The
fourteen fundamental articles or beliefs of Mormons
The reason this is here is because many have written to me
wanting to know what do Mormons really believe. There are a lot of pro-Mormon propaganda
sites and they all say the same thing - family unity, they are Christian, the Book of
Mormon is true and on and on. These other sites still do not say what they really believe.
What Mormons actually believe is not normally taught by the Mormon missionaries or shown
on the TV commercials. Mormon doctrine is quite fluid.
The Mormon church has the 13 articles of faith that
missionaries and members like to hand out, but it does not contain most of the doctrines
that make the Mormon Church unique. Also, when the original "13" articles of
faith were written it was 14. So being true to the idea of original version, I decided to
have the 14 fundamental beliefs of Mormons. I listed these in order of importance to a
Mormon. There may be some variance in the order of importance depending on the Mormon you
may talk to. This list does not follow the original 14 except in number. I use the term
"we" to refer to Mormons. I used to believe these things. I have included
at least one reference on some points where Mormons have written to me saying they don't
believe those things. They apparently do not know their own doctrines.
The Fourteen Articles of Faith
1 - God was once a man who lived on another planet
This is the most important teaching of Mormonism. Nothing
else comes close to it. We believe that God was once a mortal man on another planet who
progressed by living in obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel he had on his
world, then he died. He became a resurrected man and evolved to become a god. He is still
married now (some early leaders say he is a polygamist) and created this world. We worship
only the one true god, which is really one god among millions or billions or more. We
believe that we will follow in God's footsteps by becoming perfect and we too will become
Gods and Goddesses creating spirit children and peopling other worlds. The Mormon TV
commercials showing family togetherness is the foundation for life in the next world - as
a family - as gods.
Reference: Journal of Discourses Vol. 6 Page 4, 1844.
Joseph Smith speaking:
"...you have to learn to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the
same as all Gods have done before you, - namely, by going from one small degree to
another..."
Reference: Journal of Discourses Vol. 6 Page 275,
1852. Brighan Young speaking:
"After men have got their exaltations and their crowns - have become Gods..."
2 - We are co-eternal with God
We believe we have all existed for all eternity. First we
existed as "intelligences", which has never been defined, then we were given
spirit bodies in a heaven by our eternal parents. Our "intelligences" have
existed forever just like the our God's has and we have been around him in one form or
another forever. He has just simply progressed ahead of us.
Reference: Journal of Discourses Vol. 6 Page 7, 1844.
Joseph Smith speaking:
"God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more
intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a priviledge to
advance like himself"
3 - The origin of Jesus Christ
Jesus was begotten by physical union of God and Mary. Since
God has a body of flesh and bones, he really had literal sex with Mary. The product of
this union was Jesus, part man and part God. We believe Jesus was the first born in heaven
by heavenly father and mother who created his spirit and our spirits using our
"intelligences" as a foundation for our spirits. Our "intelligences"
were floating around in the universe and needed to be organized into spirits. Since he was
the first born spirit, and according to the Book of Abraham, his "intelligence"
was better than the other "intelligences" out there, he is the most important
spirit creation. When Jesus received his physical body by the union of God and Mary, his
spirit was put into his body like our spirits were put into our bodies. His body was
special though because his father was a god. The rest of us have only regular dads.
Again, a few Mormons wrote saying they do not believe
this and I am misrepresenting the church's position. Actually the quotes from the early
leaders are stranger than I could create from my imagination. Here are a few references:
Brigham Young speaking in the Journal of Discourses
Vo1 1, Page 51 1852, "Jesus our Elder Brother was begotten in the flesh by the same
character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven."
Brigham Young speaking in the Journal of Discourses
Vo1 15, Page 770 1853, "Now remember from this time forth, and for ever, that Jesus
Christ was not begotten by the Holy Ghost... if the Son was begotten by the Holy Ghost, it
would be a very dangerous to baptize and confirm females, and give the Holy Ghost to them,
lest he should beget children..."
4 - Truth is determined by feelings
We believe we know the truth by our feelings. We do not rely
on and we will disregard any facts that contradict what our feelings tell us is true. If
something feels bad, like someone telling us that Joseph Smith was a fraud, then we know
that Smith must of been a prophet since falsehoods create bad feelings and it feels bad
when someone tells us that we have been duped. In other words, if we get a bad feeling, we
are hearing bad things which must be lies. We feel good when we read the Book of Mormon,
therefore it is true. Archeology, genetics, science, metallurgy, agriculture and animal
studies are irrelevant since our feelings tell us it is a true book revealed by God. This
good feeling applies to all aspects of our lives. We determine if we should do something
or know the truth of something if we have prayed about it and have a good feeling about
it.
5 - What a Prophet said can be revised depending on
the circumstances
We believe that when the Prophet, the head of our church,
says something that is definitely wrong he was not being inspired at that time. He was
only speaking as a man. We believe that the newer Prophets can override the older
Prophets. We believe we have a prophet on earth today even though he never prophecies
anything.
Reference: Ezra Taft Benson '14 Fundamentals in
Following the Prophets' pgs 1-16, 1980:
"Beware of those who would pit the dead prophets against the living prophets, for the
living prophets always take precedence."
6 - Saving our dead ancestors shows we are the only
Christian church
We believe we have temples where we get the handshakes and
passwords that allow us to become gods. We also baptize by proxy dead people so they too
can become Mormons.
7 - Ex-Mormons or apostates had sin in their life or
never had a testimony
We believe apostates, if they had a testimony, will be cast
into outer darkness. The others who leave Mormonism must never had a testimony.
8 - We will only read church approved materials
Any literature which is critical of the church is Satanic
and/or written by disgruntled apostates or others who do not know the truth. They can be
ignored and any reasonable arguments they have are unimportant since they oppose the
gospel of Mormonism.
9 - We need to convert the whole world to Mormonism
We believe we must send all our young men from ages 19-22 on
missions throughout the world and many of our unmarried daughters. We must also save our
money so that when we are older we can go on a mission as a married couple.
10 - By being Mormons we are assured of salvation -
even if we are wrong
We believe that even if we are wrong about Mormonism, God
will forgive us since we believed in Christ just like the Christians said we should. If we
are right, and we know we are, then we will be together forever with our families as gods.
Why should we want to be anything other than Mormons since we have all our bases covered?
11 - Since we have the name of Christ in our church -
our church is the only true one.
Only the true church would have Christ's name in it. We
ignore the fact that the Doctrine and Covenants and other books were published by the
church when Joseph Smith had the church renamed for several years as the Church of the
Latter-day Saints.
12 - We believe in the Book of Mormon
We believe in a book which has no archeological support
whatsoever and claim it is a religious record of various peoples who populated the
Americas for over 2600 years from around 2200 BC to 420 AD. We believe that the second
group of people who occupied the Americas were Jewish and spoke Hebrew and kept their
records in reformed Egyptian. These people also numbered in the millions and somehow they
left no tangible proof of their existence. Some Mormons believe that in the near future
the leaders of the church will admit that the peoples the book describes are fictional,
but maintain that the book still contains religious truths.
13 - The fruits of Mormonism prove it is the true
church
We believe by manipulating statistics we can show we have a
superior belief system. We disregard statistics which are embarrassing to our position
such as the high divorce rate in Utah.
14 Since there are people who oppose our beliefs -
our beliefs must be true
We believe that those who write against us and assail our
beliefs are proof that we are the only true church. Only the true church would have
anything bad said about it. The Devil fights against the truth.
This is from a letter received from an Internet friend
2/8/96:
"As a Mormon for my entire life, the very first time I felt persecuted for my beliefs
was when I tried to leave the LDS faith. Never on my mission did I ever feel opposed (I
went to a foreign country with virtually no anti-Mormons). Never did I feel like someone
didn't allow me the "same priviledge of worshipping God according to the dictates of
my own conscience" until MY OWN FAMILY found out I no longer believed in the fairy
tales of Mormonism. Then all of a sudden my active LDS mother-in-law thought it would be
"better" for my wife to leave me. All this despite the fact that my wife loves
me, I love my wife and child, and I hadn't even committed anything the Mormon church would
consider a sin (except perhaps apostasy, but apostatizing from a lie is no sin in my
book). Anyway, if "only the [truth] would have anything bad said about it" the
reaction I received by leaving the LDS church meant I was heading into the truth."
