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concerned about politics: I have a Mormon friend. He believes in the Trinity. Take about stereotyping and rumor. Sheesh.

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Your Mormon friend DOES NOT believe in the Trinity. I used to be Mormon, they believe in 3 SEPARATE GODS (only 2 have a body) that make up the ‘god’ only FOR THIS WORLD. They are only one ‘in purpose’ not in any other way.

Jesus is not God, He is only A God (one of many) who had to earn his godhood by being morally perfect. The Holy Ghost is only ‘kinda’ a God because he has not yet been able to get a body and earn his Godhood (having a physical body in necessary in order to be a god).

God the Father, also earned his Godhood, when he lived on his own ‘earth’, and was Mormon and has is own God, ad infinitum.

Mormons also believe Jesus is the literal physical son (through sex with Mary) of God the Father, and therefore is not the same as God the Father.

It is either misinformed or disingenuous to claim Mormons believe in the trinity as Christians do.

Here is a summary of Mormon teaching, and it ain’t the Trinity.

http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/mclaims2.htm

Here are some quotes on the Nature of God (all from Mormon sources) and on Jesus Christ. Do you believe in THIS God?

God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret.... It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know... that he was once a man like us.... Here, then, is eternal life – to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves... the same as all Gods have done before you...”

- Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., “King Follett Discourse,” Journal of Discourses, v. 6, pp. 3-4, also in Teachings of the Prophet of Joseph Smith, pp. 345-346.

“He is our Father – the Father of our Spirits, and was once a man in mortal flesh as we are, and is now an exalted being.”

- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 7, p. 333.

“The Lord created you and me for the purpose of becoming Gods like himself.”

- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 3, p. 93.

“... God... is a personal Being, a holy and exalted man...”

- Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 1966 ed., p. 250.

“Mormon prophets have continuously taught the sublime truth that God the Eternal Father was once a mortal man who passed through a school of earth life similar that through which we are now passing. He became God – an exalted being – through obedience to the same eternal Gosepl truths that we are given opportunity to obey.”

- Apostle Milton R. Hunter, The Gospel Through the Ages, p. 104

“God is an exalted man. Some people are troubled over the statements of the Prophet Joseph Smith... that our Father in heaven at one time passed through a life and death and is an exalted man...”

- Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, v. 1, p. 10

“There is a statement often repeated in the Church, and while it is not in one of the Standard Church Works, it is accepted as church doctrine, and this is: ‘As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become.”

- Apostle LeGrand Richards, letter to Morris L. Reynolds, July 14, 1966, cited by Tanner in Mormonism: Shadow or Reality, p. 164.

“We often say, and you have heard the expression as it has already been referred to in this conference, that “as man now is, God once was, and as God now is, man may become.” The only way man may become as God now is, is through fulfilling the laws of celestial marriage and the laws of the gospel, as I have just read to you the word of the Lord from the D&C. Can we afford to overlook such opportunities for exaltation? Temple marriage is not just another form of church wedding; it is a divine covenant with the Lord that if we are faithful to the end, we may become as God now is.”

- Patriarch Eldred G. Smith, General Conference, October 1948

“Mormonism be it true or false, holds out to men the greatest inducements that the human mind can grasp. And so it does... It teaches men that they can become divine, that man is God in embryo, that God was once man in mortality, and that the only difference between Gods, angels and men is a difference in education and development. Is such a religion to be sneered at? It teaches that the worlds on high, the stars that glitter in the blue vault of heaven, are kingdoms of God, that they were once earths like this, that they have been redeemed and glorified by the same laws, the same principles that are applied to this planet, and by which it will ascend to a perfected and glorified state. It teaches that these worlds are peopled with human beings, God’s sons and daughters, and that every husband and father, may become an Adam, and every wife and mother an Eve, to some future planet.”

- Apostle Orson F. Whitney, Divine Evidences of Truthfulness, Y.M.M.I.A. Annual Conference, June 9th, 1895.

“So the Prophet Joseph Smith, in this age, has added to this truth by the assertion that “As man is God once was, and that as He is man may became,” because He is our Father, and like begets like, and inherent within us are the attributes of divinity that shall lead us into perfection, which Christ intended His Saints to attain unto.”

- Elder Joseph E. Robinson, General Conference, April 1912

“God our Heavenly Father is still progressing. While He knows all that is, all that has been, and possibly all things that He designs for the future and what will be in the future, yet He is constantly adding to His dominion, constantly increasing His power, constantly developing in His resources and in His glorious aspirations. This, at least, is our understanding of the condition of our Father in heaven. The thought has been expressed and accepted as a truth, that as we are now, God has been, and as God is now we may be; and if we admit this to be a truth—and I have no disposition to dispute it—then I repeat that even God our Heavenly Father has not reached the ultimatum of His greatness, His power, or His capacity, but that He is continually increasing and expanding in power, in dominion, in glory and in greatness, if I may be permitted to use such terms as these which some people who know no better would call blasphemous, in connection with the Supreme Being, the Father of us all.”

- Prophet Joseph F. Smith, Sustaining Each Other in the Gospel, Sunday, February 16, 1896.

“After men have got their exaltations and their crowns-—have become Gods, even the sons of God-—are made Kings of kings and Lords of lords, they have the power then of propagating their species in spirit; and that is the first of their operations with regard to organizing a world. Power is then given to them to organize the elements, and then commence the organization of tabernacles.”

- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 6, pp. 274-275

“Remember that God, our heavenly Father, was perhaps once a child, and mortal like we ourselves, and rose step by step in the scale of progress, in the school of advancement; has moved forward and overcome until He has arrived at the point where He now is.”

- Apostle Orson Hyde, Deseret News Weekly, October 27, 1853, p. 78; also see Melchizedek Priesthood Study Guide, 1979-80, p. 82;

Prophet Brigham Young (1801 - 1877):

“While brother Joseph was referring to the provinces of God, I was led to reflect that there is no act, no principle, no power belonging to the Deity that is purely philosophical. The birth of the Saviour was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood – was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers.”

- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 8, p. 115

“... I believe the Father came down from heaven, as the apostles said he did, and begat the Saviour of the world; for he is the ONLY-begotten of the Father, which could not be if the Father did not actually beget him in person.... I believe the Father came down in His tabernacle and begat Jesus Christ.”

- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 1, p. 238

Apostle Heber C. Kimball (1802 - 1868):

“... In relation to the way in which I look upon the works of God and his creatures, I will say that I was naturally begotten; so was my father, and also my Saviour Jesus Christ. According to the Scriptures, he is the first begotten of his father in the flesh, and there was noting unnatural about it.”

- Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, v. 8, p. 211

Apostle Orson Pratt (1811 - 1881):

“God, the Father of our spirits, became the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.... The fleshy 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, for the time being, the lawful wife of God the Father.... He had a lawful right to overshadow the Virgin Mary in the capacity of a husband, and beget a Son, although she was espoused to another; for the law which He gave to govern men and women, was not intended to govern Himself, or to prescribe rules for his own conduct.”

- Apostle Orson Pratt, The Seer, p. 158

Prophet Joseph F. Smith (1838 - 1918):

“Now, we are told in scriptures that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God in the flesh. Well, now for the benefit of the older ones, how are children begotten? I answer just as Jesus Christ was begotten of the flesh... Jesus is the only person who had our Heavenly Father as the father of his body.”

- Prophet Joseph F. Smith, Family Home Evening Manual, pp. 125, 126, 1972

Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith (1876 - 1972):

“Christ Not Begotten of Holy Ghost... Christ was begotten of God. He was not born without the aid of Man, and that Man was God!”

- Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, v. 1, p. 18, 1954

Apostle Bruce R. McConkie (1915 - 1985):

“Christ was Begotten by an immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers.”

- Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 547, 1966

“And Christ was born into the world as the literal Son of this Holy Being; he was born in the same personal, real, and literal sense that any mortal son is born to a mortal father. There is nothing figurative about his paternity; he was begotten, conceived and born in the normal and natural course of events, for he is the Son of God, and that designation means what it says.”

- Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 792, 1966

“As far as this life is concerned, [Jesus] was born of Mary and of Elohim; he came here as an offspring of that Holy Man who is literally our Father in heaven. He was born in mortality in the literal and full sense as the Son of God. He is the Son of his father in the same sense that all morals are the sons and daughters of their fathers.”

- Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mortal Messiah, v. 1, p. 330

Prophet Ezra Taft Benson (1899 - 1994):

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the most literal sense. The body in which He performed His mission in the flesh was sired by that some Holy Being we worship as God, our Eternal Father. Jesus was not the son of Joseph, nor was He begotten by the Holy Ghost.”

- Prophet Ezra Taft Benson, The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 7

Others:

“Thus, God the Father became the literal father of Jesus Christ. Jesus was born of a mortal mother and an immortal father.”

- Gospel Principles, p. 57, 1988

“[Jesus Christ] was willing to make payment because of his great love for mankind, and he was able to make payment because he lived a sinless life and because he was actually, literally, biologically the Son of God in the flesh.”

- Messages for Exaltation, For the Sunday Schools of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gospel Doctrine Class, pp. 378-379, 1967