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The Mormons' Challenge

A bit of thread drift, but I have a story similar in a way to Dinwar's - one of my favorite childhood incidents. I think I was about 10 or so, when an evangelist, possibly a JW, came to the house. My mom was there, and unbeknownst to him, she was a scholarly sort, who knew her Bible inside out, an erstwhile student, and later a professor, of theology and philosophy. I don't recall the exact content of the conversation, but every time he pulled out a Biblical verse, she pulled out another and shot him down. He never scored a point, and the upshot was him hustling down the path to the driveway, red-faced, quite literally weeping, and screaming that she was wicked and headed for damnation.
 
Any time invested in this is lost time .. try to trick them into this joke:

Knock knock ..
Who's there ?
Mormons !
What do you want ?
To talk !
How many of you is there ?
Two !
So talk together ..
 
As already mentioned, the DNA of native Americans has no link to the supposed tribes of Israel; a key Mormon belief.

And there's this approach
 
Thanks again, people.

I have a question.

Do mormons really believe in magic underpants?
 
Not really a fair challenge, as it is designed to waste one sides time, you don't really have to read anything to debate, religions don't generally have strong arguments and you can just ask for evidence for what they believe and argue the obvious fallacies. But talking about the ridiculous mormon beliefs can certainly be entertaining, whenever I hear about magic underpants I think of the Safran movie trailer for Xtreme Mormons.

 
A good friend of mine, student at the (non religious) local university theology department, used to invite missionaries into his house for a drink, cookies and a good chat.

Any missionary foolish enough to accept was introduced into a room full of books on theology and sciences, and treated to a long monologue backed by the consultation of many, many books, brochures (the JWs didn't appreciate being put in front of old editions of Watchtower showing old end-of-the-world predictions and suchlike), and treatises on the history of religions.

The conclusion for the Mormons and the JWs was a disdainful "Anyway, your religion is just like islam only 1400 years late", backed by a long list of similarities between them and islam (non-trinitary, revelation through angels, re-reading of older and often unrelated texts, polygamy, food prohibitions, variability of the rules over time and circumstances, etc.).

They usually tried to leave after less than 20 minutes (but were prevented by new offerings of drinks, food and new books), totally bewildered and unable to counter ...

The Mormons never returned, the JWs would send someone else, supposedly more experienced, with the same result ...

Yes, he was quite a bit of a sadist ... :D
 
Janadele said:
I am one to be included in the success you refer to Wowbagger... plus I remain eternally grateful that two dedicated humble young men volunteered their services to travel at their own expenses to a country far from their home and homeland to knock on my door :)
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... must resist the urge to make joke...
... must resist ...
... gotta resist ...
... go away joke, just go away ...

Phew...
I resisted. Made no dirty joke.
 
It is wise to resist unseeming behaviour Correa.

Participants in this thread should also realise that LDS Missionaries have a message to deliver to the world from Jesus Christ. Debate and contention is not their reason nor their assignment. The world is to be given the chance to accept or reject this message from Jesus Christ, and therefore cannot say they did not bring the consequences of that choice upon themselves.
 
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Janadele said:
It is wise to resist unseeming behaviour Correa.

Participants in this thread should also realise that LDS Missionaries have a message to deliver to the world from Jesus Christ. Debate and contention is not their reason nor their assignment. The world is to be given the chance to accept or reject this message from Jesus Christ, and therefore cannot say they did not bring the consequences of that choice upon themselves.
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Soooo, ...

I guess that means that the actual rationale behind the Mormon Missionaries is to help them assuage their guilt when others do not accept the Mormon religion and are thereby cursed by God for not accepting the Mormon religion.

Is that right?

If so, then that sounds terribly (to put it mildly) self-righteous.
 
Crossbow said:
Soooo, ...

I guess that means that the actual rationale behind the Mormon Missionaries is to help them assuage their guilt when others do not accept the Mormon religion and are thereby cursed by God for not accepting the Mormon religion.

Is that right?

If so, then that sounds terribly (to put it mildly) self-righteous.
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No, you've got it all wrong! It's so that God doesn't have to feel bad when he casts us all into outer darkness. He warned you through the medium of a couple of wet-behind-the-ears kids who talked like walking tracts and were unable to provide any sort of response to your reasonable questions and objections, what more do you want?
 
Janadele said:
It is wise to resist unseeming behaviour Correa.

Participants in this thread should also realise that LDS Missionaries have a message to deliver to the world from ...
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their hierarchy, which sends them all over the world in order to attract as much money as possible towards their own coffers. The jesus spiel is devised to hide this sorry truth ...
 
Oh, good. My odds of going to Heaven increased!

Wait, no. Its Hellfire for me aniway. I'm atheist... Despite being a good guy, not accepting the word of Jesus Christ is all it takes to drop me in to the lakes of fire and brimstone. By the way, I am supposed to accept Jesus's words as said by whom? The Pope, Joseph Smith, Luther or one of those Neopentecostal teleevangelists?

Not to mention god may think I managed to make lots of people think dirty jokes in a most mischievous way.
 
Janadele said:
It is wise to resist unseeming behaviour Correa.

Participants in this thread should also realise that LDS Missionaries have a message to deliver to the world from Jesus Christ. Debate and contention is not their reason nor their assignment. The world is to be given the chance to accept or reject this message from Jesus Christ, and therefore cannot say they did not bring the consequences of that choice upon themselves.
Click to expand...

And what are those consequences? And whatever they are will we see those missionary kids jeering, "I told you so!"?
 
Recovering Agnostic said:
No, you've got it all wrong! It's so that God doesn't have to feel bad when he casts us all into outer darkness. He warned you through the medium of a couple of wet-behind-the-ears kids who talked like walking tracts and were unable to provide any sort of response to your reasonable questions and objections, what more do you want?
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OK thanks for the clarification.

So I guess that means when I got to Hell, then I will be reminded of those Mormon missionaries who made an effort to save me from Hell and at the same time God will not have to worry about feeling bad for sending me to Hell there since he provided an opportunity to avoid going to Hell.

Therefore, I suppose that God has a great deal of faith in the Mormon missionaries and that fact must make them feel really special.

;)
 
Crossbow said:
Soooo, ...

I guess that means that the actual rationale behind the Mormon Missionaries is to help them assuage their guilt when others do not accept the Mormon religion and are thereby cursed by God for not accepting the Mormon religion.

Is that right?

If so, then that sounds terribly (to put it mildly) self-righteous.
Click to expand...
This reminds me of a story/joke I heard about missionaries in Alaska. The missionaries had gone to an Inuit tribe to spread the gospel, and to tell them that if they didn't accept Jesus as their savior then they would go to hell.

"But what if we'd never heard of him?" one of the Inuits asked. "Would we still go to hell then?"

"Well, no," the missionary replied. "You wouldn't go to hell if you'd never been told about Jesus."

"Then why did you tell us?!"
 
Janadele said:
It is wise to resist unseeming behaviour Correa.

Participants in this thread should also realise that LDS Missionaries have a message to deliver to the world from Jesus Christ. Debate and contention is not their reason nor their assignment. The world is to be given the chance to accept or reject this message from Jesus Christ, and therefore cannot say they did not bring the consequences of that choice upon themselves.
Click to expand...

But what these missionaries tell people is wrong.
 
Orphia Nay said:
Thanks again, people.

I have a question.

Do mormons really believe in magic underpants?
Click to expand...

Yes, in the same way that Jews believe in magic fringed blankies.

Some Mormons like my wife think of the garments as a reminder of one's religion with no particular supernatural powers of their own. Others ascribe to them all sorts of literal magic powers, like a supernatural force field.

Even church leaders have waffled on which it officially is, though the force-field explanation is harder to find official church backing for, because of course it's falsifiable.

The link that Pixel42 posted points out the range of views, and clicking further from that link, to http://www.mrm.org/underwear gives more information.

One thing that article misses is that there's another interpretation of "When properly worn it provides protection against temptation and evil," which is more literal than magical. This is how my wife explained it. "Properly worn" would mean don't take them off to have sex outside of marriage. I expect that most parents would urge their children not to strip down to their underwear in social situations if they didn't want things to lead to sex, so no magic force field necessary for that kind of protection from temptation. So the official claims of "providing protection" are not necessarily supernatural, depending on how any individual Mormon interprets them, but also can be taken by superstitious Mormons as far as they want.

A further click goes to this blog article:
http://blog.mrm.org/2011/05/sacred-mormon-garments-work-like-a-charm/

Oddly, that article seems to hint that Mormons who claim the garments are just reminders of one's religion are somehow lying or hiding something:

"When Donny and Marie (and other Mormons) present Mormon undergarments as mere symbolism they effectively avoid the need to provide what would surely be an uncomfortable explanation of something that is not only 'sacred,' but that also works like a charm."

Since the author apparently hasn't lived with a Mormon and done her laundry and seen the whole interaction with the clothes for a couple decades, the author is misunderstanding that there really are different views within the church.

It's not that all Mormons think the garments have supernatural powers of protection and some hide the belief better than others. It's that Mormons really do have different beliefs. Some are sincere when they say the garments are mere symbolism, while others are sincere when they claim the garments are supernatural charms.
 
strummer said:
As already mentioned, the DNA of native Americans has no link to the supposed tribes of Israel; a key Mormon belief.

And there's this approach
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The Christian gentleman's approach was effective only from a rhetorical point of view; his comments had no more merit than did those of the young LDS missionaries. Further, he had one of those nasty skills that I find more distasteful than what the missionaries were pushing: He had the skill of verbal bullying while making it appear he was the victim of it. Notice how he said something to the effect "You think overtalking will work on me?" then he proceeded to talk over the young man. He then said "We're having a discussion," but he wasn't; he was preaching.

This is the kind of man not to engage in public debate except in circumstances that allow for fair exchange as he will skillfully turn it into a game of showmanship, a game at which he will rarely lose, though his facts are non-existent.
 
I had this same scenario happen to me some years ago. I moved hundreds of miles away from Utah to go to college, and then one day two Mormons showed up at my apartment door, and one of them happened to be a buddy of mine that I graduated high school with. Extremely random.

Anyways, we had a meeting and they decided to return to my apartment a week later to have a debate about the legitimacy of the Book of Mormon. My strategy was if they claim to believe both the Bible and the Book of Mormon, then how could there possibly be contradictions between the two? I pointed out some of the very large contradictions and they didn't really have a response. Eventually they stopped showing up, but I think I was successful in what they asked me to do lol.
 
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