is every rule - both official and unofficial - of the morg designed specifically to take all the joy out of life?

Yes indeed. When I stopped going and had two or three visits from LDS "friends," I would just tell them this line and say that I wasn't happy, I wasn't feeling the "joy." I knew there was no use in discussing anything more meaningful or useful than that with them. (They are impervious to any other knowledge.) I didn't tell them that I was burned out on all the doing and busyness and early morning meetings before the late morning meetings, the assignments, tasks, jobs, service, requests, et cetera, et cetera. I struggled with feeling like a selfish bastard for quite a while, squirming under a guilt that I knew was false (because it was the church talking); and I was finding out daily through reading just how false and pernicious the guilt and the church were.

Interesting, but aside from helping me move my family once (out of three times), the church never did much for us, especially when actual aid and comfort would have been appreciated, i.e., when my wife got so sick she was hospitalized, when my son had a seizure, and when my other son was in the hospital on life support (that last time a counselor from the bishopric in which I served showed up in all his bumbling ineffectualness and awkward inarticulacy). We got more help and sympathy those times from the lowdown non-member people at work than I got from the church. I never thought about that before. Wtf was I thinking?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M-bH3YGsTo

Think of it as Joy being the name of a real hot 14 year old Ole Joe knew. Now it makes sense...

On the one hand they say "man is that he might have joy."

On the other hand they say, "endure to the end."

As usual they are playing both sides of the fence.

There's two things I like about the Church: it's face.

Good point: "Have joy in the church! It's such a great way to live and raise a family! Rah-Rah!"

and

"Endure to the end. Don't falter, don't be selfish, don't be weak; have integrity, be virtuous; go to the Temple; magnify your calling; be a fisher of men; every member a missionary; do not associate with any critics of the church; don't buy anything or go out on the Sabbath; pray unceasingly; read your scriptures everyday; do family home evening; family prayer in the morning, at meals, before bed; serve others--when you are in the service of others you serve God; the Bishop is the Lord's representative."

No head trips in any of that, right?

It's all testing and drudgery and endurance now, with the big payoff after you're dead. Woo-hoo! The church can promise anything and not have to deliver anything -- while blaming you for not being happy, you unfaithful, unworthy wretch.