Absolutes

There are some people in this world (I met a lot on my mission in Germany) who will absolutely never, under any circumstances imagined or real, believe that Joseph Smith, Jr. was a prophet of God. It wouldn't matter what anybody said or found or showed them, they are incapable of the thought, or unwilling to consider it. If they discovered the Gold Plates in the attic of some old building somewhere and showed it to some Egyptologists who confirmed that every single word of the Book of Mormon was an exact translation of the plates, these people would say, "Aw, it was a lucky guess," or "The devil must have forged those plates in hell, and whispered the lies in Joseph's ear."

On the other hand, there are people in this world who would never, could never, consider the possibility that Joseph Smith was a fraud. It doesn't matter what evidence they see or what facts they find out about him. There could be video of him burning puppies alive, eating the flesh of non-believers, absolutely anything imaginable, and these people would insist that he did these things because God commanded him to, or would say, "Well, he wasn't perfect."

Then there are the seekers of truth. There are those who may even desire to believe, but who are not immune to the truth. They do whatever they can to actually know if he was what he said he was. They do not close their ears and minds when they hear any word spoken for or against this man. They are not afraid to know who he truly was, whether prophet or devil, for they desire only to know who he really was, whether he was good or bad, as long as it is correct and true. They know that the truth is the truth no matter what. No matter how much one hopes that something is true or not true, it does not change what it is. It either is true and correct or it isn't. And rather than seeking any kind of justification they can to make it still believable or deniable, these reasonable people continue on their search for reality.