Mormon Church Leaders Come Clean? Hardly

A new article in the New York Times suggests that the Mormon Church is suddenly becoming transparent about the more ridiculous and appalling aspects of its history.

As evidence they point to an essay, published on the Church's website, admitting that the Church's founder, Joseph Smith, had as many as 40 wives.

Well, I suppose it's a start, but the reporter is far too generous to the Church. I wonder if we can hope to see some forthright admission that Joseph Smith was a known and convicted conman; that some of the Egyptian documents he claimed to have "translated" are not even remotely what he claimed; that large sections of Mormon holy texts are evidently plagiarized; that DNA evidence clearly shows that the Church's claims about native Americans are without foundation, and so forth.

Nope, we can't. For example, their article on DNA is full of excuses why the definitive results aren't really definitive after all.

Meanwhile, more and more people are leaving the Mormon Church because they can't get honest answers to their questions.

Mormon beliefs, like much of Christianity, are without foundation. The big difference is that Mormonism makes lots of claims that are subject to clear refutation and that the founding of the religion is so recent that its dubious origins are much easier to study.