I grew up in Utah, and I am not mormon. I can tell you that I've met just as many A**hole mormons as I have other groups of people. They are "nice" people until they find out you have no intentions of converting, at which point they start to act just like any other group of people.
That being said, Mormon's have weird beliefs and so do other Christians, but the difference is that the Mormons i know actually believe everything without a question. These types of Christians exist, but they are called evangelicals and they scare normal Christian's.
Secondly, if you take out everything from the Bible that is fantastical, especially the old testament, you still are left with a very meaningful story, even if read as a work of fiction.
If you do this to the Book of Mormon and remove all the terrific battles against the dark skinned armies, magical swords and underwear, apocalypse warning passages, and blatant historical inaccuracies, well basically you'd have nothing except for a list of "articles of faith".