Golden Tablets

==Historical==
According to Latter Day Saint belief, the golden tablets (also called the gold tablets or in some 19th-century literature, the golden book) are the source from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, a sacred text of the faith. Some witnesses described the plates as weighing from 30 to 60 pounds (14 to 27 kg), golden in color, and composed of thin metallic pages engraved with hieroglyphics on both sides and bound with three D-shaped rings. 
Smith said that he found the plates on September 22, 1823, on a hill near his home in Manchester, New York, after the angel Moroni directed him to a buried stone box. He said that the angel prevented him from taking the plates but instructed him to return to the same location in a year. He returned to that site every year, but it was not until September 1827 that he recovered the plates on his fourth annual attempt to retrieve them. He returned home with a heavy object wrapped in a frock, which he then put in a box. He allowed others to heft the box but said that the angel had forbidden him to show the plates to anyone until they had been translated from their original "reformed Egyptian" language.
Smith dictated the text of the plates while a scribe wrote down the words which would later become the Book of Mormon. Eyewitnesses to the process said Smith translated the plates, not by looking directly at them, but by looking through a transparent "seer stone" in the bottom of his hat, similar to modern-day glasses. Smith published the first edition of the translation in March of 1830 as the Book of Mormon, with a print run of 5,000 copies at a production cost of $3,000 (or 60 cents per book).
Smith eventually obtained testimonies from 11 men who said that they had seen the plates, known as the Book of Mormon witnesses. After the translation was complete, Smith said that he returned the plates to the angel Moroni; thus they could never be examined. Latter Day Saints believe the account of the golden plates as a matter of faith, and critics often assert that either Smith manufactured them himself or that the Book of Mormon witnesses based their testimony on visions rather than physical experience.
==Current==
And so it would have remained. Except they came back. In 2017 a set of golden plates identical to the ones "witnessed" by Smith and his 11 witnesses appeared on the altar of the famously ugly Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City. The difference being that they could be read, directly, but only by the Gifted of the Enlightenment Movement and women.
They did not say what the Book of Mormon said they said. The doctrine taught on the plates was very different.
They were immediately declared a trick of Satan. Some push and pull resulting in the plates ending up in the hands of the now called Enlightened LDS Church. They subjected the plates to testing by Professor Emeritus Dr James Smythe of Stanford University. As requested he has made public the result of his examination.
Dr Smythe Reported: "The text of the plates aside I can assert the following facts.
*The plates while golden in color are not made of gold, but rather a substance refereed to as Nethermetal. This substance is called the bones of the inner planes including the afterlife.
*There is a palatable aura of Holy power about the plates. They are Good in nature.
*The language is decipherable. It is a known planer tongue called "Celestial". It is commonly used by beings of light, such as angels. 
*We will not answer to the content of the plates. That is for others to determine. What we can conclude is they are Holy, written in a Holy language, upon Holy materials.
This did not make the Apostles of the LDS happy in the least. They are still demanding the return of the plates that they do not believe, and do not want. Mainly so they can keep anyone else from reading them.
==Fallout==
As a result of this the LDS church has fractured like broken glass. The shattered shards each claiming to be the whole and in the process of arguing shattering further. While claiming roughly eight million members in the United States (real numbers are smaller, they never let you go) they are no longer a block.
*The Enlightened LDS Church accepts the plates as true and has severely altered their practices to aline with them.<P>In general Joseph Smith is no longer accepted as a prophet, although his church has outgrown those early days.</P><P>The practice of clerical magic is the accepted sign that you are right with God, and required to teach in the Church. Ergo the CLDS apostles are not right with God.</P><P>They seek to claim the Salt Lake City Temple from other sects.
*The Conservative LDS Church is the one we are all familial with. Grub all the money. They are the ones under investigation for financial hanky-panky.</P><P>They accept the Prophethood of Joseph Smith and the Apostles as the living prophets of God.</P><P>These new golden tables as the work of the Devil (We don't use that "S" word any more) and must not be trusted.
*The Fundamentalist LDS Church was formerly the Conservative church, all the terms have slipped.</P><P>While right in line with Joe Smith as the only true prophet they believe the LDS Church has over liberalized.</P><P>Such Churches have generally maintained communion with the Salt Lake City Church even if they lobby for a return to purer ways. The Federal Government getting out of the business of telling you who and how to marry has brought up a call to return to the polygamous ways of old.
*True Fundamentalist LDS Churches These were formerly know as the Fucking Later Day Scumbags. They practice pure Book of Mormon and then some.</P><P>These sects located on the fringes of Utah and even into other states are semi to totally fortified, insular, and under the control of their one true prophet.</P><P>They to not accept the apostles of Salt Lake City and don't even bring up the tablets. They would take over if they thought they could.
This represents the major divisions caused largely by the appearance of the golden tablets. Some are divisions that existed before this event and are pushed further out by the event. And it by no means covers every fringe breakaway there is. The Conservative branch is bleeding white trying to hang on to Church property, while the Church fractures around them.
The actions of certain states to remove the blanket tax exemption just because you claim religion is further threatening the LDS church. Their first year tax bill in California alone was a significant bump in government revenue. The Entire west coast and other states are moving in this direction. Texas was a major blow.
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