...the speaker starts talking about King Benjamin, Alma and Samuel the Lamanite like they were actual, real people, and do so with a straight face. That is when, even when the speaker's topic may perhaps be somewhat interesting at first, I am slapped back into the reality that these talks are a complete and total farce, and promptly change the channel.

Sorry if that sounds snide, but think of along the lines of the legal principle, "fruit of the poisonous tree." If the tree trunk is "poisonous" (the BoM, D&C, etc.) is toxic, all the fruit on the branches is, too.

I checked out of General Conference when I realized that anybody who had never met me or my ultra-TBM wife or my special needs child could ever hope to make "General" pronouncements that would have any relevance to my life. I could say the same about my Stake leadership. Unless they had dealt with my family even superficially at the ward level, their attempts to get us to "do more" were pointless.

A lot of their phony "I know a brother that had left... but he's so happy to be back." stories aren't impressing members that personally know good people that have left the church because of the lies.