The leadership of the church engages with the world exactly how you would expect a group of old, entitled, out-of-touch and bubble encased men would. I see no evidence whatsoever that they communicate with the creator of the universe in any meaniful way. Even though I'm sure many of them are perfectly nice grandpas.
And #2, the rise of every single religion of which I am aware is remarkably similar. From how they start, to how they grow (if they make it that far), to how their adherents become adherents, to the general claims they make, they all hit certain checkpoints while also generally contradicting each other wildly. Mormonism is not special.
But be all that as it may I don't think there is or ever will be a smoking gun. As a believer I justified and rationalized many of the things listed here and I don't think I was particularly ill informed or stupid (opinions on that may vary
)I'm reminded of Westworld when hosts were shown something outside their programming.
"It doesn't look like anything to me"
Showing a list of facts may help some see clearly but for others (like myself) it took a journey of deconstructing some pretty hefty worldviews.
