Many of the above statements are incorrect. It is true that most
Mormons do not know about the
Kinderhook Plates though. Joseph Smith made no claim of translating the plates. The statement above ("I (Joseph Smith) have...") is taken from the "The History of Joseph Smith". The original statement is from the journal of someone else. A common practice of biographers was to combine other people's journals and then switch to the first person. There is no proof that the plate that appered in the 1920s is actually one of the
kinderhook plates either. One really strange part of the story is that the only guy to ever tell the story did so like 36 years after the supposed incident, after everyone else involved was dead. Either way, if you want to prove that Joseph Smith was a fraud it seems it could be done easily by just attacking his major work,
The Book of Mormon. There are some good
anti-mormon arguments. This isn't one of them.
A quick aside: I love that unlike any other religions, Mormons are supposed to know some of the strangest things. How many members of other religions are familiar with such minutiae? Why would any Mormon care about the Kinderhook Plates? It's a story based on one line from a serial ("The History of Joseph Smith" was printed in a newspaper), with no good evidence to back it up.
A more detailed argument can be found at: http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_BMProblems.shtml. It also has responses to common questions about the Book of Mormon.
Hey, Saige updated her node. Wow, she's really got some fun anti-mormon stuff there. And I thought it was just a
cursory dislike of Mormonism. Digging through obscure texts for "contradictory" statements is always a good time. I don't think said statement meant that anyone who writes a history of the Church is accurate. I love the term "apologist". It's one of those usefull phrases that undermines the attempts of the non-critic. To judge a religion based on little things like this is ridiculous.