Mormonism

[Garland-Green]

Shadows-shine

Those men were martyred because they refused to deny their belief in the truth that God revealed to them. Just like Paul, Peter, and all the other apostles and believers in God who were martyred because they refused to deny their testimonies.

Why mock Joseph's and Hyrum's death? How disrespectful.

For them to have been martyrs, they would have had to die for the testimony of Jesus Christ. If they died for selfish reason (a lie) they were not martyrs. Just someone who were murdered. To compare Smith to Paul, Peter and the other apostles you would have to compare what they teach to see if he is a martyr for the testimony of Jesus or not. It seem to me, going through all this material that his reasons was not to uphold the tradition that had been lost, but a more selfish reason.  

[Aoife]

Garland-Green

Shadows-shine

How can one plagarise the Bible? There is no copywrite and it is not written by any one author.... The Book of Mormon uses quotes of scripture from the prophets in the Bible. What's so wrong with that? Isn't the Bible full of prophets quoting other prophets? I guess by your defnition that's plagarism too.

It is wrong if the Bible is used to support an erroneous doctrine, or if it is used in ways it was not intended by its authors. Using parts out of context to support a view the original text does not allow. A prophet quoting another is fine, since they follow the idea and intent of the prophet before them. Maybe plagarise was not the right word...

No, I think you had the right word. Sure the different translations all mean roughly the same thing in same to slightly different words, but when one translates a language to another, the using of the exact same words for large portions when going from such diverse languages would be...well, unheard of. The languages are different enough that for two different translators to find all the same words just doesn't happen. If one claims to have translated the text themselves (which is the case here) but actually just uses much of what someone else spent time translating, that IS plagiarism. And to change just some parts to fit a specific doctrine not in the original is heresy itself.

You didn't answer my question at all, you deflected...I don't personally care if you call it a Trinity or a Godhead, (they mean the same thing) but there is no polytheism in my beliefs nor any I know that believes in a triune God. God may take different forms, but He is still ONE God. ("Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one" Deuteronomy 6:4, NIV. This is what the LORD says--Israel's King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. Isaiah 44:6 see also 1 Corinthians 8:4; James 2:19)

There can also be no dispute that God also spoke plurally of Himself on many occasions...The Trinity consists of three Persons (Genesis 1:1, 26; 3:22; 11:7; Isaiah 6:8, 48:16, 61:1; Matthew 3:16-17, 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14). In Genesis 1:1, the Hebrew plural noun "Elohim" is used. In Genesis 1:26, 3:22, 11:7 and Isaiah 6:8, the plural pronoun for “us” is used. The word "Elohim" and the pronoun “us” are plural forms, definitely referring in the Hebrew language to more than two. While this is not an explicit argument for the Trinity, it does denote the aspect of plurality in God. The Hebrew word for "God," "Elohim," definitely allows for the Trinity.

Jesus was God as well as man. One of your refutes earlier said they had different wills, and while the man part of Jesus didn't want to go thru the crucifixion, he still did...but many more case say "if you have seen me, you have seen the father" or "I and the father are one";
also, outside the whole Jesus is God debate which I always see causes problems, what about the Holy Spirit? I never see this discussed...is the Holy Spirit God to you or would believing in this be polytheism to you as well?

Would/did you read the link I put up or not?  

[Garland-Green]

Shadows-shine

Cult? That is a blanket term. By definition, cult is basically an organized religion. So any church could be called a cult.

It is also used in connection with a sect devoted to a certain ideal.

World English Dictionary
cult (kʌlt)

1.a specific system of religious worship, esp with reference to its rites and deity
2.a sect devoted to such a system  

[Garland-Green]

Aoife

Garland-Green

Shadows-shine

How can one plagarise the Bible? There is no copywrite and it is not written by any one author.... The Book of Mormon uses quotes of scripture from the prophets in the Bible. What's so wrong with that? Isn't the Bible full of prophets quoting other prophets? I guess by your defnition that's plagarism too.

It is wrong if the Bible is used to support an erroneous doctrine, or if it is used in ways it was not intended by its authors. Using parts out of context to support a view the original text does not allow. A prophet quoting another is fine, since they follow the idea and intent of the prophet before them. Maybe plagarise was not the right word...

No, I think you had the right word. Sure the different translations all mean roughly the same thing in same to slightly different words, but when one translates a language to another, the using of the exact same words for large portions when going from such diverse languages would be...well, unheard of. The languages are different enough that for two different translators to find all the same words just doesn't happen. If one claims to have translated the text themselves (which is the case here) but actually just uses much of what someone else spent time translating, that IS plagiarism. And to change just some parts to fit a specific doctrine not in the original is heresy itself.

You didn't answer my question at all, you deflected...I don't personally care if you call it a Trinity or a Godhead, (they mean the same thing) but there is no polytheism in my beliefs nor any I know that believes in a triune God. God may take different forms, but He is still ONE God. ("Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one" Deuteronomy 6:4, NIV. This is what the LORD says--Israel's King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. Isaiah 44:6 see also 1 Corinthians 8:4; James 2:19)

There can also be no dispute that God also spoke plurally of Himself on many occasions...The Trinity consists of three Persons (Genesis 1:1, 26; 3:22; 11:7; Isaiah 6:8, 48:16, 61:1; Matthew 3:16-17, 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14). In Genesis 1:1, the Hebrew plural noun "Elohim" is used. In Genesis 1:26, 3:22, 11:7 and Isaiah 6:8, the plural pronoun for “us” is used. The word "Elohim" and the pronoun “us” are plural forms, definitely referring in the Hebrew language to more than two. While this is not an explicit argument for the Trinity, it does denote the aspect of plurality in God. The Hebrew word for "God," "Elohim," definitely allows for the Trinity.

Jesus was God as well as man. One of your refutes earlier said they had different wills, and while the man part of Jesus didn't want to go thru the crucifixion, he still did...but many more case say "if you have seen me, you have seen the father" or "I and the father are one";
also, outside the whole Jesus is God debate which I always see causes problems, what about the Holy Spirit? I never see this discussed...is the Holy Spirit God to you or would believing in this be polytheism to you as well?

Would/did you read the link I put up or not?

I think you mistakenly quoted me instead of Shadows-shine. smile Lol. No worries. I agree with your post, I am just answering her claims.  

[Aoife]

Garland-Green

I think you mistakenly quoted me instead of Shadows-shine. smile Lol. No worries. I agree with your post, I am just answering her claims.

Ahhh! I quoted you both, but I didn't point out who I was directing my points at, sorry! I meant you used the correct word I believe about plagiarizing, and the rest of what I said should have been directed at Shadow. wink  

[Shadows-shine]

Garland-Green

Shadows-shine

He did dig up the brass plates containing the record of the Book of Mormon. And the Urim and Thummim were not a giant pair of spectatcles..... They were stones. Some thing similiar is described in the Old Testament I believe. Aaron, Moses' brother used a set too.

What happened to his golden plates, and how did he manage to carry them?
From what I gather the stones were set in a pair of silver frames... They would have the appearance of spectacles. This is not how the Urim and Thummin was used in the Old Testament.


They were objects connected with the breastplate of the high priest, and used as a kind of divine oracle. Since the days of the Alexandrian translators of the Old Testament it has been asserted that mean "revelation and truth" (δήλωσις καὶ ἀλήθεια), or "lights and perfections" (φωτισμοὶ καὶ τελεότητες); the τελειότης καὶ διδαχή of Symmachus (Jerome, "perfectio et doctrina"; Field, "Hexapla" on Deut. xxxiii. 8]; and the φωτισμοί καὶ τελειώσεις of Aquila and Theodotion. The Vulgate has "doctrina [after Symmachus; Old Latin, "ostensio" or "demonstratio"] et veritas." There is, however, no foundation for such a view in the Bible itself. Ex. xxviii. 13-30 describes the high-priestly ephod and the breastplate with the Urim and Thummim. It is called a "breastplate of judgment" ("ḥoshen ha-mishpaṭ"); it is four-square and double; and the twelve stones were not put inside the ḥoshen, but on the outside. It is related in Lev. viii. 7-8 that when, in compliance with the command in Ex. xxix. 1-37, Moses consecrated Aaron and his sons as priests, "He [Moses] put upon him [Aaron] the coat, and girded him with the girdle, and clothed him with the robe, and put the ephod upon him, and he girded him with the cunningly woven band [A. V. "curious girdle"] of the ephod, and bound it unto him therewith. And he put the breastplate upon him: and in the breastplate he put the Urim and the Thummim." Deut. xxxiii. 8 (R. V.), in the blessing of Moses, reads: "And of Levi he said: Thy Thummim and thy Urim are with thy godly one, whom thou didst prove at Massah, with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah" (see Steuernagel, "Deuteronomium," p. 125, Göttingen, 1898; Bertholet, "Deuteronomium," p. 106, Freiburg, 1899; Driver, "Deuteronomy," in "International Critical Commentary," p. 398, New York, 1895; Baudissin, "Gesch. des Alttestamentlichen Priesterthums," p. 76). The most important passage is I Sam. xiv. 41, where Wellhausen and Driver have corrected the text, on the basis of the Septuagint, to read as follows: "And Saul said: Lord, God of Israel, why hast thou not answered thy servant this day? If this iniquity be in me or in Jonathan my son, Lord, God of Israel, give Urim; but if it be in thy people Israel, give Thummim. Then Jonathan and Saul were taken by lot; and the people escaped" (Driver, "Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel," p. 89, Oxford, 1890; Budde, "The Books of Samuel," in Polychrome Bible, p. 63; H. P. Smith, "The Books of Samuel," p. 122; Kirkpatrick, "The First Book of Samuel," in "The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges," 1891, p. 137).

- jewishencyclopedia

Urim and Thummim Exodus 28:30 And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and Thummim; they shall be upon Aaron's heart when he goeth in before the Lord. The Urim and Thummim was God's way of answering His people. Urim (אורים) means

[the] Seer Stone was the shape of an egg though not quite so large, of a gray cast something like granite but with white stripes running around it. It was transparent but had no holes, neither on the end or in the sides
fairmormon.org

As a chastisement for this carelessness [loss of the 116 pages], the Urim and Thummim was taken from Smith. But by humbling himself, he again found favor with the Lord and was presented a strange oval-shaped, chocolate colored stone, about the size of an egg, but more flat which it was promised should answer the same purpose. With this stone all the present book was translated
fairmormon.org

Lucy M. Smith, mother of Joseph Jr., described them as "two smooth, three-cornered diamonds set in glass, and the glasses were set in silver bows, which were connected with each other...as old fashioned spectacles."

The Old Testament seems to indicate that the urim and thummin faded from use during the early days of Israel’s monarchy, and are only referred to once after the Babylonian exile. This may be so because the institution of monarchy God inaugurated the office of prophet. The prophets now participated in God’s heavenly court and communicated God’s messages to the courts in Jerusalem and Samaria. Apparently prophets who revealed God’s word to the king replaced the urim and thummin, through which He revealed His mind to the priest. Nevertheless, we still find Ezra using this device to determine the ancestry of the priests who returned from the exile in Ezra 2:63. After this the Bible never mentions the urim and thummin again. God did not preserve it for His people. They are one more allowance from God to assist His people at a certain point in history.”

The plates maybe weighed about 25 pounds, so a grown man certainly would've been able to carry them. And no one knows what happened to the plates. It's been rumored they were taken up to heaven. Like the arc of the covenant. Yet no one seems to question that mystery.  

[Shadows-shine]

Aoife

Garland-Green

Shadows-shine

How can one plagarise the Bible? There is no copywrite and it is not written by any one author.... The Book of Mormon uses quotes of scripture from the prophets in the Bible. What's so wrong with that? Isn't the Bible full of prophets quoting other prophets? I guess by your defnition that's plagarism too.

It is wrong if the Bible is used to support an erroneous doctrine, or if it is used in ways it was not intended by its authors. Using parts out of context to support a view the original text does not allow. A prophet quoting another is fine, since they follow the idea and intent of the prophet before them. Maybe plagarise was not the right word...

No, I think you had the right word. Sure the different translations all mean roughly the same thing in same to slightly different words, but when one translates a language to another, the using of the exact same words for large portions when going from such diverse languages would be...well, unheard of. The languages are different enough that for two different translators to find all the same words just doesn't happen. If one claims to have translated the text themselves (which is the case here) but actually just uses much of what someone else spent time translating, that IS plagiarism. And to change just some parts to fit a specific doctrine not in the original is heresy itself.

You didn't answer my question at all, you deflected...I don't personally care if you call it a Trinity or a Godhead, (they mean the same thing) but there is no polytheism in my beliefs nor any I know that believes in a triune God. God may take different forms, but He is still ONE God. ("Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one" Deuteronomy 6:4, NIV. This is what the LORD says--Israel's King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. Isaiah 44:6 see also 1 Corinthians 8:4; James 2:19)

There can also be no dispute that God also spoke plurally of Himself on many occasions...The Trinity consists of three Persons (Genesis 1:1, 26; 3:22; 11:7; Isaiah 6:8, 48:16, 61:1; Matthew 3:16-17, 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14). In Genesis 1:1, the Hebrew plural noun "Elohim" is used. In Genesis 1:26, 3:22, 11:7 and Isaiah 6:8, the plural pronoun for “us” is used. The word "Elohim" and the pronoun “us” are plural forms, definitely referring in the Hebrew language to more than two. While this is not an explicit argument for the Trinity, it does denote the aspect of plurality in God. The Hebrew word for "God," "Elohim," definitely allows for the Trinity.

Jesus was God as well as man. One of your refutes earlier said they had different wills, and while the man part of Jesus didn't want to go thru the crucifixion, he still did...but many more case say "if you have seen me, you have seen the father" or "I and the father are one";
also, outside the whole Jesus is God debate which I always see causes problems, what about the Holy Spirit? I never see this discussed...is the Holy Spirit God to you or would believing in this be polytheism to you as well?

Would/did you read the link I put up or not?

Which is it? One God or three persons? You can't have both! The trinity was formed as a compromise in the early Church because some people in the one God only while others believed in three separate.and distinct beings. No one could agree. So thus came the trinity, one God but three persons. So confusing. Either you have three or one! And why would God need to take on different forms?  

[Shadows-shine]

Aoife

Garland-Green

I think you mistakenly quoted me instead of Shadows-shine. smile Lol. No worries. I agree with your post, I am just answering her claims.

Ahhh! I quoted you both, but I didn't point out who I was directing my points at, sorry! I meant you used the correct word I believe about plagiarizing, and the rest of what I said should have been directed at Shadow. wink

I will read your link when I come back to respond to all the other posts in here directed at me.  

[Shadows-shine]

Garland-Green

Shadows-shine

Cult? That is a blanket term. By definition, cult is basically an organized religion. So any church could be called a cult.

It is also used in connection with a sect devoted to a certain ideal.

World English Dictionary
cult (kʌlt)

1.a specific system of religious worship, esp with reference to its rites and deity
2.a sect devoted to such a system

That sounds like all the churches out there, not just mine.  

[SinfulGuillotine]

I

Shadows-shine

SinfulGuillotine

As much as I try to be open-minded about beliefs different from my own...Mormonism has always left a bad taste in my mouth. I'll admit that a great deal of that is probably because I first learned about Mormonism in any depth and detail from a book called Under the Banner of Heaven, which while historically accurate, is written with a definite bias against the faith and much of its history.

And though I know that the mainstream LDS church makes a huge effort to separate itself from various Fundementalist sects, what goes on withinthose Fundementalist compounds makes me ill. Girls just barely old enough to menstruate married off to men old enough to be their father twice over, forced into sexual slavery as one of the many wives of the "prophet," who is, in reality, nothing more than a horny old borderline ******. Maybe some of them are actually crazy enough to believe their own spritual hocos-pocus BS that they spout, justifying serial sexual abuse, but that doesn't make them any less evil.

AGAIN, I KNOW THAT MAINSTREAM LDS DOES NOT ENGAGE IN OR SUPPORT SUCH BEHAVIOUR, but, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but such behaviour WAS practised and encouraged by people such as Smith and Young, and that sort of polygamy was indeed included in original Morman teachings, whether mainstream LDS renounces it now or not.

And it really seems to me that Mormonism is about as Christian as Christianity is Jewish...possibly even less so. I feel like the more I learn of their theology the further from Christianity it seems to get.

I could go on, but I don't want to be any more disrespectful than I've already been. I really mean no disrespect (unless you happen to be the sort of Mormon who supports and/or commits child rape; then I absolutely mean all the disrespect I can possibly muster).

One: cite your sources as to where you heard this. Two: Joseph and Brigham married both young and old women so they could have an income and a husband to support them. Also, back then it was common practice for women to marry young. I've read several history books where girls got married as young as 14. Three: of course I don't support child rape! That's dispicable!

I already mentioned my source: a book called Under the Banner of Heaven. Also, various news articles I found online relating to the subject. I can try to find them again, but I'm currently using a friend's mobile to get online, so that might have to wait until I can get online on a real computer.

It may have been common practise for girls to marry young "back in the day," but by the 19th century, it was not common (and possibly not even legal) for girls to marry much younger than 18. And I'm not talking about back in the day. I'm talking about things going on right now. This stuff is still going on today in some fundementalist Mormon splinter groups.

And I never meant to imply that you support child rape, and as I said before, I'm also aware that such behaviour is not condoned by the mainstream LDS church.  

[Aoife]

Shadows-shine

Which is it? One God or three persons? You can't have both! The trinity was formed as a compromise in the early Church because some people in the one God only while others believed in three separate.and distinct beings. No one could agree. So thus came the trinity, one God but three persons. So confusing. Either you have three or one! And why would God need to take on different forms?

You do realize I quoted scripture, right? God Himself referred to Himself as a plural being and also as only one. People did not "make up" this triunty or Godhead on their own without searching scriptures. And you still never said what YOU think, only attacked what I think.  

[Shadows-shine]

SinfulGuillotine

I

Shadows-shine

SinfulGuillotine

As much as I try to be open-minded about beliefs different from my own...Mormonism has always left a bad taste in my mouth. I'll admit that a great deal of that is probably because I first learned about Mormonism in any depth and detail from a book called Under the Banner of Heaven, which while historically accurate, is written with a definite bias against the faith and much of its history.

And though I know that the mainstream LDS church makes a huge effort to separate itself from various Fundementalist sects, what goes on withinthose Fundementalist compounds makes me ill. Girls just barely old enough to menstruate married off to men old enough to be their father twice over, forced into sexual slavery as one of the many wives of the "prophet," who is, in reality, nothing more than a horny old borderline ******. Maybe some of them are actually crazy enough to believe their own spritual hocos-pocus BS that they spout, justifying serial sexual abuse, but that doesn't make them any less evil.

AGAIN, I KNOW THAT MAINSTREAM LDS DOES NOT ENGAGE IN OR SUPPORT SUCH BEHAVIOUR, but, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but such behaviour WAS practised and encouraged by people such as Smith and Young, and that sort of polygamy was indeed included in original Morman teachings, whether mainstream LDS renounces it now or not.

And it really seems to me that Mormonism is about as Christian as Christianity is Jewish...possibly even less so. I feel like the more I learn of their theology the further from Christianity it seems to get.

I could go on, but I don't want to be any more disrespectful than I've already been. I really mean no disrespect (unless you happen to be the sort of Mormon who supports and/or commits child rape; then I absolutely mean all the disrespect I can possibly muster).

One: cite your sources as to where you heard this. Two: Joseph and Brigham married both young and old women so they could have an income and a husband to support them. Also, back then it was common practice for women to marry young. I've read several history books where girls got married as young as 14. Three: of course I don't support child rape! That's dispicable!

I already mentioned my source: a book called Under the Banner of Heaven. Also, various news articles I found online relating to the subject. I can try to find them again, but I'm currently using a friend's mobile to get online, so that might have to wait until I can get online on a real computer.

It may have been common practise for girls to marry young "back in the day," but by the 19th century, it was not common (and possibly not even legal) for girls to marry much younger than 18. And I'm not talking about back in the day. I'm talking about things going on right now. This stuff is still going on today in some fundementalist Mormon splinter groups.

And I never meant to imply that you support child rape, and as I said before, I'm also aware that such behaviour is not condoned by the mainstream LDS church.

Sorry, I didn't catch that refernce. My bad. The Church is.not affiliated with any of those splinter groups, so what they do or teach is not a reflection on The LDS Church.  

[Shadows-shine]

Aoife

Shadows-shine

Which is it? One God or three persons? You can't have both! The trinity was formed as a compromise in the early Church because some people in the one God only while others believed in three separate.and distinct beings. No one could agree. So thus came the trinity, one God but three persons. So confusing. Either you have three or one! And why would God need to take on different forms?

You do realize I quoted scripture, right? God Himself referred to Himself as a plural being and also as only one. People did not "make up" this triunty or Godhead on their own without searching scriptures. And you still never said what YOU think, only attacked what I think.

Actually, it was made up. I will cite my source next time I am an actual computer rather yhan my phone. And I quoted scripture to support my belief already. No, I do not believe in the trinity. Three separate beings!  

[Garland-Green]

Shadows-shine

Garland-Green

Shadows-shine

He did dig up the brass plates containing the record of the Book of Mormon. And the Urim and Thummim were not a giant pair of spectatcles..... They were stones. Some thing similiar is described in the Old Testament I believe. Aaron, Moses' brother used a set too.

What happened to his golden plates, and how did he manage to carry them?
From what I gather the stones were set in a pair of silver frames... They would have the appearance of spectacles. This is not how the Urim and Thummin was used in the Old Testament.


They were objects connected with the breastplate of the high priest, and used as a kind of divine oracle. Since the days of the Alexandrian translators of the Old Testament it has been asserted that mean "revelation and truth" (δήλωσις καὶ ἀλήθεια), or "lights and perfections" (φωτισμοὶ καὶ τελεότητες); the τελειότης καὶ διδαχή of Symmachus (Jerome, "perfectio et doctrina"; Field, "Hexapla" on Deut. xxxiii. 8]; and the φωτισμοί καὶ τελειώσεις of Aquila and Theodotion. The Vulgate has "doctrina [after Symmachus; Old Latin, "ostensio" or "demonstratio"] et veritas." There is, however, no foundation for such a view in the Bible itself. Ex. xxviii. 13-30 describes the high-priestly ephod and the breastplate with the Urim and Thummim. It is called a "breastplate of judgment" ("ḥoshen ha-mishpaṭ"); it is four-square and double; and the twelve stones were not put inside the ḥoshen, but on the outside. It is related in Lev. viii. 7-8 that when, in compliance with the command in Ex. xxix. 1-37, Moses consecrated Aaron and his sons as priests, "He [Moses] put upon him [Aaron] the coat, and girded him with the girdle, and clothed him with the robe, and put the ephod upon him, and he girded him with the cunningly woven band [A. V. "curious girdle"] of the ephod, and bound it unto him therewith. And he put the breastplate upon him: and in the breastplate he put the Urim and the Thummim." Deut. xxxiii. 8 (R. V.), in the blessing of Moses, reads: "And of Levi he said: Thy Thummim and thy Urim are with thy godly one, whom thou didst prove at Massah, with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah" (see Steuernagel, "Deuteronomium," p. 125, Göttingen, 1898; Bertholet, "Deuteronomium," p. 106, Freiburg, 1899; Driver, "Deuteronomy," in "International Critical Commentary," p. 398, New York, 1895; Baudissin, "Gesch. des Alttestamentlichen Priesterthums," p. 76). The most important passage is I Sam. xiv. 41, where Wellhausen and Driver have corrected the text, on the basis of the Septuagint, to read as follows: "And Saul said: Lord, God of Israel, why hast thou not answered thy servant this day? If this iniquity be in me or in Jonathan my son, Lord, God of Israel, give Urim; but if it be in thy people Israel, give Thummim. Then Jonathan and Saul were taken by lot; and the people escaped" (Driver, "Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel," p. 89, Oxford, 1890; Budde, "The Books of Samuel," in Polychrome Bible, p. 63; H. P. Smith, "The Books of Samuel," p. 122; Kirkpatrick, "The First Book of Samuel," in "The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges," 1891, p. 137).

- jewishencyclopedia

Urim and Thummim Exodus 28:30 And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and Thummim; they shall be upon Aaron's heart when he goeth in before the Lord. The Urim and Thummim was God's way of answering His people. Urim (אורים) means

[the] Seer Stone was the shape of an egg though not quite so large, of a gray cast something like granite but with white stripes running around it. It was transparent but had no holes, neither on the end or in the sides
fairmormon.org

As a chastisement for this carelessness [loss of the 116 pages], the Urim and Thummim was taken from Smith. But by humbling himself, he again found favor with the Lord and was presented a strange oval-shaped, chocolate colored stone, about the size of an egg, but more flat which it was promised should answer the same purpose. With this stone all the present book was translated
fairmormon.org

Lucy M. Smith, mother of Joseph Jr., described them as "two smooth, three-cornered diamonds set in glass, and the glasses were set in silver bows, which were connected with each other...as old fashioned spectacles."

The Old Testament seems to indicate that the urim and thummin faded from use during the early days of Israel’s monarchy, and are only referred to once after the Babylonian exile. This may be so because the institution of monarchy God inaugurated the office of prophet. The prophets now participated in God’s heavenly court and communicated God’s messages to the courts in Jerusalem and Samaria. Apparently prophets who revealed God’s word to the king replaced the urim and thummin, through which He revealed His mind to the priest. Nevertheless, we still find Ezra using this device to determine the ancestry of the priests who returned from the exile in Ezra 2:63. After this the Bible never mentions the urim and thummin again. God did not preserve it for His people. They are one more allowance from God to assist His people at a certain point in history.”

The plates maybe weighed about 25 pounds, so a grown man certainly would've been able to carry them. And no one knows what happened to the plates. It's been rumored they were taken up to heaven. Like the arc of the covenant. Yet no one seems to question that mystery.

Lots of people question it. There are several theories as to what happened to the arc of the Covenant. Many are plausible in light of Jewish history.
Finding The arc of the Covenant though is less significant then finding the gold plates, since a whole religion is based on their existence. The Bible has other corroborating evidence that makes it unnecessary to have that arc as proof.

Joseph Smith wrote in the Wentworth Letter that the plates were "six inches by eight inches long." Martin Harris and David Whitmer remembered 7 by 8 inches. Joseph Smith wrote that the plates were "something near six inches in thickness." Harris remembered it being about four inches.

Take Joseph Smith's estimate of 6 inches by 8 inches by 6 inches, and that gives us 288 cubic inches. Metallurgist Read H. Putnam, in an Improvement Era article in September 1966, wrote that a "solid block of gold totaling 288 cubic inches would weigh a little over 200 pounds.

How heavy were Joseph Smith's "Golden Plates"?

Besides that there were no ancient civilizations that would have done this type of metallurgy at the time that Joseph Smith suggests in America. There is not traces after these people found. No civilization, and definitively non as large as those that Joseph Smith claimed that would disappear without a trace.