. . . I was raised a Mormon and while I keep reading these notions about certain mormon ideas, I have honestly never encountered them. In my decade in the church, never once did anyone mention
- "magic glasses" or "Seeing stones"
- man becoming Godlike
- Christ and The Holy Ghost (how they refer to The Holy Spirit) being separate and lesser from God. The mormon interpretation of The Holy Trinity is certainly less nuanced than that of other Christians, and it's true that they are seen, in a sense, as somewhat separate persons.
While it's true that the idea of a Heavenly Father (God) suggests that there is a Heavenly Mother and many mormons do believe this, they go to great lengths to divorce themselves from what they consider to be paganism. In fact, one of the main criticisms I heard of Catholicism in particular is the fact that the rituals, such as the Holy Communion, are given a 'magical' significance and are therefore pagan, and therefore, heretical. We were told that Catholicism adopted these practices to appeal to pagans, who they were trying to convert. The same applies to praying to Saints and Icons; mormons consider it to be idolatry and pagan.
What is most terrifying about converting to Orthodoxy after being raised in a mormon church is that certain things you are told about Christian theology are completely individual to mormonism, yet you don't know that until you encounter them. Just yesterday I saw someone mention the mormon notion of the brotherhood between Christ and Satan, and honestly it never even occurred to me to think of it yet alone question it. Horrifying! Another significant point about mormonism is that they don't believe in Original Sin, as they are under the impression that Original Sin implies guilt, and it's not ones fault that Adam and Eve bit the apple. Also, for some reason mormons dislike crosses, which I've always found perplexing. The way it was explained to me was that "it's not Christ's death that's important, it's His Life and emphasis on his death is missing the point." Mormon Jesus is also white and clean shaven, which is of course almost certainly historically inaccurate.
What I find most disturbing about the church though is the fact that everyone is expected to give 10% of their income, and this is written in a slip and given in an envelope with the persons full name, total income and total weekly tithe. My honest opinion is that, which members of the church no doubt believe it, it's a scam. Joseph Smith Jnr, the founder of the church, has actually been found to have been a scam artist in his day. So there's that.
Edit: oh and the fact that they whitewashed the entire history of Indigenous peoples in the Americas, making up their own race of American Jews BC which has been proven to be incorrect.