BOA translation? Joseph didn't need a piece of papyrus to receive revelation. (Even though he said it literally was written by the hand of Abraham?)
Book of Mormon racist claims? Yeah, that happened back then. Not now. It has nothing to do with skin color today. (Despite the fact the BOM calls the ancestors of Amerindians, Lamanites?)
Polygamy? We have not practiced that in over 100yrs! (But you still believe the Law of the Priesthood is the law requiring polygamy in Heaven, since thats what it says in D&C132 61-65, rught?)
That God (1) wants you to believe in him based on faith, not evidence, and (2) God has magic powers he can use to get rid of evidence so as to require you to have faith. If there was just a bunch of Lamanite crap laying around Central America, every scientist and archeologist would believe in the BoM based on fact, not faith. So God had to use his wizard powers to make all that Lamanite stuff look Aztec, and then change their Jewish blood to Native American.
Once you accept that God is magic, it becomes easy to accept highly improbable explanations.
I knew next to nothing about the Book of Abraham, so ignorance is bliss.
The racism was a problem for me, but I just thought that it meant that prophets weren't perfect. Which made sense to me because TSCC "doesn't teach that the prophets are infallible" - even though they really do. And I didn't think through it any further than that for like 30 years. Once I did that was the beginning of the end.
I, unsurprisingly, didn't look into polygamy too deeply. I just figured that Abraham and other Old Testament prophets were polygamists so that was proof that it is a moral practice. I didn't, however, use that same reasoning to come to the conclusion that murdering men, women and children or taking child sex slaves was a moral practice as we are taught in the Holy Bible in Numbers chapter 31.
Crazy to think back on the things we rationalized as TBMs. It's embarrassing. I am truly ashamed that I had any other opinion of the Church's leaders and their teachings other than extreme repulsion and complete rejection.
Every week I would have to recall Isaiah Chapter 29 which reads,
" And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee.
And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.
I would think Wowwwww. That supports the BOM story. It must be true even though I thought God must be an a$$hat for polygamy and putting more church resources into male vs female programs and making males the only acceptable leaders.
I can tell that you’re more studious (and likely smarter) than your typical Mormon. The only exposure that most Mormons have to Isaiah is a glassy-eyed scan of certain pages in 2 Nephi.
Another one (besides how in the past "because magic" was a valid explanation to me) is how any source not approved by the COB must be anti-Mormon and false. That's a pretty powerful defense if you convince your followers that your version of things is always right and if anyone says otherwise, it must be false.