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LARRY - Do Mormon's believe that they can becomes god's and get their own planet?
JOEL - The best answer that I can give you based on the scriptures and official church doctrines is, maybe.
Here are the "official" statements from the Church concerning these two questions:
Do Latter-day Saints believe they can become “gods”?
Latter-day Saints believe that God wants us to become like Him. But this teaching is often misrepresented by those who caricature the faith. The Latter-day Saint belief is no different than the biblical teaching, which states, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Romans 8:16-17). Through following Christ's teachings, Latter-day Saints believe all people can become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4).
Do Latter-day Saints believe that they will “get their own planet”?
No. This idea is not taught in Latter-day Saint scripture, nor is it a doctrine of the Church. This misunderstanding stems from speculative comments unreflective of scriptural doctrine. Mormons believe that we are all sons and daughters of God and that all of us have the potential to grow during and after this life to become like our Heavenly Father (see Romans 8:16-17). The Church does not and has never purported to fully understand the specifics of Christ’s statement that “in my Father’s house are many mansions” (John 14:2). (LDS Newsroom-Mormonism 101: FAQ)
These statements reflect the revealed doctrine as we know it today from scripture and accepted official church doctrines. As the statement above suggests there have been speculative comments and opinons from church members and even church leaders who have reasoned that the answer to both questions might be "yes", although the "get their own planet" statement might be replaced with "get their own universe". The "get our own planet" statement is not found in any LDS scripture or manual; it usually comes from the anti-mormon groups attempting to ridicule and belittle LDS doctrine. What has been suggested is that we may someday in the eternity indeed become as God and create and rule over our own universes.
Here are a few statements from some church leaders that might support these ideas:
President Spencer W Kimball:
"The real life we’re preparing for is eternal life. Secular knowledge has for us eternal significance. Our conviction is that God, our Heavenly Father, wants us to live the life that He does. We learn both the spiritual things and the secular things 'so we may one day create worlds [and] people and govern them' (Spencer W. Kimball, The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball)
"Desirable as is secular knowledge, one is not truly educated unless he has the spiritual with the secular. The secular knowledge is to be desired; the spiritual knowledge is an absolute necessity. We shall need all of the accumulated secular knowledge in order to create worlds and to furnish them, but only through the 'mysteries of God' and these hidden treasures of knowledge may we arrive at the place and condition where we may use that knowledge in creation and exaltation" (Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Reports, October 1968, p.131).
President Joseph Fielding Smith:
“The Father has promised us that through our faithfulness we shall be blessed with the fullness of his kingdom. In other words, we will have the privilege of becoming like him. To become like him we must have all the powers of godhood; thus a man and his wife when glorified will have spirit children who eventually will go on an earth like this one we are on and pass through the same kind of experiences, being subject to mortal conditions, and if faithful, then they also will receive the fullness of exaltation and partake of the same blessings. There is no end to this development; it will go on forever. We will become gods and have jurisdiction over worlds, and these worlds will be peopled by our own offspring.” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation 2:48)
President Brigham Young:
"All those who are counted worthy to be exalted and to become Gods, even the sons of God, will go forth and have earths and worlds like those who framed this and millions on millions of others." (Journal of Discourses 17:143)
Patriarch Eldred G. Smith:
“And so through the power of the priesthood the man has the opportunity of obtaining that degree of perfection by which he may create worlds and populate them with his own offspring” (Patriarch Eldred G. Smith, BYU Speeches of the Year, March 10, 1964, p.7).
Joseph Smith said that men may go "...from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation ... until (they) arrive at the station of a God." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith)
Statements like these are very few and far between. They reflect personal opinions of those who want to encourage us on to eternal life and exaltation. They are based on scriptures like the following:
"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." (Romans 8:16-17)
"I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High." (Psalms 82:6)
While we have a hope that they are true doctrines, we simply don't know enough about these principles to be able to comprehend them right now, and therefore cannot declare them as "official" church doctrines to the entire world; nor do we say much about them in our church meetings on Sunday. At the moment they still remain pretty much a mystery to us but may be included in the "things" the Apostle Paul talks about:
"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him," (1 Corinthians 2:9).
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