Allow me, a life-long, active Mormon to respond. The tricky part of your question, in the mind of a Latter-Day Saint, is the word “worship”. What do you mean by that? In modern parlance the word has shades of meaning. An active Christian might say he ‘worships’ Angelina Jolie or Tom Brady, but it would be clearly understood that the term ‘worship’ in its purest sense could only refer to Jesus Christ.
We worship Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Redeemer, The Saviour. We, however, never pray to Jesus Christ. We pray to God the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Ghost.
We pray only to the Father, but we Worship The Father, AND Jesus Christ, AND the Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit, if you prefer) and we recognize them as individual beings, or one Godhead.
It may seem a bit confusing to outsiders, but it makes perfect sense to a Saint.
And in classical deflection fashion the attempt is maintained to keep it cloudy.
By "individual beings" mormon define them as separate, stand alone 'gods' - which by definition is polytheism - which by your admission IS CLASSICAL polytheism - the worship of multiple gods.
Lets further clarify matters - the mormon definition of 'godhead' is not that which is found in the Bible - but one that corrupts the biblical uses for polytheistic purposes - that is the mormon 'godhead' is nothing more than a committee.
Colofornian and MHG are quite correct in this - with the plethora of answers - I seriously doubt 'saints' understand.
Nothing pertaining to Joe Smith’s Mormons make no sense.
He made it up as he went along.
Its a hoot to watch how today’s Mormons try to defend his ranting and ravings.
That might be behaviourly true of most Mormons today. If Mormons take the Book of Mormon as historically serious, however, they would realize that even their version of Jesus Christ invited, accepted and encouraged DIRECT prayer to Him!
Of course LDS just tend to ignore many 3 Nephi passages, including one section where the Nephite disciples pray directly and incessantly to Jesus (not just "in Jesus' name" directed at the Father):
“And behold, they began to pray; and they did pray unto Jesus, calling him their Lord and God…when Jesus had thus prayed unto the Father, he came unto his disciples, and behold, they did still continue, without ceasing, to pray unto him…And it came to pass that Jesus blessed them as they did pray unto him…And Jesus said unto them: Pray on; nevertheless they did not cease to pray.” (3 Nephi 19:18, 24-26)
Stephen, in the book of Acts (Acts 7 -- at the end of the chapter), also prayed directly to Jesus!
Tell us, 47 Samurai. How long have such a disobedient disciple? -- failing to emulate both Stephen & book of mormon characters?
The One God evidences Himself in the work He is doing The following will be 'a way' to understand the notion of the trinitarian nature of the Deity, not a strictly Biblical explanation, but one which is applicable to the teaching of the Bible. Here goes:
God The Father Almighty is greater than His creation, thus greater than dimension time and dimension space, thus we may think of The Father Almighty as beyond time and space but not prevented from touching and indeed penetrating His creation.
The universe of space and time is likened to a bubble: what is inside the bubble is in time and space. But the nature of what is inside the bubble is only partially understood in modern Physics.
The Bible relates scenes which defy our simplistic notions, but let us make the statement that God The Father Almighty is as comfortable outside the bubble of our spacetime as He is inside the bubble.
Modern Physics has discovered that the balance of forces and tensions sustaining the universe necessary for human life to arise within the universe is extremely delicate, on the order of a mathematical improbability, represented as a 'one in less than' fraction so tiny that a one over a one followed by more than one-hundred zeros [1/1x10100] defines the probability that the whole thing remains in balance! Such a delicate balancing act is but one of the continuing 'works' of the Holy Spirit of God. It is by the Spirit of God, The Word, that the universe came into existence and it is said in the Bible that by His Spirit the whole is maintained.
But the Bible also states that The Word was with God in the beginning and was God. In John's gospel we find that Jesus is The Word made flesh Who dwelt among us. So, inside the bubble Created by The Father Almighty, sustained by God The Holy Spirit, is the Word, God made flesh Who dwelt among us. The Creator does not stop being greater than His creation bubble, nor does His Spirit cease to sustain it all in balance, when Jesus comes in the flesh to dwell among us.
When one reads the Tanakh/Old Testament, one finds scenes like the fifth chapter of Daniel where a being is in one spacetime 'where/when' reaching into another 'where/when' to write on the palace party central wall of king Belshazzar. Just the forearm/hand is seen in the where/when of Belshazzar and the party folks, the rest of the being remains in 'another' where/when.
God The Father Almighty created this 'other' where/when, His Holy Spirit maintains its balance and separateness from our where/when, and Jesus has moved in and out of this other where/when: as shown when He resurrected from the tomb without rolling away the stone, just passing out of the tomb where/when, into 'another' where/when; then back into our where/when as He spoke to the women come to the sepulchre; and when He appeared in a locked and shuttered room with the disciples present; or appeared suddenly with the disciples walking on a road and broke bread with them then left our where/when to go to the 'other' where/when.
The trinitarian nature of God is shown in the Bible, even in the Tanakh. Trinity IS the nature of God as we have been given to know. Even in the Old Testament/Tanakh, we do have instruction on the Three nature of God as Creator, Sustainer, and Deliverer. God Is manifested as three yet one, seen identified by the 'work' He is doing/'action' He is taking.
With each manifestation, we are given to realize His presence simultaneously as Creator--because we exist in the realm He created, as Sustainer--because the balance is too delicate to stand alone without His sustaining the separation and interdependence, and as God with us in the person of Jesus our Lord and Savior.
Do you look forward to when your own created people will worship you as a god?
So, since you see Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as three separate gods, you worship three gods -- in direct contradiction to D&C 20:19, which claims Mormons are to worship the "the only living and true God, and that HE SHOULD be the ONLY being that they SHOULD worship.”
Tell us, 47Samurai, how long have you have problems comprehending words like...
..."should"...?
..."ONLY"...?
..."HE" as singular...?
..."Being" as singular...?
So, we can safely say that you categorically reject D&C 20:19 as a true statement or prophesy -- if God is separately divided into three beings, that is.
Sadly, the LDS church is honoring a very small jesus.
See my post #10.
The true Jesus is the CREATOR of the whole universe.
The true Jesus existed BEFORE anything else.
Everything was CREATED BY HIM.
The true Jesus holds everything together.
The true Jesus is BEYOND our experience and comprehension, BUT He took on human form for us.
He was NOT a mere human who then became a little bit better than He was before.
From Colossians (KJV).
“For by him were all things created,
that are in heaven, and that are in earth,
visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers:
all things were created by him, and for him:
And he is before all things,
and by him all things consist.””
“we recognize them as individual beings”
Clearly polytheism.
Mormons worship three gods... plus, of course, Heavenly Mother, the fourth mormon earth god. So four mormon earth gods are acknowledged as “individual beings” and worshipped.
The other few billion mormon gods are not worshipped.
And wouldn't he be the real "God" on the block? (Or would it be GtF2 father, GtF3...GtF4?)
Finally I have asked several and gotten mixed answers.
Is Jesus the brother of Lucifer and were they both created?
Good that you are so open...to state that you really don't follow the Bible.
Of course Christians that are reading their Bibles, know this.
Not surprising you typed in a zinger..."Saint". When will you be a god?
How many wife's will you have?
Milk before meat?
good answer, but it won’t shut up the bigots.