Do a Google search on Joseph Smith...
The man had a rap sheet for swindles, fraud schemes, and confidence games a mile long.
Good point. ALL: Put "glass looker" or "glass looking" in as a search mechanism, and you'll see that Joseph Smith was convicted of that in the 1820s -- before he came up with his Book of Mormon scheme.
It's kind of like L. Ron Hubbard...btw, you can see another FR thread, Similarities between Mormonism and Scientology -- up to almost 400 posts now...
Anyway, Hubbard wrote science fiction stories until the early 1950s...then said he could make more $ inventing a religion, which he did!
In Joseph Smith's day, "glass looking" was made illegal because it was tied to conman games of such money-diggers who would exploit people.
One Lds apologist thought if the court records were ever found on Smith, that'd be the impossible "proof" to overcome of Smith as fraud.
Well, H. Michael Marquardt and Wesley Walters did find such court records.
Many people duped by flim flam men are oft' too embarrassed to revisit their soft spot. If that's true of one-time rip-offs, think of how difficult it is to face up to a lifetime of such fraudulent spiritual investments? (Especially when you've been the inadvertent "front man" shelling others in, including your own family!)
Mormons are not our enemies...they are among many victims of the true enemy...
Joe Smith should’ve just stuck with selling beer from his house. Instead, many were vacuuuuumed into a cult. So very sad. Very sad sadness.