Ten Questions - Interview with the Stake Presidency

[_Inconceivable]

1) Have you ever heard of the Mormon church and would you like to know more?

2) In light of what we both now know of the verifyable history of the Mormon church, how do you define personal..

a) integrity
b) honesty
c) morality
d) fidelity in marriage
e) situational ethics
f) loyalty

3) If Jesus were to appear to you this very moment and request you tell him what you know, knowing that he has a perfect knowledge of what you know, would you bear your "prophet, book, church, savior" Mormon testimony? Or would you have cause to reflect in a more deliberate manner before answering?

4) Will God hold you accountable for being unwilling to evaluate historical truths?

5) Which is the test, to call a spade a spade or to learn to overlook the true nature of a spade and call it by another name?

6) Where do you believe Jesus will be seen first when he returns, walking the halls of Mormon temples giving counsel to a prophet (which, it is assumed he has been doing) or organizing a relief effort to feed and shelter his millions of forsaken, starving and diseased children? If the latter, why have the funds yet to be allocated?

7) Will you recognize Him when He returns? If so, describe the determining factors of his true identity. Why will you know as apposed to others? Who will not recognize Him and why?

8) Is "milk before meat" just another way of infering that situational ethics are an eternal principle?

[_Boaz & Lidia]

Billy,

You have much more knowledge and are more capable at responding to our type of questions than most of the unwitting stake presidencies out there, and you know that.

We already know what their responses would be to our questions and we already know what your mo'plausiblistic response will be, so why even try?

The membership of the Mormon church is comprised of the deceived and the deceivers. Which one are you?

[_Inconceivable]

The membership of the Mormon church is comprised of the deceived and the deceivers. Which one are you?

#9 (above)

#10 Someday your children will ask, "when did you know?" and "why didn't you tell me?" - What will you tell them and what do you think their response will be?

[_beastie]

beastie wrote:
1. What do you think the impact would be on wards if individual members took upon themselves the role of ferreting out closet nonbelievers and attempting to ascertain if those same nonbelievers are trying to undermine other people's faith, or if they are simply trying to resolve troubling issues, in order to expose them and force them out of the church?


I'll only ask them that question if you provide me with your real name and your bishop's and stake president's phone number. You can send the information in a PM. It'll be our little secret.

Bzzzt! Wrong answer!! Sadly, your Super Duper Countenance Detector appears rusty.

I don’t have a “bishop” because I’m not a member of the LDS church. See, I had the luxury of actually being “allowed” to not only stop attending a church in which I no longer believed, but even having my name removed from its rolls because I, unlike so many others, wasn’t in a situation where I was being controlled and manipulated by LDS family members.

Since you don’t like that question, I’ll offer another:

1. Why didn’t God create a strong case for his One True Church? Members of the One True Church are more apt to be persuaded by soft spoken, measured “anti-mormons seeking to destroy the church from within” when the things that the anti-Mormon talks about are actually true. In case your SP needs an example, here are a couple:

A – it would be much easier to defend faith from soft spoken destroyers if the answer to “Joseph Smith married other men’s wives” could simply be “NO, this is an anti-Mormon LIE and I can prove it!!” rather than to have to admit it’s actually true, and then work on constructing some justification for it.

B – likewise, it would be easier to defend the faith from soft-spoken destroyers if the answer to “the papyri from which the Book of Abraham was translated has been discovered, and is a common funerary document” could be “NO, this is an anti-Mormon lie and I can prove it!!”

Hopefully these examples clarify my question.

[_Who Knows]

Ok, here's a few:

1 - Do you agree with Joseph Smith's views on the origins of native americans, and on Book of Mormon geography? Specifically, Joseph Smith taught (see the wentworth letter) that the Americas were first settled by group that came from the Tower of Babel (the Jaredites), and that after the first group was destroyed, the second group (the Lehites) succeeded them in the inheritance of the Americas? If you agree with Joseph Smith's teachings, how do you reconcile this with modern day evidence that the Americas were inhabited long before the Jaredites or Lehites arrived in the Americas? Or, was Joseph Smith wrong in his teachings?

note: If you want to refer to Joseph Smith's teachings as given in the wentworth letter, you will need to look for the letter outside of the new Joseph Smith manual (as the Wentworth letter has been reprinted in it's entirety in the manual, except for the few lines containing Joseph Smith's teachings regarding the origin of the inhabitants of the americas - which has been deleted).

2 - Joseph Smith claimed he translated some egyptian characters on facsimile 3 (specifically the characters above the heads of the figures in that facsimile). Modern day egyptologists (including LDS egyptologists) translate those characters differently. Do you agree with Joseph Smith's translations of those characters, or do you agree with the modern day translations per the egyptologists? If you agree with Joseph Smith, how do you reconcile his translations, with modern day translations? If you agree with the modern day translations, was Joseph Smith just wrong?

3 - Do you think that Joseph Smith could actually find buried treasure by looking at a seer stone placed in his hat? Or, do you believe Joseph Smith just really thought he could find buried treasure, even thought he probably couldn't? Or do you believe that Joseph Smith didn't think he could actually find buried treasure? Or do you have alternative explanations?

[_guy sajer]

Is physical death a just punishment for disobedience?

If say, your son left the Mormon church , or otherwise failed to heed or obey God's prophet, would it be just to kill him?

Would it be, moreover, just to kill his children as well?

If your answer to the above is Yes, how do you square this with the commandment "thou shalt not kill?" How do you square this with morality in general?

If your answer is No, how do you square this with the story of Noah's flood, or with the mass killings that preceded Jesus' visit to the American Continent?

[_harmony]

Another one: If God will take any prophet who leads the church astray from the earth, how do you explain that Joseph Smith was the only prophet to die at a young age from unnatural causes?

[_Scottie]

1. What do you think the impact would be on wards if individual members took upon themselves the role of ferreting out closet nonbelievers and attempting to ascertain if those same nonbelievers are trying to undermine other people's faith, or if they are simply trying to resolve troubling issues, in order to expose them and force them out of the church?

This was Gold!!!

I love you Beastie!!

[_SatanWasSetUp]

1. Is it possible that the church might not be true?

If the answer to this is no, is it even worth asking any more questions?

[_Some Schmo]

- Do you believe that family comes before the church? If so, would you encourage a faithful family member to leave the church if you were told that it would assist in his/her family's harmony, or would prevent a divorce?

- Is arriving at truth based on feelings better than arriving at truth based on evidence?

- Is a raped girl worth marrying?

- Why is Jesus late for his second coming?

- What's the difference between your spiritual witness and those of the millions of good people attending other religions?

- Doesn't god seem petty to you? Why would he concern himself at all with earrings and tattoos when considering the eternal destiny of his children? Does that sound like the kind of thing an omniscient intelligence would worry about?

- Does god punish people through natural disasters? If so, why does he have no problem with all that collateral damage? Do tsunamis and hurricanes only kill the wicked?