Just about anything can be made to look ridiculous depending on context and/or experience. That is, a person’s experience determines what appears “sensible” or “ridiculous” to them. Today, we judge just about everything based on our knowledge of science and the scientific method. This causes us to look at anything that appears to have no root in science as suspect. This is perfectly reasonable, since we all must come to conclusions and make assumptions based on the information available to us that appears to be most reliable, and that’s what science provides for us. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that this will always lead us to correct conclusions.

I guess that’s my way of saying that just because something seems ridiculous or highly improbable doesn’t mean it’s not true or correct. The trouble with using a mental construct such as Occam’s Razor is that it is only useful to the extent that we possess complete and correct information, and of course there is a wealth of information we still do not possess.

That said, if I weren’t Mormon, and I was early in the stages of researching the Mormon faith and read all the controversial and “weird” stuff about Joseph Smith, I might be turned off from investigating further. Or I might be turned on to investigating further, but perhaps out of curiosity rather than as a serious attempt to determine its validity.

I’m 100% certain I don’t look at my religion objectively, since I’m human and none of us is capable of looking at anything in a truly objective way. I guess the real question is whether I see things clearly enough to make decisions that lead to the results that meet my long-term needs. I do believe Mormonism meets my long-term (i.e. eternal) needs, as well as short-term needs. But most of the evidence for that comes from my experience as a Mormon, while the rest is mental conjecture. For someone outside the religion looking in, they would need to exercise a bit of faith to make it past the weird stuff, I’m sure.

Not sure that answers your question, but let me know.

For example, say you were trying to determine if religion x was true or not. (anything not LDS) And you looked into their history and saw that their founder liked to marry the wives of his male followers, pretended to translate Egyptian and believed one could find buried treasure using magic sticks and rocks. I’m guessing that would be enough for you and you would move on to investigating religions y and z. Am I right?

So, how can you be sure that you’re able to look at your religion objectively?