Countercult ministries/Tower to Truth Ministries/50 Questions to Ask Mormons

Answers to "50 Questions to Ask Mormons"

Summary: According to Tower to Truth Ministries, "Questions are a great way to witness to Mormons. Most cultists will turn you off if you begin to preach to them, however, asking questions gives them hope that you are genuinely interested in learning more about their religion. It also is a great way to get them thinking about things they may have never thought about and researching into the false teachings of their church." So, these questions are insincerely asked in order to "give us hope" that the questioner is genuinely interested in knowing more about Mormonism, with the real intent being to get us to research the "false teachings" of our church. FAIR addresses the answers to this list of 50 disingenuous questions.


Claim Evaluation
50 Questions to Ask Mormons
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Summary

Anti-Mormon literature tends to recycle the same themes. Some ministries are using a series of fifty questions, which they believe will help "cultists" like the Mormons. One ministry seems to suggest that such questions are a good way to deceive Latter-day Saints, since the questions "give...them hope that you are genuinely interested in learning more about their religion."

This ministry tells its readers what their real intent should be with their Mormon friend: "to get them thinking about things they may have never thought about and researching into the false teachings of their church." Thus, the questions are not sincere attempts to understand what the Latter-day Saints believe, but are a smokescreen or diversionary tactic to introduce anti-Mormon material.[1]

The questions are not difficult to answer, nor are they new. This page provides links to answers to the questions. It should be noted that the questions virtually all do at least one of the following:

  1. misunderstand or misread LDS doctrine or scripture;
  2. give unofficial material the status of official belief;
  3. assume that Mormons must have inerrantist ideas about scripture or prophets like conservative evangelical Protestants do;
  4. apply a strict standard to LDS ideas, but use a double standard to avoid condemning the Bible or their own beliefs if the standard was applied fairly to both.

NOTE: It should be remembered that this particular list of questions was put together by an Evangelical Christian ministry. The answers provided here by FairMormon are directed to Christians of any denomination who might use such a list or to Mormon Christians who might be bothered by such a list. There are also secular critics of the Church who would not be bothered by or have any use for many of the questions on this list. We recognize that the answers provided here may not be satisfactory to such individuals; that is fine. If anyone knows of such critical lists produced by secularists or secular organizations, we would be interested to know about them and might consider them for similar treatment.

Responses to "50 Questions to Ask Mormons

To view responses to individual questions, please click on the links below.

Response to section "Questions About LDS Prophets"

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Response to section "Questions About LDS Scripture (excluding the Bible)"

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Response to section "Questions About the Bible"

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Response to section "Miscellaneous / General Questions"

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Notes

  1. Template:CriticalWork:Tower to Truth:50 Questions (accessed 15 November 2007)