Do Mormons Worship Joseph Smith?

No. We don't worship Joseph Smith. Or Mormon, or Moroni (the guy on the Temples with the trumpet) or anyone other than Jesus Christ. Those other people are messengers. They are not even 'intermediaries'. A true messenger brings teachings from God, but then directs us to establish a direct, personal relationship with God and Jesus Christ.

God does now (and has always) used messengers to establish his Word. But all of our prayers are directed to God our Heavenly Father and closed in the name of his only intermediary, his son Jesus Christ.

With regards to the mission of Joseph Smith (and the Mormon view of what a Prophet is), consider this excerpt from an article by James Faust, a former member of the Church's First Presidency:

"As I submit to you my testimony of Joseph Smith, I acknowledge his humanness along with his great spiritual powers. He did not claim to be divine, nor a perfect man. He claimed only to be a mortal man with human feelings and imperfections, trying honestly to fulfill the divine mission given to him. He so describes himself in recorded counsel given to some of the members of the Church who had just arrived in Nauvoo on October 29, 1842. Said the Prophet, 'I told them I was but a man, and they must not expect me to be perfect; if they expected perfection from me, I should expect it from them; but if they would bear with my infirmities and the infirmities of the brethren, I would likewise bear with their infirmities.' (History of the Church, 5:181.)"I am impressed with his complete candor, for in addition to admitting his own humanness, he also recorded the declarations from the Lord which were given to him in the nature of loving reproof. . . ."While Joseph sought perfection, he did not claim perfection. If he were intending to fabricate a great falsehood or wanted to perpetrate a fraud or practice deceit, would he have been so truthful about his own humanness? His complete candor in admitting human frailties and in declaring the loving discipline of God offers powerful proof of his honesty and probity. His statements stand on more solid footing because they were declarations against human nature and admissions against self-interest."

- James E. Faust, "The Expanding Inheritance from Joseph Smith," Ensign, Nov. 1981, 76–77"

Why are there so many contradictions in the Mormon Scriptures?

Last night I was asked this by a young lady who has been faithfully reading but was not satisfied by her father's answer.  Her father's answer was to 'pray about it'.

Her frustration with the answer is understandable.  Dismissing a concern by conveniently referring a person's sincere inquiry to spiritual processes might come across as disingenuous. After all, if your faith is in something that is true, it should ultimately reconcile with any tests of science and logic (assuming those tests are not flawed).

But in his defense, that is the correct answer.  All religion (not just the 'Mormon' religion) have a faith element. And making sport of other religions when their faith seems to cross the line into a dogmatic acceptance of things that seem plainly to be wrong is not a new pastime. And part of maintaining faith is using prayer to reconcile attitudes and feelings. Some would classify this phenomenon as perfectly psychological, while I firmly believe that it evidences the divine and direct involvement of a loving Heavenly Father.  

The contradictions I have encountered fall in to one of three categories: Weakness of human language, contextual misunderstanding, and paradoxes.

Weakness of human language is seen in texts that have been mistranslated or sometimes in the ambiguous use of words. The Bible itself is full of these - it is not a 'Mormon' problem.  One of my favorites is the story of David performing a census. The story is told in two places in the Bible; in one, the Lord encourages David to perform the census; in the other it is Satan who inspires it in David.  If one accepts the two at face value, the only way to reconcile them is to believe that the Lord and Satan are the same person - that is obviously not true.  Furthermore, if you accept the idea that the Lord incites the census, which is described as a sin, it means that the Lord caused someone to sin - and the God I believe in would not do such a thing. The loss of a single word creates a flaw in the text that is just that - a textual flaw.  Reading under the influence of the Spirit (specifically, after praying about it) can help you to understand what is supposed to be taught by the story, without the crisis of faith that might result from finding an error in an otherwise holy text.

In addition to errors introduced through generations of translation, there is the recycling of words in a single language.  Words are only symbols, and only effective in communicating ideas when the symbols match up.   Again in the Bible, if I recall correctly, the word "Angel" occurs in places where it was translated from 5 different words.  If we get down to the intended meaning, very often 'Messenger', then problems of textual understanding are resolved.

Contextual Misunderstanding:  If you remove a single phrase or passage from scripture and compare it with another from another part of scripture, the two will often not seem to line up.  Understanding the historical background, doctrinal intention, and cultural and language aspects of a teaching will go a long ways towards fixing apparent discrepancies.  To give a simple example, in one place, "God is Love". In another place "God is a Father".  Is "Father" equal to "Love"? Well, in some respects, yes.  A horse is a four-legged animal, a cow is a four-legged animal, so a horse is a cow? Obviously not.  

Paradoxes are my favorite discrepancy.  Why? Because they are deliberate contradictions... and one must assume when an author introduces such a thing, it is not because the author is stupid.  It is because they are teaching us something and challenging us.  When you find something that seems to be placed there to challenge our faith, there is often (perhaps always) a much deeper truth beneath it; one that reconciles the ideas together and teaches us how to be.

Since I think Paradoxes are placed in scripture to hide sacred things, I will avoid delving too deeply in to them here.  But to postulate an example of a crisis that might be created, consider this simple example: Does the Lord care how we dress and groom?  On the one hand, we are not to judge by appearances, since the Lord 'looketh on the heart'.  On the other hand, the Spirit whispers that being neat and comely (for example, when we attend worship services) is good.  It should not be hard for you to see how extremes in either direction would be wrong, and under what situations the Lord (or His Prophet) might direct people to focus less or more on appearance.  There must be, then, an underlying principle that reconciles the two principles together.

And praying sincerely might help you find it.