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FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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|subject=Response to Questions 29-58 | |subject=Response to Questions 29-58 | ||
|summary= | |summary= | ||
+ | |sublink1=Response to claim: "1. If Gods are individuals who have passed through mortality and have progressed to Godhood, how has one person of the Trinity (the Holy Spirit) attained Godhood without getting a body?" | ||
+ | |sublink2=Response to claim: "2. If Gods are individuals who have passed through an earth life to attain Godhood, how is it that one person of the Trinity (Jesus Christ) was God before He received a body or passed through earth life?" | ||
+ | |sublink3=Response to claim: "3. If the Book of Mormon really contains the fullness of the Gospel, why does it not teach the doctrine of 'eternal progression'?" | ||
+ | |sublink4=Response to claim: "4. God said, 'Is there a God beside me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any'. How can there be Gods who are Elohim’s ancestors?" | ||
+ | |sublink5=Response to claim: "5. How can any men ever become Gods when the Bible says, 'Before me there was no god formed, neither shall there be after me'?" | ||
+ | |sublink6=Response to claim: "6. If Adam is the 'only God with whom we have to do', did Adam create himself?" | ||
+ | |sublink7=Response to claim: "7. Joseph Smith stated that without the ordinances and authority of the priesthood no man can see the face of God and live...How did he see God and survive?" | ||
+ | |sublink8=Response to claim: "8. If a spirit is a being without a body (See Luke 24:39), why do Mormons teach that God the Father has a body of flesh and bones?" | ||
+ | |sublink9=Response to claim: "9. If the Father is Elohim and Jesus is Jehovah (as the Mormons teach), how does a Mormon explain Deuteronomy 6:4, which in the Hebrew says, 'Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our Elohim is one Jehovah'?" | ||
+ | |sublink10=Response to claim: "10. If the Book of Mormon contains the fullness of the Gospel, why doesn’t it teach that God was once a man?" | ||
+ | |sublink11=Response to claim: "11. If Mormonism is the restored church, which is based upon the Bible, why are Mormon leaders so quick to state that the Bible is “translated wrong” when faced with some conflict between the Bible and Mormonism?" | ||
+ | |sublink12=Response to claim: "12. If Jesus was conceived as a result of a physical union between God and Mary, how was Jesus born of a virgin?" | ||
+ | |sublink13=Response to claim: "13. Why did Christ not return in 1891 as Joseph Smith predicted?" | ||
+ | |sublink14=Response to claim: "14. Journal of Discourses Vol. 2, page 210 says Jesus was being married to Mary and Martha in Cana. Why then was he INVITED to his own wedding?" | ||
+ | |sublink15=Response to claim: "15. Why does the Mormon church teach that there is no eternal hell when the Book of Mormon teaches that there is?" | ||
+ | |sublink16=Response to claim: "16. How can Mormons teach that the repentant thief was not saved when the Book of Mormon states that Paradise is where the righteous go?" | ||
+ | |sublink17=Response to claim: "17. How did Nephi with a few men on a new continent build a temple like Solomon’s while Solomon needed 163,300 workmen and seven years to build his temple?" | ||
+ | |sublink18=Response to claim: "18. If the book of Mormon is true, why hasn’t a valid geography been established for the book?" | ||
+ | |sublink19=Response to claim: "19. Why was Joseph Smith still preaching against polygamy in October 1843 after he got his revelation in July 1843 commanding the practice of polygamy?" | ||
+ | |sublink20=Response to claim: "20. If Lehi left Jerusalem before 600 B.C., how did he learn about synagogues?" | ||
+ | |sublink21=Response to claim: "21. If the Book of Mormon is true, why do Indians fail to become white when they become Mormons?" | ||
+ | |sublink22=Response to claim: "22. What kind of chariots did the Nephites have in 90 B.C. some 1500 years before the introduction of the wheel on the Western Hemisphere?" | ||
+ | |sublink23=Response to claim: "23. How do Mormons account for the word “church” in the Book of Mormon, about 600 B.C., which was centuries before the beginning of the Church on the day of Pentecost?" | ||
+ | |sublink24=Response to claim: "24. How do Mormons account for the italicized words in the King James Version (indicating their absence in the Hebrew and Greek) being found in the Book of Mormon?" | ||
+ | |sublink25=Response to claim: "25. How did the French word “adieu” get into the Book of Mormon?" | ||
+ | |sublink26=Response to claim: "26. Was it right or wrong for Solomon to have many wives? (See Jacob 2:24; D & C 132:38,39) Which is it?" | ||
+ | |sublink27=Response to claim: "27. If polygamy was a provision for increasing population rapidly, why did God give Adam only one wife?" | ||
+ | |sublink28=Response to claim: "28. D&C 129:4, 5 says, “When a messenger comes saying he has a message from God, offer him your hand and request him to shake hands with you. If he be an angel he will do so, and you will feel his hand.” How can this test distinguish between an angel of God and a Jehovah’s Witness missionary...or a Mormon Elder?" | ||
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Anti-Mormon literature tends to recycle common themes. One popular approach over the years is for critics to ask a series of "questions" under the guise of sincerity, but with the ultimate aim of casting doubt upon faith or tripping up members of the Church.
Such tactics are not new; Jesus repeatedly faced questioners from among critics during His earthly ministry.
One set of questions that has made rounds is found at Contender Ministries. Entitled Questions All Mormons Should Ask Themselves, the list consists of 58 questions detailed and answered on this page.
In the questions, there may be two items after each question: Scripture reference and Other reference. These references are given as references for the actual questions by Contender Ministries; they are not provided by FAIR as part of the answer.
There are a couple of interesting features to look for in this list. The first is that many of the questions don't just ask a question, they make an assertion. An example of this would be the question that person A asks person B: "Have you stopped beating your wife?" To answer "yes" or "no" is to agree to the assertion that at some point, you did beat your wife. This is the case with a question like question 15 below:
The assertion is that the Mormon church teaches that there is no eternal hell. Similarly, many of the questions start with a proposition - which must first be answered before the rest of the question has meaning. So, for instance, question 1:
Before the question can be meaningful, the first question must be answered in the affirmative. If you don't answer in the affirmative (as is the case with many of these questions that are actually assertions of LDS belief), then the rest of the question is largely meaningless. You can ask all sorts of things in this way without actually taking the responsibility for defending the implications of your questions.
A final point involves interpretation. When providing a biblical scripture as the backdrop for a question, these questions often assert or imply a specific reading or interpretation of the text. In many cases, the interpretation is bad. Isaiah, for example, lived at a time when Israelite religion was not strictly monotheistic in any sense. To read Isaiah's text as teaching some kind of strict monotheism does damage to the text, and if we (the respondents) disagree with the interpretation, it can change the question significantly (see for example questions 4 and 5).
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