I love it when people ask the really difficult questions, all the more so if they are seemingly sincere.

In a recent elders quorum lesson as we read through section 89 I innocently asked if I was breaking the WoW as I like meat and definitely eat it all the year. No one had a sensible answer and the teacher quickly moved on. I could see that a few people were left wondering a bit.

In a recent gospel doctrine class on doing acts of charity in secret rather than just for show, someone asked how we square this teaching of Christ with the church's insistence on making such a big thing of helping hands projects, wearing bright vests with the church's name emblazoned on it and inviting local press to report on it. The teacher completely agreed with the valid question and quite a few others also nodded their heads in agreement.

What awkward questions have you asked/seen being asked and what was the response from the teacher and other class members?

"Does the Church teach that all of this actually happened?"

The lesson was about Jonah.

I closed my manual and scanned the room for someone to field the question. I was met with smiles.

My response was something like this:

"I think we are taught to read the scriptures as if the events are factual. I know it takes a lot of faith when we talk about stories like this. Personally, I think that a great deal of the Old Testament is filled with stories of events that probably never actually happened. But we are supposed to learn from the stories, and we learn more if we exercise faith as we study them.

So, in my opinion, a prophet named Jonah probably never spent any time in the belly of an aquatic creature. But, as we read the story and study it, I think we're taught to focus on the lesson, and disregard whether it actually happened."

The questioner: "So, it never actually happened."

Me: "I don't know. Let's take a look at what we can learn, though."

Looking back, I can't believe I held on as long as I did.

During a priesthood lesson about how wives should follow the will of the husband, I asked, "What if it's my will she should do whatever she wants?"

Blank stares followed. Did not compute.

That is so funny....can you imagine a Mormon guy even considering such a thing?

and him, losing everything. Nice.

I was sitting in rs in a college ward and the lesson was on chastity given by the bishop and his wife. One girl raised her hand and said she learned in Biology class that men should masturbate regularly to prevent toxic sperm buildup.
After a stunned silence the bishop's wife said that that is why god created wet dreams.

You guys are killing me. I simply can't believe how these people talk. Thanks for the laugh.

I was in a gospel doctrine class about the Godhead. It was stated that we needed to come to earth to get a body so that we could become (eventually) Gods ourselves. I asked:

Does the Holy Spirit have a body? If not, how could he/she/it be a God and part of the Godhead.

Long pause...."Let's move on."

A couple years ago in priest's quorum. The teacher asked us something like, "And do all of you guys promise to serve a mission when you are of age?" and waited until every single one of us had promised we would before continuing with the lesson. One of the only lessons I remember, simply because it was so awkward.

and I asked what their feelings were about Hermaprodites.

"errrr....."

It was great.

The subject with tithing. Same ol, same ol..."pay your tithing first," blah, blah, blah. Faith promoting stories about the magic money appearing when you pay your tithing, etc.

So I raised my hand and said, "we're always told we should be self-sufficient and stay out of debt and take care of ourselves. So what happens when we faithfully pay our tithing and no magic money appears and we are faced with going into debt to pay the tithing? Does the church want us to choose debt?"

Again, hand after hand went up with faith-promoting stories. "I thought I would have to put groceries on my credit card, but then I paid my tithing and my tax return came," or some lame thing like that. We all know only people who pay their tithing get their tax returns.

So I raised my hand again and said, "My question is, does the church want us to go into debt to pay tithing when no extra money appears? And we all know that sometimes it doesn't"

Well, the final answer was that if we pay our tithing first, we are never going into debt to pay tithing. (See, if you have $300 and owe $295 in tithing and pay it and then put $100 worth of groceries on your credit card, you did not go into debt to pay tithing. Comprende?"). And everyone seemed happy with that answer and they moved on real fast before I could ask the same question, which was never answered, again.

We are all sitting in Elder phood meeting and I am pretty much out of Morg in my mind. One guy decided to go off on all the "Anti" people out there. The whole time I am filling with rage.

He starts ranting about how awesome he is by going to places like RFM and telling exmo to stop sinning and come back when little Anubis asks the question, "How do you get through the temple recommend questions because it clearly says not associate with Anti's?"

Everyone in the class inhales and as the air is being sucked out of the room the guy finally says well "I am refuting them".

The teacher starts laughing and says in reality you should stop you might lose your testimonkey in the process.

Ah felt so good.....
Anubis

their experience w/obeying a certain principle and how they were blessed by doing so. Usually there were just a lot of crickets chirping for what seemed like 5 minutes. Then the teacher would try to save face by saying something like, "Well I know we've all had these experiences but sometimes they're too sacred to share".

Always felt awkward...and I always felt bad for the teacher. Sometimes I thought about making something up just to ease the awkwardness...but I never did.

I taught a youth lesson about the atonement of Christ. It had a quote from Joseph Smith saying that "the most important reason why we have prophets and apostles was to hear them testify of Jesus Christ, that he lived, died on the cross for our sins, and was raised from the dead. All other points of doctrine are secondary." or something like that.

I then asked them (not in the manual, what was I thinking) to pay attention to how many of the speakers focus on this "most important" standard. And then asked for them to return and report. I did it in a way that seemed harmless and faith promoting, but I know as anyone who has sat through a conference session, that other than the final "I know Christ lives" testimony that most give at the end of their talks, there is no more than maybe one talk per session where an apostle or prophet focuses their talk on this "most important" subject.

Can't wait to hear what they have to say in 2 weeks.

I like asking tough questions! Sunday school teacher is my friend so she likes when I come, LOL. My husband is also a Priesthood teacher and likes to ask the hard questions. Some of our favorites:
1) JS was not perfect.
2) Its ok to read things that aren't put out by Deseret Book
3) Not all callings are from God

I can recall only once that he asked me not to say anything during a discussion. We were openly discussing the evils of homosexuals in Sunday School, I raised my hand but before my teacher friend saw me, my husband leaned over and said, this is not going well, you are going to get reamed if you say anything. Please don't this time. I put my hand down, he was right--it wasn't open mic time to discuss why I supported gay marriage.

One time in Sunday School the teacher was droning on about how we are to go into all the world and preach the GOSPEL.

I said, "That scripture doesn't say except Blacks. How come we don't teach the Blacks?"

Silence.......then

The teacher said talk to me after class.

Of course we left the minute the class was over, he knew that I knew why the church didn't teach Blacks.

This was pre 1978

I liked teaching Sunday School gospel doctrine and taking them to the edge and then backing off.

One example - I was talking about the primitive church and how we LDS are supposed to have the same structure as them. Of course they all agreed. So I said "Why does Romans 16:1 call Phoebe a deacon?" (It is the same word in Greek that some versions translate servant and others deacon.)
"If we believe a deacon is part of the Aaronic PH then did women hold the priesthood back then?"

Crickets...

Another - In the New Testament they talk about the abomination of desolation. The lesson was called "Stand Ye in Holy Places."
In the KJV it is mistranslated as - when you see the abomination of desolation "stand in the holy place" but in reality it should have been translated as - when you see the abomination of desolation "STANDING in the holy place."
My question was "Why did JS use a mistranslation in D&C 57? Did he do that on purpose?"

More crickets...

I used to mess with them all the time and then back off and let someone come up with some lame faith-promoting reason. Some people liked it, others probably hated it. I think I made the bishop uncomfortable.

We were learning about heaven, and Celestial polygamy. I asked:

"Why will there be Celestial Polygamy in heaven if we don't do it here on earth?"

"Because there will be so many more righteous women in the Celestial Kingdom than men."

Everyone else seemed to take it ok, I, on the other hand, got really really angry.