You have had the good fortune never to have met a Harry Reid Mormon, who although not planning any suicide bombing would still drive you crazy with his social ideas.
It’s a worldly organization with all the faults that worldly organizations are prone to. They mostly are nice, like Moose (as in BPOM, not Mohammed) and Masons are generally nice. Nobody should be surprised.
Mormonism looks a lot like someone took a pretty much vanilla evangelical creed, changed its doctrines around a bit for variety, then stuck a science fiction saga right in the middle complete with stars and planets that can be visited. Joseph Smith could have been a very good early science fiction writer had he so purposed his pen. This is what makes it weird.
Joseph Smith and Ron L Hubbard are anti-soul brothers.
I think Joseph Smith may have plagiarized his Book of Mormon from the 1823 book View of the Hebrews by Ethan Smith, the Apocrypha, The Golden Pot, by German author E.T.A. Hoffmann, and even from dreams of his own father. Through these sources, Smith was able to weave a hodge podge of writings that has captivated the fantasies of believers for 182 years. It is interesting how science fiction has such a strong appeal.
By the way, both Scientology and Mormonism are cults. However, if I were to have a cult, it would be Mormonism because of its benevolent influence.