Several months ago, I was astonished to have one of the infamous apologists claim the BofM was translated using ther Urim and Thummim, and when I showed him the quote from Smith's 'scribe' stating Joe used his 'peepstone in the hat' trick with absolutely no plates in front of him, the apologist blighthly skipped on into some other foolishness in an effort to distract from the blatant fabrications, gross lies, and insidious heresies at the heart of mrmonism!
A similar thing happened with accusations from the BM apologists that God gave Saul's wives to David while Saul was still alive thus polyandry/polygamy was directly justified by God! When the corrected timeline was shown to the poster from the OT (that Saul's household was placed in David's after Saul was dead), the issue miraculously shifted to polygamy is not specifically spoken against in the OT, ignoring completely the fact that the BM expressly prohibits polygamy and polyandry!
It is no wonder some have said discussing mormonism vagaries with mormon apologists is like trying to nail jell-o to a wall. Yet the apologists whine that we don't want reasoned debate!
On another thread here Elder D. Todd Christofferson states:
This witness often comes in feelings—a burning, a peace, a feeling of assurance, a sense of enlightenment.
Former Mormon Bishop Simon G. Southerton, now arch villain of DNA proof of bom falseness states from his first hand experience:
Many Mormons have a firm belief that Native Americans are largely descended from Israelites as a consequence of believing the Book of Mormon. Feeling-based beliefs are far less reliable than Mormons would care to admit, and science has proven that these beliefs have no basis in fact. Joseph Smith is the source of the Book of Mormon, as well as the source of the miraculous feeling-based formula that is supposed to prove beyond a doubt it is true. If the Book of Mormon has no place in reality, could there also be a flaw in Smith’s feeling-based truth formula?
People have been waiting for 175 years for credible scientific evidence of any description to support the historical claims of the Book of Mormon. How long do we need to wait to prove we are patient? With each passing year, new information sheds more light on the colonization of the Americas, and with each year we find the claims of the Book of Mormon being shrunk by LDS apologists.
I believe that faith can flourish when people are told the truth from whatever and all available sources. It makes no sense to insist on a belief in the unbelievable. There is an important difference here. In my case, for thirty years my religious orientation was accompanied by a distorted understanding of the true history of America’s past. Not only did I know little of the science that was applicable to this issue, I, like many Mormons, had been bombarded with the widespread urban legends in the church. BYU scholars always seemed to be finding archaeological evidence in Mesoamerica that supported the Book of Mormon and I was informed that the Smithsonian Institution had used the Book of Mormon as a guide in some of their research. Scientific truth exposed my faith in a book that has no historical connection with the ancestors of the American Indians or Polynesians.
One can read the testimonies of many other former mormons - all saying very similar things - it is the feeling that is important, not any truth to the contrary.