George Washington felled a cherry tree with a magic axe that granted him the ability to see through time.
When your parents believe it, and their parents believed it, etc all the way back to the founding of the church when your (rubes) of ancestors fell for a con... yeah, hard to see the lie for what it is. Even if, from the outside, it's beyond obvious.
Had the founder any moral character and I frankly might still be a mormon today. (though, tbh, it was likely because of his immorality that mormonism has survived. I'd probably not be around as I'm from a large family that likely wouldn't have happened without mormonism).
The lesson I took from that is to challenge my world views, don't take assumed knowledge for granted, and to be extra super wary of anyone trying to tug on emotions to motivate me into action.