Many pagan cultures believe that their God is one of many different Gods. This is often why many tribal people will become baptized Christian not realizing they are then expected to follow just the Christian God, they have an expansive pantheon that accounts for many paths. So does Mormonism!
“In the beginning, the head of the Gods called a council of the Gods; and they came together and concocted a plan to create the world and people it….In all congregations when I have preached on the subject of the Deity, it has been the plurality of the Gods.” - Joseph Smith, History of the Church, vol. 6, pp.308, 474
Many Pagan cultures believe that their God or Gods were once humans who have now achieved a God status through noble deeds, ritual or magick. Here's what Mormonism says:
“God himself was once a man as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens!....for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see….He was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did.” - Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp.345-46
Many Pagan cultures believe in tangible Gods who eat, drink, and make love. Mormonism's God has a body too!
“The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s….” - Doctrine & Covenants 130:22.
And back to the having sex part, it seems the Mormon God got Mary in a family way the old fashion way.
“Christ was begotten by an Immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers.” - Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 1979, p.547
“The fleshly body of Jesus required a Mother as well as a Father. Therefore, the Father and mother of Jesus, according to the flesh, must have been associated together in the capacity of Husband and Wife; hence the Virgin Mary must have been, for the time being, the lawful wife of God the father….” - The Seer, January, 1853, Vol. 1, No. 1, p.158, (italics in original)
In Mormonsim we can become Gods and Goddesses to!
"Here, then is eternal life–to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you….To inherit the same power, the same glory and the same exaltation, until you arrive at the station of a God.” - Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp.346-47
“As man is, God once was; as God is, man may be.” James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, p.430
Like many Gods up on Mount Olympus, the Mormon Heavenly Mother and Father dwell in a heavenly mansion where they create us just as we create our children - a nice quickey in the laundry room while the other 100 billion kids were napping. Isn't that awesome? I wonder if there's family bed in Heaven?
“All men and women are….literally the sons and daughters of Deity….Man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal [physical] body.” - Joseph F. Smith, The Origin of Man, Improvement Era, Nov. 1909, pp.78, 80
Many pagan and new age faiths believe in universal salvation i.e. nobody's burning forever in hell. Mormons do to!
“We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.” - The Articles of Faith, #3
“….for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” – The Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 25:23
"That part of the spirit world inhabited by wicked spirits who are awaiting the eventual day of resurrection is called hell....Hell will have an end" - Doctrine and Covenants
