Gold Plates featured on Wikipedia

So the Wikipedia folks pick a featured article on a daily basis. It’s usually one that is well-written, features a neutral point of view, and otherwise adheres to the Wikipedia guidelines. Lo and behold, it came to pass that I beheld today’s featured article: Joseph Smith’s Golden Plates.

Now, many readers know my history as a Mormon. To sum up: convert at a young age, die-hard believer from 1990-2002, went on a mission, married in the Temple, lots of callings held, paid tithing (yes, that’s 1/10) of my gross pre-tax income to the church, left in 2002 after nearly a year of wrestling with the idea that my religion had required the same obligations of me — to sacrifice anything and everything, including my life if necessary, for building up the Kingdom of God — as was required of the 9/11 attackers.*

I thought it was cool that Moroni (or was it Nephi in this version of the story? Joseph recorded it both ways.) is handing Joe what plainly appear to be a pair of Ray-Ban Outsiders Wayfarer sunglasses.

Also notable is the lack of a “criticism” section. As noted by quite a few Wikipedia commenters, what little criticism exists on the page is buried amidst other sections and heavy with caveats. Completely missing from the page is that, outside a tiny religious minority, this story is regarded as totally fictional. I don’t know what to make of that, except that Wikipedia’s Neutral Point Of View guideline has been ignored…

* Note: Don’t try to poke holes in the reasons for my disbelief from this short summary. If you wanna’ know why I’m not Mormon anymore, book a trip and come see me; we’ll have a very long, wide-ranging chat.