rabbijaffe

A few years back I was working in Ithaca, New York.

One Saturday morning we got a knock on our door. It was two young Mormon girls who wished to “chat” with us.

My wife told them we weren’t interested, and wished them a nice afternoon.

And it’s fairly obvious she was hoping this was the end of the whole thing.

Now, it could be argued that I’m a relatively confrontational individual. And being that I am a pretty educated Jew who loves a little intellectual debate, I asked my guests what they thought about seeing if we could get the girls to come back. Fortunately, they were quite excited about the idea.

Now, my philosophy about missionaries is such: If you truly believe something, go ahead and argue your persepective. I live for friendly debate! But if what you’re doing is not friendly debate, but rather manipulation and toying with the emotions of the weak or innocent, for this have no respect.

Regardless, I’ve always understood that missionaries are generally trained and ready to argue, and I thought it would be fun to engage in a little healthy debate with my afternoon.

And that’s when I learned something I never knew before.

Mormon missionaries truly know very little.

I earnestly dug and dug trying to find a real strong understanding of Mormon theology.

And this is what I discovered:

I posed this question: So, why do believe in what you believe in?

Two wide-eyed, grinning, young Mormon girls looked right at me, and with undeniable enthusiasm told me, “Because it’s the words of the Prophet!”

“Ah,” I said. “And why do you believe in the words of the Prophet?”

A wild eyed, insanely pious look shot ovr their faces as they nodded and told me, “Because it’s written in the book!”

“Oh,” I exclaimed. And I curiously added, “So why do you believe in the words of the book?”

OK, boys and girls. We’ve entered the moment of truth. If anyone is out there reading this, and is curious what about the backbone of Mormon theology, here comes the deep and life-changing answer they gave me:

“Because it was written by the Prophet!”

They said it as if it were obvious.

They said it with not a care in the world about the logical circle they just created.

I’m relatively positive they were actually totally unaware that it had been created.

And with my dreams of a solid debate behind me, I thanked them for their company. And walked them to my door.

And believe it or not, I’m still not a Mormon…

Have a great week!!!

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