RELIGIOUS DELUSIONS

As if religion (and particularly Mormonism) is the only path to being a good person or finding goodness in the world...

Of course, the Mormon Church takes it one step further, and says that only certain "righteous" Mormons will make it to the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom... and anyone who isn't Mormon will go to either the Terrestrial Kingdom or the Telestial Kingdom.  But wait... there is baptism for the dead, so if someone dies without becoming Mormon, they can rectify that problem in the Afterlife.  Isn't that convenient (as the Church lady would say).

But Mormons take it even further by believing that they can eventually become Gods themselves. Yes, I know President Gordon B. Hinckley told a reporter in 1997 when being interviewed for the Time magazine article entitled Mormons, Inc., "I don't know that we teach that," but they do and have all along.  The statement "As man is now, God once was; as God now is, man may become" is a Mormon belief, which I heard repeatedly when I was growing up, and it always bothered me.

The reporter said, "God the Father was once a man as we are.  This is something that Christian writers are always addressing."  Then the reporter asked President Hinckley, "Is this the teaching of the church today, that God the Father was once a man like we are?" And his reply was: "I don't know that we teach that. I don't know that we emphasize it. I haven't heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don't know. I don't know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it, but I don't know a lot about it, and I don't think others know a lot about it."

Oh, really?  He seriously didn't know if the Mormon Church teaches that?  The reality of the situation, though, is that President Hinckley knew that the Mormon Church teaches that, but he didn't feel comfortable discussing it so he went into a song-and-dance routine.  What a cop-out.

Moral of the story (ala Mormonism):

When cornered, make something up... and certainly don't tell the truth.