We believe men can become exalted to become “gods.” Whether that means being dominion over one planet, or a million, none, I’m not sure. But we will be ONE with God, just as Jesus is ONE with the Father. Jesus prayed that his disciples would be one with each other, and one with Him and the Father, JUST AS he and the Father are ONE. See John 17, if you don’t believe me.
Anyway, you may find this belief strange, but it is actually consistent with very ancient Jewish belief. Rabbi Akiba (d. A.D. 135) is credited with the following statement.
“The Holy One, blessed be He, will in the future call all of the pious by their names, and give them a cup of elixir of life in their hands so that they should live and endure forever… And the Holy One, blessed be He, will in the future reveal to all the pious in the World to Come the Ineffable Name with which new heavens and a new earth can be created, so that all of them should be able to create new worlds… The Holy One, blessed be He, will give every pious three hundred and forty worlds in inheritance in the World to Come.” (Midrash Alpha Beta diR. Akiba, BhM 3:32, quoted in Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1979, 251)
I could go on and on about how our doctrine of deification lines up with ancient documents, including the Bible, if you want.
No. We believe in a heaven with graded “degrees of glory.” All will have a place in one of the heavens, except those who willfully and knowingly reject God after having accepted His grace. Only those with a proper baptism, etc., can access the highest degree of glory, however.
This is actually somewhat similar to the Catholic belief. Catholicism teaches that the Church is the only vehicle of salvation. Some outside the visible Church may reach salvation, but salvation is only THROUGH the one catholic church. You guys have the concepts of “baptism of desire” and such, to account for the fact that people need to be baptized, whereas Mormons have an explicit rite of baptism for the dead.
People who attain the highest degree of glory in heaven must do so through our sacraments (just like Catholics believe a person must have some kind of baptism, whether by water, blood, or desire). On the other hand, we believe that everyone will eventually have the chance to accept or reject these ordinances. That’s why we not only perform “baptism for the dead” in our temples, but we also perform our other rituals on behalf of those who have passed on.
The bottom line on Mormon “exclusivism” is that:
- Yes, we believe we are the only Church with authority from God to perform the ordinances necessary for salvation.
- However, we recognize the good in other religions, and do not think everyone else is going to hell.
- Rather, God’s plan of salvation includes ways for EVERYONE, including Australian aborigines who had never heard of Christianity, to have a fair chance to be saved.
- So for us, the most important thing is that a person does the best he can to find God and follow Him, given the information and opportunities he is given.
The anti-Mormon sites you were perusing left out a lot of information, didn’t they?
That’s because they were only interested in driving people away from Mormonism by making us sound weird, mean, snotty, and self-righteous. If they tried to describe what we believe fairly, well, that just wouldn’t accomplish their objectives very well.
So anyway, thanks for checking with us. I think you’ll find that anti-Mormon sites (including the ones written by Catholics) are just about as reliable as anti-Catholic sites tend to be. There are some exceptions–some people try not to treat other religions unfairly. But most of these people find that very hard to do. Jesus said “Love your enemy,” and I think that includes trying to treat them fairly.
