I understand your perspective. I had similar issues growing up due to being raised JW. As a counter point to a your observations: A. I think a similar arguement could be made of the Christian Church in comparison to Jewish law. Jesus claimed to come as fulfillment of Jewish law and prophecies, yet fundamentally changed a lot of the day to day rules and practices that Jews had followed to that point. B. In a similar vein: I'm sure the gospel and preachings of Paul would seem pretty far fetched and rambling to people of his contemporary as well. He was a fairly fanatical follower with a story that was, in many ways, just as crazy and unbelievable as Mr. Smith. In addition, the early Christian Church had a major schizm and split due to the ideals that Paul preached, as opposed to the teachings of Peter, who supposedly knew Jesus personally. C. There's plenty I could go into this based on the apparently contradictory statements from the new testament, old testament, and book of Mormon regarding the subject. But that boils down to person observations, as you said, since the matter csn deviate wildly depending if you ask even folks of similar church denominations.