Well, the Methodists use 1st century scriptural hoaxes to bolster their views. I'm not sure if the difference of a few centuries is all that important. I'd rather see everyone just hold their views because they're their views, and not try to pass the buck onto a god.
So do you think the Bible is an actual record of historic events? I think it's just as much "forged" (i.e. made to sound like a historical record) as anything in the Book of Mormon, taking little bits of fact and spinning a good story out of it. The Bible does have the advantage of describing some events that supposedly occurred only a few decades before it was written, but even it also includes events thousands of years earlier, as if they're all equally factual.
Admittedly I'm a little puzzled how one can forge holy script, since "forged" implies there's real holy scripture from god and then there's the fake kind that imitates it--which of course is the Protestant/Catholic/Jewish mindset, but I don't believe there's any real kind to begin with.
Similarly, I think Protestant, Catholic and Jewish church officials are (and have been) running the same kind of "con game," no more and no less. That's why I'm a little hesitant to call it a con game, with the implication that there's a sharp dividing line between the con artists who disbelieve (admitting it openly and unequivably to themselves), and the victims who genuinely believe (at least on a conscious level, even if on a subconscious level they show evidence of reservations). I think it's more complicated than that, and there's more mixing and different shades of gray between the leaders and followers.
