Well...Mitt Romney's stock is starting to rise from what I can sense, not that I'm much of a politics follower. I've expressed why I'm skeptical of Romney's candidacy, in short, I doubt Americans are ready to elect a non-monotheist to our highest office. That being said, here is a revealing quote from the president of the Latter Day Saints:
Although there's nothing in Mormonism and Evolution to suggest any high church official agrees with that accommodation, the next to last document in the book, a quote from current church president Gordon B. Hinckley, is revealing. He told a reporter in 2002 he had studied evolution. "Studied all about it," he said. "Didn't bother me then. Doesn't bother me now."
Remember, this is a religion which believes that humans evolve up a great chain of being.
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Romney is not a monotheist because he believes that Jesus is the Son of God. . . Is that right?
Romney is not a monotheist because he believes that Jesus is the Son of God. . . Is that right?
mormons (LDS) are henotheists. they worship one god, but accept the existence of a multiplicity of divine beings. they also believe that righteous mormons males will ascend to godhead. but yes, they also not trinitarian in that they don't do the greek philosophical juke & jive, they do believe that the son, the father and the holy ghost are separate entities. in fact, they believe that jesus is the son of god the father and the heavenly mother, the consort of the god of humans.
yes, you read that right! let's see if the religious Right is more religious or Right :)
Mormons just do a slightly different twist on Creationism.
Okay, "henotheist" might work. I would prefer that you note, however, that the Mormon's statement on the trinity is almost, word for word, the statement used by the Southern Baptist Convention.
But as to creationism: Brigham Young University has a large and lively biology department, and evolution in the modern synthesis is taught well and hard in Bio 101 and in several other courses. The church has no revelation against evolution, and in one case I know of a religion teacher was chastised for preaching "false doctrine" for complaining about the biology department's strong teaching of Darwin, to students.
For that matter, the geology department isn't a slouch, either. There is some good analysis of the rocks in the Wasatch Front range, just to the east behind BYU, on the geology department's website. "Dinosaur Jim" Jensen spent a long career at BYU, finding new dinosaurs and a lot of old ones at a prodigious rate. Last I heard, Jensen's retirement left the school holding more than 250,000 stone critters, most still in the rocks, underneath Cougar Stadium (that could be apocryphal, but I think not).
It will be interesting to see how DNA information affects LDS doctrine, if at all. One might be a bit circumspect, and recall that when the Mormons claimed there had been great civilizations in America prior to 1492, most people treated the claim as complete fiction. Archeaological finds have since found exactly that (though there are differences with the Book of Mormon, to most readers).
There are Mormon creationists. Often they are shocked when their kids get to BYU and take biology.
As islamic scholars point out, traditional christianity isn't strictly monotheist. Jesus is a god, and the guy jesus was pleading with on the cross is a god. That makes at least two gods.