Spiritual experiences, miracles and why they don't mean anything to me now

While I don't deny people have had spiritual experiences, I can't help but wonder whether they were from God or not. Some of the experiences I've heard about could easily have just been someone recognizing needs and meeting them, whether consciously or subconsciously. Some could be the holy ghost or they could be chemicals in your body making you feel or experience something when you had a desire to feel good about something anyway. This is why I struggle when I hear about someone else's experiences. They aren't mine so I can't help but wonder whether they came from God or whether someone just thought they were from God. You might feel confident they were from God but why should I feel confident they were? Why should I believe that you haven't tricked yourself into believing they were from God? And if I should believe you why shouldn't I believe people from other churches that have spiritual confirmations their church is the only true one. My Bishop told me about a spiritual experience he had while doing a service project, the problem, for me, was that everyone who does service feels the same things he was saying he felt. Maybe that's God making us feel good for helping each other or maybe it's chemicals in our brains, this video explains the chemicals in our brains and how we can make them release by doing things for other people, like service https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReRcHdeUG9Y

For years now I've held onto an experience with tithing I had as a possible witness, but when I'm honest with myself it seems like it could easily have been dumb luck. I knew the department I worked in was doing bonuses. I honestly didn't think I would get one since I had started in October and I knew the bonuses were for the year. I knew my boss was doing meetings with people to discuss them on a Friday in March or something, for some reason, I can't remember why, I left a little early that Friday and didn't have a chance to meet with my boss. That Sunday was a fast Sunday so we fasted and prayed and payed $300 in tithing so we could get an extra $3000 to help with our yard. Monday, I went to work and saw a message on my desk phone from Friday. My boss had wanted to meet with me Friday but since I left early, he left a message and asked me to meet with him as soon as I could on Monday. I met with him and he told me I was getting a $2900 bonus. At the time that felt like a huge miracle, now let me explain why I now think it was dumb luck. When I started at my current job I also started in mid-October. When they did bonuses at my current job, I was told I wasn't getting anything because I had started in October, if I had started a few weeks earlier in September I would have been eligible for a bonus. This reinforced the thought that the bonus at the first company was a miracle. Recently I've learned about "financial years" and how each company can have a slightly different scheduled for their financial year. Some companies start in January, others might start in December or February. At my first company, their Q3 ends each year on October 27th, I started on October 24th, my current companies Q3 ends September 15th, I started on October 27th. So I started before the end of Q3 at my first job and in the middle of Q4 at my current job. So, perhaps God stepped in and gave us money when we asked for it, perhaps he knew we were going to ask so he orchestrated things so I would be there early enough to qualify for the bonus, or perhaps I just didn't understand how finances at big companies worked and because I had started in Q3 at my first job I was eligible for a bonus and since the bonuses there typically ran in the 10-20k range a 3k bonus for the last quarter for the year was exactly what I should have expected and it was just dumb luck that we felt like 3k was all we needed for our yard (even though after taxes and tithing we really only had closer to half of what we asked for when we needed it). My point is, that experience sure felt supernatural at the time, but now that I have some context it looks like a coincidence. And maybe that's how all of God's miracles work, we give someone a blessing and some and the pain goes away. Was it the blessing or the tylenol, or was the the miracle and the blessing just helped us connect with the divine before getting the miracle?

Science can explain nearly everything in the universe with a few consistent theories. The theories don't contradict or invalidate each other, there might be a few rules about things like the speed of light but basically everything can be explained in a consistent way without contradictions until right before the big bang. Then before that they have to use a different theory for a few things. So, we have 2 contexts/theories to explain the universe and scientists feel confident they will eventually narrow it down to 1 theory. Why can't God explain everything about the church with one theory? Why do I have to have one theory for each individual issue that conflicts with theories for other issues? That seems really weird and almost manipulative to suggest that God made a huge mess so we would have to have faith, shouldn't everything make sense so you could use that as an evidence for your faith? I'm sure every family is different but growing up the God I was taught about wouldn't have setup the church like this, maybe that's a failing on my parents and the wards I grew up in. Maybe that's a failing in how the gospel works, everyone can understand it drastically different. Take D&C 132 19-26 I look at that and can easily reason that because I've been sealed in the temple I don't need to keep any commandments any more except the one to not murder. My salvation is guaranteed at this point. It doesn't matter if I drink some beer, pay tithing or even commit adultery. It does say I'll suffer between death and the first resurrection, but after that I'm good. Others look at that scripture and despite the fact that verse 19 says the person performing the sealing is doing it by the holy spirit of promise if they are anointed, they say that what it really means is that we have to work  to live a good life so that the spirit will seal the sealing. Who's right? That's a drastic example, we can find smaller ones like families that don't drink coke because they think it's against the word of wisdom, and families that do drink coke because it's not a hot drink or tea/coffee. Who's right? (Now, I know the typical LDS person would say, that's what the prophet is for, but we know the prophets got the black priesthood ban wrong, we know prophets got polygamy wrong, we know the prophets got landing on the moon and the civil rights movement wrong, why should we think they got it right when it comes to a sealing by the holy spirit of prophesy or coke?)

In the past few months, I've learned that Joseph Smith tried to translate at least 5 different ancient documents. The Book of Mormon, The Book of Abraham, The Bible, The Kinderhook plates and a Greek Psalter. The Gold plates are nowhere to be seen so we can't validate that translation, but the lack of any evidence of Nephites or Lamanites is a problem. The scrolls that Joseph used for the Book of Abraham we do have and it has been checked and it was found they matched an Egyptian book called the Book of Breathing which has nothing to do with Abraham. The Bible translation was recently found, by BYU no less, to mostly be a plagiarism of the Adam Clarke bible commentary. The Kinderhook plates were specifically created in the 1830s to see if Joseph really could translate, basically they were an intentional trick, he said he could, if I recall correctly he said they contained writings of Moses, the church has them and verified them in the 1900s and found that they indeed were fake. The Greek Psalter was also a trick, someone showed it to Joseph and said "I think it's just a Greek psalter but what do you think" and Joseph said it was a dictionary in reformed Egyptian. So, from what we can tell Joseph either lied or didn't understand the revelation he was getting for 4 out of 5 translations. Why should I just believe he got it right on the Book of Mormon? And, as so many prophets over the past 200 years have said, the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion, if it falls, the church falls, so while all the other stuff is concerning and difficult to swallow, the fact that I've never had a witness of the book of Mormon is crushing, and when I see the mountain of evidence against it, I need a lot more than a warm feeling to help me believe. 

Hopefully that helps you understand a little better what I'm struggling with. I've had "spiritual experiences", and I've seen "miracles", but they are easily explained away with misunderstanding the world around me. The Book of Mormon my whole life was passed off as the physical evidence that God provided to show the church is true. But when "Mormoni's promise" doesn't ever work for me and when everything else Joseph did was fraudulent, it sure seems like the Book of Mormon is just another made up book that hasn't been proven a lie because Joseph was smart enough to destroy any left over evidence.