You are a skeptic when it comes to Mormonism. If someone said that it was self evident that an angel gave Joseph Smith some golden plates, would you find that convincing? Also, it is written in Joseph Smith's own writings that these events happened.
Is it a near-universally accepted fact that people believe in these plates, who are not Mormons? (Yet I've often met skeptics for God's existence who say "Gosh, some force created all this, I know that!")
Do people commonly accept the plates when shown counter-evidence? (Whereas hundreds of millions of thoroughly modern, educated people, in different cultures worldwide, still adhere to literal Creation beliefs, and where I'm aware that LDS tends to show only those "facts" that support their prophets)
Do we have thousands of religious statements from all eras, and hundreds of thousands of poetry and prose lauds, of the plates or the majesty, power and wonder of the Creation?
Is it more reliable to take one man's word for plates, or 66 volumes written by individuals and teams over centuries, all testifying to Messianic expectations? For example, who is this person, described in 700 BCE?
Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life[d] and be satisfied[e];
by his knowledge[f] my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,[g]
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,[h]
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
