According to their Articles of Faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints “believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.”
And if you are someone who does believe the validity of The Book of Mormon, I invite you to share why you do believe it to be.
For me, the number one reason I do not believe, as section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants says, the Lord gave Joseph Smith, by inspiration, “power from on high… to translate the Book of Mormon,” is for the same reason I do not believe we put a man on the moon.
If this was one of the most historical moments in our history, why would you not keep the originals?
In the case of the moon landing, the film reels that captured the (alleged) moment when man landed and set foot on the moon, have been lost.
There were a nation of witnesses that claim to have seen the moon landing (these individuals are sometimes referred to as Boomers today ; )
There were 11 men who claimed to have seen the Golden Plates prior to Joseph Smith returning these plates to the angel Moroni (an angel who is not recognized by the Catholic Church).
We Christians believe all sorts of things found in the Bible that reference things that we no longer have in our possession (or if we do, we do not have proof that they are the originals, like the chalice believed to have been used at the Last Supper, housed in the Cathedral of Valencia, Spain, or pieces of The Cross, which can be found in many Churches around the world). The whereabouts of The Ark of the Covenant is currently unknown.
One could speculate that the Ark of the Old Covenant, like the Ark of the New Covenant (Mary), could have been taken up to Heaven, which is the same claim that is said about these Golden Plates.
However, no one that I know of claims that they returned the Ark of the Old Covenant to an angel, but Joseph Smith does claim that he returned the Golden Plates to an angel.
Now, if we can just find those original film reels that captured the moon landing : )
I don’t believe Joseph Smith because he contradicts the Bible with his teaching. He also had a history as a conman.