And here they are:
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1. Was Joseph Smith convicted of fraud before or
after starting his new religion? (after)
2. What were the fraud charges? (money scamming)
3. How many wives did he have? (accounts vary, some missionaries will say that some girls lied about being one of his wives to get attention)
4. Did he have the polygamy revelation before or
after his (first) wife Emma caught him in the barn with their 16-17 year old
foster daughter Fannie Alger? (after. duh)
5. Why did he send married men off on
missionaries, leaving their wives at home? (so he could marry them himself)
6. Why was plural marriage determined for men
only? (women would go to hell if they had more than one husband)
7. What happened when Emma asked for more
husbands? (threatened her with hell)
8. How long did young girls have to decide to
follow Smith's "revelation" that they were to marry him? (24 hours)
9. What was the punishment if they did not
comply with the "revelations" of marriage that Smith supposedly had? (threatened them with hell)
10. How many levels of heaven are there? (7, like in islam oddly enough)
11. Who is admitted into the highest level? (married people only, and I assume they have to be "sealed" before they die)
12. How many wives can men have in heaven? (no limit)
13. How many husbands can women have? (one)
14. How do women keep busy while their husbands
are off servicing other wives? Do they
get jealous? Are they allowed sex toys
to keep from getting too lonely?
15. Where to all the extra women come from? Why are they not joined with the husbands they
had in life, or other single men who may be in the other levels of heaven?
16. If men become gods of their own planets, how
can there possibly be only "one true god" as in the bible? Do their wives count as goddesses or are they merely "companions"?
17. If this "one true god" keeps a
planet near a star called Kolob as his stomping grounds, why have astronomers
not found this star?
18. Why is there not a shred of archaological
evidence of the grand battles in North America of the "Nephites" (white people=good) against the "Lamanites" (darker people=bad)?
19. If Jesus made it to North America, why is
there no archaeological evidence?
20. DNA has proven that the "Lamanites" (Native Amercians) are NOT a lost tribe of Israel. Does this not cause you to question other
"teachings"?
21. Why did it take so long for the LDS church to
accept black people?
22. Why did god decide then to forgive Cain
millenia after causing problems? Why such
a grudge? (see question 21)
23. It has been determined that garments are NOT
bulletproof, as Smith proudly claimed.
How do you feel about this ridiculous exaggeration?
24. Do you find it odd that polygamy, #132 and
the "most sacred" revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants, was only
ended when the church was threatened with losing its church status? How can the "most sacred" anything
ever be obsoleted?
25. Why do you feel that proxy baptisms are
effective? Do you not see it as
disrespectful and against the beliefs and wishes of the deceased? It's supposed to be an "option" but
why can't an all-powerful god give that option himself? Why does the almighty need intervention from
puny mortals?
26. If mormonism is the "one true
religion", why has it not existed since the beginning of homo
sapiens? So many people are in hell
because they didn't know about this "one true religion" since they
died before the religion came into existence, never mind those in areas
dominated by other "one true" religions who will never hear about it. What would happen if mormonism declined? Explain.
27. How many people did Joseph Smith kill before
he was shot to death? How many did he
injure? (killed two, injured one)
28. Why was he in jail at the time of his death? (vandalism. he destroyed the printing press used to publish a flyer with information not in his favor)
29. How did he get a gun in jail? (it was smuggled in by a follower)
30. Can you please explain the concept of "milk before meat"?
31. What is "blood libel" and why was
it not introduced at the beginning of the religion?
32. During the translation of the Golden Plates,
who destroyed the first draft and why? (Lucy Harris hid the draft. she thought Joseph was full of shit)
33. Why is the second draft admittedly different
from the first? How could the text on
the plates have changed?
34. Why did Smith have to hide behind a curtain
to "translate" the plates to the scribe? (thanks to the scribe, we
know the second draft is not the same as the first)
35. How did Smith take a torn scrap of papyrus
depicting the embalming ritual by Horus and turn it into Abraham about to
murder Isaac as per god's orders? Did he
have a degree in ancient Egyptian history?
36. Do you suppose that Smith angered a lot of
people, and that instead of Smith being a "victim", he actually
deserved the consequences of running rough-shod over people? (see questions 5, 27-29,
31)
37. How do you think those missionaries felt
when, upon returning home, they found that Smith had taken their wives as his
own? (see question 5)
38. As for all the questions that don't have documented answers, since they have a prophet, why are they trying to answer them? Shouldn't the prophet be responsible for issuing the official word? Who are mere missionaries to even try to put words into the mouth of the prophet?
39. Please explain the details of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. (unprovoked attack on a wagon train, claim was retaliation but victims were unrelated to incident. mormons dressed as Native Americans to scapegoat them. all but the very youngest--under age 7--were executed)
40. What is the concept of "lying for the lord"? (islam has a policy of deception too, interestingly enough)
41. What makes mormons more special than other people? Jews claim to be "god's chosen people" and muslims are told repeatedly in the quran that they are the only good people. Why all the elitism, and who wins?
42. If mormons aren't better than everyone else, why bug people to convert? Live and let live and all.
43. What was up with the chalk marks on the doorsteps of certain houses in Utah? (Brigham Young marked the houses of the girls he had chosen to force into marriage)
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If you use these questions, I ask that you be polite. Most missionaries are nice people and get a lot of abuse as it is. They are mostly young people and like any theist, are likely to retreat further into delusion if they are verbally attacked. Yes I agree that ideas are not people and are not exempt from ridicule. But these are people and the intent of my questions is to make them think, and to educate them in the horrors of their religion. I can't stand ignorance or dishonesty about the histories of religions and believers who try to omit/lie about the bad stuff are particularly worthy of a face palm.
Oh and sorry for the skipping around. I'm too lazy to renumber the list :p
