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Also, Mormons believe that the Father lived a mortal life, died and was resurrected and achieved godhood
Now this is a fundamental difference between Christianity (or Judaism or even Islam) and Mormonism
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I see no problem in people speculating like this and having their own religion (which is distinct from Christianity) -- philosophically even Scientologists believe what they believe, so ok for Mormons
BUT as a historian, the way in which the LDS beliefs hinge on fiction makes it far more a fiction religion than Scientology -- the religion was cleverly made up by J Smith by taking aspects of Baptist philosophy (the Great Apostasy) and British-Israelism -- in the latter he made the biggest long-term mistake. Mormon belief states there were Israelites, i.e. Semitic people before Columbus who had large populations, large cities and civilisations, cultures and whose descendents are the modern day Native Americans and who used a language called "Reformed Egyptian" -- the problem is that there were no Semitic peoples in pre-Columbus America: there is zero archaeological or historical evidence for large cities with Old World technology or culture (pottery etc.) or religious aspects and the Native Americans are genetically, linguistically, anthropologically and historically (by their OWN history) not Semites.
There is no such and never was such a language as Reformed Egyptian -- the only evidence given is scribbles -- and it seems strange that Israelites who had left egypt 400+ years earlier should revert to using the Coptic language in any "reformed" way and the one used is completely unlike the demotic of late Egypt.
The "Book of abraham" given as proof was actually a cut-out of the Egyptian book of the Dead showing the god Anubis.
J Smith was the L Ron Hubbard of his day, but his fiction cannot hold know in the light of discoveries made since the late 1800s in Egypt (remember - hieroglyphs had not yet been deciphered during J Smith's time) and the strides made in genetical and linguistic studies
Precisely true about J Smith being the L Ron Hubbard of his day.
There is no way that anyone today would insist that Scientology be incorporated as a Christian denomination.
Nor should they insist that mormonism be considered Christian.
I honestly think these media types simply don't have a clue about the enormity of the differences.
None of this is to say that Mitt Romney is disqualified from consideration to run for President. It is true that there should be no religious test.
On the other hand, we should not pretend that Mormonism has never had beliefs that are political negatives, even radioactive. It is for exactly that reason that mainline Mormonism had to jettison their belief in polygamy. That belief had a real and discernible impact on our culture.
There are other beliefs of Mormons that have immediate impact on our culture. Many of our current Mormons believed for years in the inferiority of minorities due to God's curse being on those of darker skins.
And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing . . . wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 5:21).
This belief was not changed until 1978, only 33 years ago. Mitt Romney was born in 1947 so is currently 64 years old. For 31 years of his life he believed in the cursed inferiority of dark-skinned Americans, particularly African blacks.
Conservatives have many concerns about Romney's political viability given his many flip-flops. Moreover, there is great concern about Romney's electability due to Mormonism's continuing rejection of African-Americans during Romney's adult years and Romney's failure to speak out against it despite opportunity to do so. What weapon against Romney this issue could become in a heated campaign against a black president is ALREADY hinted at in this wikipedia article on Romney's life:
At culturally conservative Brigham Young, Romney continued to be separated from much of the upheaval of the era, and did not join the few protests against the ...LDS Church's policy against giving full membership to blacks.[9][20]
In my mind, this is a huge issue that combined with others would make Romney totally unelectable in a general election campaign against Obama.