Before you all say, I know this is futile but I think it'll be fun.


Before I sent in my resignation I made a huge list of questions/ problems I had witht he church. I had my bishop round and he couldnt answer any of them.
Then, out of the blue today I got a message saying the ward had found someone experienced enough to answer my questions. I thought it would be some high priest or stake pres but it's a missionary!!!!!!!! hahaha. I spoke to this guy on the phone and he said that he's had much experience with such questions and is willing to answer anything I can ask.

Anyway, please feel free to subit your toughest questions/problems with the church!


x

1. Why does God need a shopping mall 82.5 times more (differential between the City Creek Mall expenditure and the amount spent on humanitarian aid in the last 25 years) than he needs to feed the starving children in Africa?

why do you have a ferret hanging halfway out of your ass?

Why did Joseph Smith marry 11 women who already had husbands and why did he only have children with one wife when D&C 132 commands him to use polygamy to have children with all his wives?

A: He only married those women to take care of them while their husbands were away.

Follow up question: Why couldn't he just give them the material things they needed like every other pastor did at the time? What was he giving them that required marriage?

Why doesn't the church display the original papyri from which Joseph Smith fake-translated the Book of Abraham?

Why did the church change the temple ceremony when the Restoration was established especially to restore the original temple ceremony which was corrupted/lost by Catholics?

If the Book of Mormon is true, why don't the American Indian Lamanites have Jewish DNA?

Were the Mormon prophets all wrong all these years about the American Indians being the descendants of the Lamanites. BTW, who are those descendants for whom the Book of Mormon was primarily written?

If the Book of Mormon is the most perfect book, and the Bible is not translated correctly, why do the GA's now say that the perfection in it is the truths it contains from the Bible?

In MOses it says that all things are created spiritually before they were created physically. In the Book of Genesis, it has body coming before the spirit was breathed into it by God. I was told there were no conflicts between the BOM and the Bible. How do you reconcile this?

and so many more!

Anagrammy

2. If John the Baptist then later the Apostles Peter, James and John had "restored" the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods why didn't Joseph Smith or Oliver Cowdery say or record anything about it for FIVE years.
For example they forgot to mention it at key events like the organization of the church in April 1830 but did suddenly recall it in 1834 at the time of a credibility crisis.

Mormies are so excited about the priesthood authority, but can't even come up with its origins.

Why did Joseph violate the terms of D & C 132?

The first wife is supposed to give her consent. Emma did not know about the other women, and did not give her consent.

The additional wife(wives) must be virgins. 11 of them were married to other men at the time.

Not just "minor" grammatical corrections, but WHOLE PARAGRAPHS removed and/or reworded.

Why is it a pimply teenager has to recite the sacrament prayer four times because he stuttered halfway through, but the church via divine inspiration (ie mass member surveys) can dramatically change on multiple occasions the most critical, invaluable ritual to transform a mere peasant into a (possibly) exalted being? God changed his mind?

Also maybe ask him to explain the remarkable similarities between the book of abraham and egyptian PAGAN funeral death scrolls.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2012 10:20AM by apatheist.

Supermissionary will attempt to answer your questions with the usual song and dance, but at a certain point he'll become exasperated, throw up his hands, bear his testimony and tell you to pray.

Let us know what happens.

Steel, horses, barley etc, etc, etc in BoM

If man is created in God's image, and everything produces after its own kind, how do Heavenly Father and his wives only produce spirit children? Aren't They purported to be physical beings?

A seminary teacher told me that resurrected bodies were "perfect" because all of the blood had been replaced with "celestial fluids". He said this is why it made them immortal - because every cause of death is related to blood. Blood = mortality. He also said this is why children born of two celestial beings would be a spirit, because the mother doesn't *bleed* once a month, she *leaks celestial fluids*. Because that's what the baby gestates in, it comes out a spirit.

I knew he was talking complete bullshit, but at least it was better than the generic "we don't know, we'll find out when we die" answer. More entertaining, anyway.

How is it that God can answer the prayer of someone who prays to find their lost keys, but not of the Holocaust children who were herded into gas chambers? Are keys more important than children? Or does God love some people enough to help them find their keys but turns a blind eye to those who died en masse at the hands of a madman?

How is it that when a Mormon goes through something difficult, (s)he is being tested or schooled, and when a non-Mormon goes through something, (s)he did something wrong and is being punished?

Multiple first vision accounts

Pretty much anything BY said (no, on second thought, the missionary will fall back on "speaking as a man")

Do polygamous Mormon men become gods ( probably need to date/time stamp his response)

No archeological verification of BoM artifacts

Finally, the mormon church has found someone who can answer those pesky questions. You know, the ones the GA's and the prophet won't answer.

It's amazing! A young boy is the one with the answers.


Be kind. They are sending in a boy to do a mans work. The men are too afraid. They are sending someone who has no idea what he's gotten himself into.

The bishop is just following the directions of a higher up to implement "reactivation procedures". In this case, that involves visiting the inactive, and actually engaging with them. The bishop is sending the missionary(ies) just to be able to say he did what he was instructed to do. He has no illusions that this missionary has any answers for you. He's just "doing his job", without having to visit you himself.

He's prolly hoping you will reveal your total apostasy and hostility, duly reported by the "authorized representative", so he can write in your church file that you are a hostile apostate.

All nice and tied up with a ribbon and a bow...

Then they can forget about you.

How does the Atonement make any sense?

Why isn't god -- who is allegedly omniscient, omnipresent, all seeing, all knowing, the beginning and the end, alpha and omega -- why isn't god capable of forgiving people of their sins without sacrificing his own kid? And, now that the deed is done and Jesus was tortured and killed to atone for our sins, why do I have to repent of anything, ever? Doesn't repentance make a mockery of Jesus's atonement? If I accept Jesus as my "savior" then what's to repent? That whole torture on the cross thing wasn't enough for god? Why not, why can't god just forgive us? He's GOD!

If I accept Jesus as my "savior" then what's to repent?

Right, but we're talking mormon christianity. Faith by grace isn't sufficient. Why? That makes the atonement make no sense.

Concerning the Greek Psalter, how can somebody who mistakes a book with the Psalms written in the languague the four canonical gospels, yes, the entire New Testament, for an Egyptian dictionary, ever be qualified to improve any Bible translation?

What qualifies you to answer theological questions? (HOW old are you, again?)

And if he does too much twistings and too many backflips and cortortions to answer ;-)
you can always go with :

"Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things." (Isaac Newton)

But if you meet with him reading Richard Packham's "To Those Who Are Investigating 'Mormonism'" would be good preparation.

http://packham.n4m.org/tract.htm

If the Book of Mormon is what it says it is and there are many prophecies promised to be fulfilled for the descendants of Father Lehi then why has nobody come forward in the past decade to claim the $1000.00 in US dollars that I've promised for the Father Lehi Descendants scholarship?



You ought to suggest that your missionary-friend go read the many temple dedicatory prayers in Latin America up through the year 2000, go read the D&C and Book of Mormon, and read the sermons in General Conferences, Journal of Discourses, Ensign, Improvement Era, Liahona, Millenial Star, History of the Church 7 volumes and Church News over the years for more on this topic before he opens his big mouth and says something that's out-of-context on this subject. The fact that LDS prophets, seers, revelators, and Apostles have spoken and written on these promises thousands of times is undeniable. Thus how hard would it be for the church president to confirm that at least one actual living human being is indeed a descendant of this Father Lehi? BTW Simon Southerton has offered to match my offer so its now $2000.00.
http://simonsoutherton.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-post.html

How can the temple cermony be from God when the ceremony comes from Masonry (as admitted on FAIR's website) and was invented in the Middle Ages and did not come from Solomon's time (also as admitted on FAIR's website).

So much for respecting the authority of THAT bishop! Not that I had any respect for the authority of any bishop, but come on.

For some reason, many members think that missionaries are taught church doctrine and history at the MTC and thus know a lot about the church.

A relative of mine said another church was showing an anti-mormon film, and one of the guys who used to be a missionary went to see what it was all about. He came back and said there was so much hogwash that he got up and walked out after 15 minutes. The relative was convinced that since a missionary said it was hogwash, then hogwash it was.

I wish I knew then what I know now. I'd tell the relative that all they learn at MTC are how to follow rules, and sales techniques.