" As man now is, God once was/As God now is, man may be. A son of God like God to be/Would not be robbing Deity " is attributed to Lorenzo Snow who was the fifth president of the Church. In 1840 he was spending an evening in the home of one Elder H.G. Sherwood before leaving on a mission to England. They were discussing the parable of the husbandman and as Lorenzo was listening to the discussion, he described it thus " [T]he Spirit of the Lord rested mightily upon me, the eyes of my understanding were opened, and I saw as clear as the sun at noonday, with wonder and astonishment, the pathway of God and man. " He formed that couplet to express what he saw and told no one about this initially except his sister Eliza. When he reached England he talked privately with Brigham Young pertaining to this revelation and when he returned from England in 1843 he also spoke to the Prophet Joseph Smith about it. Joseph Smith then declared that it was true gospel doctrine and that it was a revelation from God to Lorenzo Snow. It was not publicly taught until 1844. Lorenzo Snow by the way did not become prophet until after the death of Wilford Woodruff in 1898 This is all documented in the Improvement Era of June 1919.

Yes I am Mormon and yes I do research my beliefs thoroughly because we as members of the LDS faith are taught to always increase our knowledge, that knowledge goes hand in hand with faith in God (those 'feelings ' you were talking about), to seek wisdom out of the best books and to make a habit of reading and studying the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price as well as many, many others. By all means I am not an atypical Mormon either for believing this. I am currently taking a religion class sponsored by my church and we are learning about Church History and the lives of the individual prophets. It is really quite fascinating. So yes I would fully agree with you on that last point.

I am aware of the Adam/God theory as my father actually enjoyed going up to young missionaries of our church who did not know he was a member and ask them " So tell me about this Adam/God theory you Mormons believe " :)

I am in the process of reading right now the exact sermon of Brigham Young's in which this is mentioned. I also questioned my father about it. He said that I have to also consider that Brigham Young was not a learned man by the standards of his time, that these discourses were all written down by people who were sitting and listening to Brigham Young speak in the tabernacle and the intent behind what he said has to be measured against what he actually said and what was actually written down. So I think it is a matter of going directly to the source, reading it, pondering it with sincere intent and coming to your own conclusions. Apparently Spencer W. Kimball overturned this doctrine in 1976, I will have to check up on that.

My final remarks are this.

On Prophets: There's a difference between ancient revelation and living revelation. Biblical prophets recieved revelation on a great many things pertaining to what was important to their people at particular times. Some of it we still follow, and some we do not. The revelations we do not follow any more are no less inspired than the ones we do and we do not follow them anymore not because we don't " agree " with them anymore...it's just that they served their individual purposes and are now historical footnotes to be studied and pondered for one's own benefit. I would also caution you to be mindful of what prophets say as men and what they say as Prophets. These are two entirely different things.

And a few remarks by Paul who is one of my favorites from the Bible

1 Corinthians 2:10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God.

Phillipians 4:8 Finally brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise think on these things

I don't think the Devil cares to drive us ever onwards in the direction of a fulfilling life and thereby becoming closer to God by encouraging us (God forbid) to actually think and ponder about what we believe and why we believe it. Anything of Satan does not uplift but drags down, it does not encourage us to be better people but instead encourages to be worse, it does not urge us to seek the wisdom of God but to rely on the arm of flesh. And a house divided cannot stand, plain and simple.

Now...if anyone is still curious I would be more than happy to continue discussing my beliefs and theology in general but by PM's. If any Mudcatters are still actually reading this thread they are probably bored to death by all this endless religious chatter by now :)