The linked Wikipedia entry goes through some of the criticism of Mormonism. Including:
And it just goes on.
All this information looks pretty damning to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Is there anyway to harmonize Mormonism with objective reality?
No, but it’s a religion. Denial of reality is basic to such things. It only looks extra silly because most people haven’t been fed that particular brand of silliness since childhood.
I would respectfully suggest that a comparison of any book of scripture with our understanding of “objective reality”, or at least scientifically provable historical facts, will reflect some significant disparities.
To the extent a religion is a system of ritual and belief, demonstrating those disparities in scripture does not make the religion “false.”
Is this a rhetorical question?
Is there anyway to harmonize Christianity with objective reality?
As everyone has pointed out, if most (all?) religions are taken to be literally true, they do not stand up to scientific rigor.
Personally, Mormonism doesn’t seem any stranger than other religions, so I’m not sure why it is so often portrayed as nutty.
If you’re looking to seriously debate these issues, why not do some deeper reading on them than you’ll get on Wikipedia? And then head off to one of the myriad message boards dedicated to discussing the questions in great detail?
Or, if you’re just looking to get agreement that Mormons are crazy, you can get that most places, including here.
Religious beliefs have little to do with objective reality; that’s practically the definition of religion. Otherwise “faith” would be unnecessary.
Because it’s not the dominant religious belief in this part of the world. The Catholics and Protestants and so on have beliefs that are just as nutty as the Mormons, but being so powerful and common their nutty beliefs are taken dead seriously, and calling them nutty is seriously looked down upon.
Mormonism does appear to have a good number of false-to-fact points in its mythology. However, generally, Mormons are good people. So… meh. Admittedly, they’re ruining the Boy Scouts and CIA, but it’s self-correcting over time.
Alas, that is not how most religious people see it. Religion is useful in many ways, yes, true, no. Unless you stretch the definition of true beyond all reason, that is.
Your response would be just as correct for questions about the truth of just about any religion, don’t you think. Fortunately, when someone asks a question about the charge of an electron, he doesn’t have to be sent off to a site where fifty people argue about which of several charges is the right one.
You know, it is not necessarily true that someone question the truth of proposition X are calling the holders of X crazy. How would you feel if I accused you of calling me crazy for not believing?
Any more crazy than a loaf of bread spontaneously growing and feeding hundreds of people? Than hundreds of dead people rising from their graves all at once, looking like they did in life and being recognized by their families? Than the Earth ceasing to rotate for a few hours so a battle could be won? Than a huge boat containing at least two animals from every living species floating around for a over a month and the those individuals repopulating the Earth? It’s all crazy. Mormonism’s events just supposedly took place more recently.
I’m pretty impressed with Mormon culture and the people it has produced. They tend to be well educated and very industrious. They’re kind of like us Jews but more polite.
Is Mormonism false? Who knows? Mormonism has neither more nor less material evidence in its support of its spiritual beliefs than any other faith. Some of its historical claims are disprovable, but the same is true of Judaism, therefore of Christianity and Islam. Mormonism has, compared to other religions, a recent and highly suspicious origin story based on a set of golden plates found in a cave which only Joseph Smith and maybe a few of his closest associates ever got to see – but if you can swallow camels like the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection, why strain at gnats? Mormonism, at least, always has an out in form of a tradition of living prophets pronouncing a living (and evolving) revelation – they even had the recognized authority to ban polygamy, a practice Smith himself had decreed (and enthusiastically practiced) – so, in the face of archaelogical evidence incompatible with the Book of Mormon’s narrative of pre-Columbian America, they can always decide the BoM is being metaphorical or something. Just like the Catholics have the pope and cardinals, who can adapt doctrine and practices to contemporary sociocultural circumstances as they see fit, and have.
Again, it depends on what you mean by “false.” If the Mormons are right, all other faiths are false, or at least don’t have the whole truth. (But don’t worry, you can still be saved via posthumous Mormon baptism. 
How many religions offer a second chance like that?) If the atheists are right, then all religions are false as descriptions of the-Universe-as-it-is – but they still might contain elements that are “true,” or valuable, in a spiritual or ethical sense. I mean, who could quibble with the Noble Eightfold Path?
Aside from the outright factual errors in the Mormon Scripture (e.g., the false claims about Native American ancestry), there is the moral aspect. It wasn’t until 1978 that the Church admitted (in response to ‘revelation’ from God) that blacks were the equal of whites. Folks, that’s 14 years after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Mormons claim their prophet has a direct line to God; and yet the Church was 14 years behind *the federal government * on racial equality issues. If the US government is smarter than your God, then I have doubts about your religion.
You can line up the bizarre behaviors and beliefs that are dictated by any religion and one is goofier than than last. I was never indoctrinated into any religion, so I find them equally amusing. Some are more entertaining than others (it’s pretty tough to beat magic underwear in the grins department).
(FWIW, I was raised Mormon and attended until my early thirties, including going to Mormon-run BYU and serving a full-time mission.)
Two and a Half Inches of Fun, it seems we go through this argument here on the SDMB about once every six months or so. The prevailing sentiment is generally that Mormonism is equally as plausible (or impausible, depending on your POV) as any other religion, but has the misfortune that it makes historical and scientific claims that are easily disprovable, since it is such a new religion.
Example:
Judaism: God killed all the firstborn sons in Egypt, including the firstborn of all the livestock, after which Pharaoh let Moses’ people go.
Christianity: Jesus of Nazareth rose from his tomb two days after his death and appeared to several hundred people before ascending into heaven.
Mormonism: From 600BC-400AD, there was a thriving civilization in America, complete with horses, paved roads and steelmaking. These people were descended from the Jews.
Scientology: Xenu sent the Thetans to Earth in spaceships that looked like DC-8s. They deposited the Thetans around several volcanoes, then blew up the volcanoes with nuclear weapons, thus dispersing them all over the world.
While these claims may vary in how absurd they seem to us, I think that’s probably a result of our background and biases. The big difference between them is that the Mormon claim can be contradicted, or at least be shown to have a conspicuous lack of support, through modern archaeology.
Just don’t nobody start knocking us Druids. We make sense!
Can’t find a cite, but I read once that it took until 1972 for the RCC to drop its official position that the Jews killed Christ and all Jews inherit the guilt.
There once was a daring young Druid
Whose manner of living was luid
He’d engage Druid lasses
In small talk – no passes –
But the next thing they knew they’d been scruid!
– either Isaac Asimov or John Ciardi, I’m not sure which