Mike S. (mikesmith) reviewed on 12/4/2009 + 50 more book reviews

A terrible, terrible book. Not only is it painfully boring, but once you're mentally free of its accompanying cult, it's obviously a complete fabrication.

Viewed as a historical object--as a book very influential on the settling of the American West and very representative of nineteenth century Utopian societies, it does have some merit--but knowing the harm it can do, the racist ideas it continues to perpetuate, and the intense hold it can have on the minds of people indoctrinated from birth to believe that its contents are divine truth, I cannot give it anything close to approval or recommendation.

If you do read it, be sure to check out some pertinent criticism of it as well.

Here are some good starting points.

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/index.htm

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4043

And remember: Native Americans are not Jews who sinned and got cursed to look nothing at all like Jews; they came from Asia, via a land bridge, as verified by genetics and archeology. Horses and steel and apiaries (beehives) did not exist in the Americas 600 years B.C. The Ohio Mound Builders and the Navajos and the Mayans were not all one civilization. And there's no reason an American kid in nineteenth century New York would need to translate an ancient American record into Ye Olde JACOBEAN ENGLISH.

If you are investigating the Mormon Church, thinking of joining, I would just say, KEEP INVESTIGATING. (Until you've learned enough to change your mind.) Read about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The Kinderhook Plates. The Danites. Joseph Smith's thirty-plus wives. The real early history, not just the cleaned-up Church-approved stuff. Read about Church leaders' opposition to desegregation, the Equal Rights Ammendment, and gay marriage. Read about the sheer weirdness that goes on in the temples--the bloody threats that have, in recent years, been removed from the temple ceremonies; the might-as-well-be-naked Washing and Anointing ceremonies; et cetera!

And if you're IN the Mormon Church, and think this book is The Truth, well, if it is the truth, no amount of study of other challenging viewpoints and FACTS should change that. Please, don't just dismiss everything that's not Church-approved as "anti-Mormon" because a lot of very sincere and earnest people have written a lot of well-documented things that might shake your faith, and it deserves to be shaken. Not Church Approved DOES NOT EQUAL Anti-Mormon--so unless it comes from an opposing religious viewpoint, realize most of it's just history.

In conclusion, I do not recommend this book.

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