After posing questions to members of the LDS Church at the Internet discussion board at CARM.org (here and here) and after reading through multiple LDS responses, they gave the following most-pertinent responses to the question: “Do you believe you’ll become Gods over other planets?” Some of the persons quoted employ Internet "handles" or pseudonyms in place of their real names. Quotes are from the year 2008.

“The answer is: God wants you Russ to be able to have what he has. A world, with spirit children that can be placed there. You have divine potential.”

“As for me, I know my potential, and am following the example of the Saviour, I stumble often, but he guides me. As I continue to learn and grow, one day I expect to enter into his rest, and have assurance that I will receive an exaltation and become like My Father in heaven.” –getlloyd

“I do believe that someday in the far distant future I'll become a God over some group of planets.” -Kevin Simonson

“Yes only if I am worthy and it will be through the atonement of Jesus the Christ. I can become a Joint Heir with Jesus as it says in Romans.” –jkfrost

“Yes, if worthy.” –ajholloway

“Children inherit what the Father has. This is the way of Things. It has always been the way. Servants and slaves shall not inherit with the Sons of God.” –bert10 {ed. I assume bert has in mind that those who don’t become LDS Gods will become ministering servants in heaven.}

"Sure I believe that celestial families will have spirit children and take part in the creation of new worlds, but there are still plenty of details that we just don't have." Polaris

After asking at another LDS site:

"The short answer is yes. What does this scripture tell you? Romans 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: 17 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." -Flyonthewall

"1. [Divinization] is restricted to faithful members of (what we believe to be) God's sole authorized Church

2. Families are eternal

3. Resurrected and divinized beings possess physical bodies

4. Those physical bodies occupy some physical space

5. We along with Christ, share in the Father's glory and become joint heirs of all that the father has, become divinized and thus share in God's creative powers." -Snow

After informing one Mormon that I'd found several official LDS references to the doctrine of Eternal Progression, he answered:

“That's great Russ, officially it's also OK, with me.” -HankSaint

Since there were no LDS responses to the negative, I’ve come to the conclusion that those LDS members who post their thoughts on the Internet believe they can indeed become Gods over other planets.

Next question: Will you “procreate” spirit-children with celestial, polygamous wives where said spirit-children will take on tabernacles of flesh and bone (physical bodies) where it’s hoped that they too will learn and obey the laws, principles and ordinances of the LDS religion so that they too might become Gods over other planets?

(More to come. Awaiting responses and gathering info from LDS sources.)

"The Father has promised us that through our faithfulness we shall be blessed with the fulness 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 fulness 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. We will have an endless eternity for this." Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, Vol.2, p.48

As quoted at: http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/mormonshopetobecomegods.htm

From the official website of the LDS church:

Joseph Fielding Smith, 10th President of the Church

Basic Facts

Birth Date: July 19, 1876
Death Date: July 2, 1972
Years as President: 1970–1972

 

“Our mission is to preach the doctrines of salvation in plainness and simplicity as they are revealed and recorded in the scriptures.”

The crux of any religion, whether it be Hindu, Buddhist, Islam, Christian, Scientology or Mormonism, etc., is its means of salvation.

Why am I here?

What happens after I die?

Christianity states man will be saved from hell unto eternal life lived directly in the presence of God.

Mormonism states men will become their own Gods over other planets where they'll procreate spirit-children with celestial wives (or a wife. It depends upon which LDS authority one believes.)

Since the ultimate goal of any given religion is to answer "what happens after I die?", I think a full-examination of Mormonism's answer is in order.

Since the Mormon man is said to become a God in his own right, with the ability to create, procreate and govern, it seems a good idea to ask LDS to explain the following quotes and offer input along the way as to why we should consider such thoughts to be representative of Christianity:

Joseph Smith (1844, the year he was murdered) said, "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man ... 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." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pg.345).

"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, 347)

Fifth LDS president: "Why, we are just beginning to find out that we are the offspring of God, born with the same faculties and powers as He possesses, capable of enlargement through the experience that we are now passing through in our second estate... He has given us faculties and powers that are capable of enlargement until His fulness is reached which He has promised—until we shall sit upon thrones, governing and controlling our posterity from eternity to eternity, and increasing eternally. That is the fact in regard to these matters." The Teachings of Lorenzo Snow, p.2 1898-1901

LDS Apostle James Talmage wrote: "We believe in a God who is Himself progressive, whose majesty is intelligence; whose perfection consists in eternal advancement - a Being who has attained His exalted state by a path which now His children are permitted to follow, whose glory it is their heritage to share. In spite of the opposition of the sects, in the face of direct charges of blasphemy, the church proclaims the eternal truth: 'As man is, God once was; as God is, man may be.'" (Articles of Faith, p. 430.) Early 1900s


Man is God in embryo

"Mormonism be it true or false, holds out to men the greatest inducements that the human mind can grasp. 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." Mormon Apostle Orson F. Whitney Collected Discourses, Vol. 4, June 9, 1895

"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 to that through which we are now passing." -Milton R. Hunter, First Council of the Seventy 1945-1975

"Let me ask, are we not taught that we as sons of God may become like him? Is not this a glorious thought? Yet we have to pass through mortality and receive the resurrection and then go on to perfection just as our Father did before us. The Prophet taught that our Father had a Father and so on. Is not this a reasonable thought, especially when we remember that the promises are made to us that we may become like him?" 10th LDS President Joseph Fielding Smith Doctrines of Salvation 1:12 (LDS president: 1970-1972)

12th LDS president Spencer W. Kimball: "Man can transform himself and he must. Man has in himself the seeds of godhood, which can germinate and grow and develop. As the acorn becomes the oak, the mortal man becomes a god. It is within his power to lift himself by his very bootstraps from the plane on which he finds himself to the plane on which he should be. It may be a long, hard lift with many obstacles, but it is a real possibility." The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p.28 (LDS president 1973-1985)

"We remember the numerous scriptures which, concentrated in a single line, were said by a former prophet, Lorenzo Snow: 'As man is, God once was; and as God is, man may become.' This is a power available to us as we reach perfection and receive the experience and power to create, to organize, to control native elements. How limited we are now! We have no power to force the grass to grow, the plants to emerge, the seeds to develop." - Spencer W. Kimball, General Conference, April 1977


"On the other hand, the whole design of the gospel is to lead us onward and upward to greater achievement, even, eventually, to godhood. This great possibility was enunciated by the Prophet Joseph Smith in the King Follet sermon (see Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 342-62); and emphasized by President Lorenzo Snow. It is this grand and incomparable concept: As God now is, man may become!" - Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, General Conference, October 1994


The concept of God being an exalted man has been taught in the LDSChurch as recently as 2005 in an official LDSChurch publication:
"Many religions teach that human beings are children of God, but often their conception of Him precludes any kind of bond resembling a parent-child relationship. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught of a much simpler and more sensible relationship: “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit … was to make himself visible … , you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another." - Strengthening the Family: Created in the Image of God, Male and Female, The Ensign, Jan. 2005, pg. 48