The Why of What Mormons believe
Introduction
There are a lot of people in the world who are willing to tell you what Mormons believe. Some statements are more accurate than others and some are complete falsehoods. Many of them are misrepresentations by others who just don't know any better and others stem from those who are not perfect and have misrepresented their own faith themselves.
While there are many that will tell you their version of what the Mormons believe, I want to tell you what the Mormons believe and then I want to give you the sources so that you can verify it. More importantly than that, I want you to understand why Mormons believe what they do.
This section is dedicated to doing just that. Not only will you find the Mormon beliefs within these pages, but you will find well referenced beliefs, both from current teachings and teachings from the 1800s. You will also find the 'why' on many of these pages. If you want to understand why we believe the things we do, this is a good place to begin.
Some of the Mormon teachings can seem peculiar at first from an outside perspective. However, when you start to research into detailed questions you begin to notice a fascinating cohesion in the belief system of the LDS church.
It is important for this project to use factual data which is taught in Mormon doctrine, so these articles are founded on the official doctrines of the LDS church. While they are based on official doctrine, there are some topics where I am piecing things together logically from my own understanding. These pages cannot be considered official doctrine in and of themselves. It should also be noted that I am not an official spokesman for the LDS church.
This section also includes other questions that people have asked, analyses of where false claims have originated from, and other similar questions.
The goal of these articles
I have two goals for this section. My first goal is to correctly represent what Mormons believe, why they believe it, and to answer other frequently asked questions. You can expect these items to reference credible sources for Mormon beliefs, including the KJV Bible, the Book of Mormon, lds.org and mormon.org. My second goal is to analyze claims made by critics of the LDS faith using relevant data. These items will reference related research material as appropriate. In either case, these articles do not fall underneath the guidelines found on the articles of evidences introduction page.
As with the articles of evidences, I am not attempting to convert you or pressure you to believe a certain thing. I just want to help dispel the false information that critics often use to attack the Mormon Church by using factual and honest data.
If you would like to see how other members of the LDS church have answered to some of these topics, I would recommend mormon.org. You can search for members from many varied backgrounds and find their own personal answers to a variety of fascinating questions. None of these resources require you to log in or to provide any information.
As with the articles of evidences, these items are meant to be quoted. If you are going to quote them, I would recommend that you include the source to the page, as these are not official doctrine, and are my own observations and responsibility.
A temporary and brief synopsis
This area is still being developed. There is much more to add here, and I have only added the matters which have been most pressing on my mind at this point. Before many of the "why's" can be added a lot of basic material is needed.
Suffice it to say, we believe in Jesus Christ, that he is the savior of all mankind. That through Him all men may be saved. We believe that Christ suffered and died for our sins. We believe that He is the Son of God, born to the Virgin Mary. We believe that the Bible is the word of God.
While this list is incomplete, you can find more of our correct beliefs at these resources: mormon.org, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Articles of Faith, or the scriptures.
If you want to ask a specific question I would recommend the official site at mormon.org where you can chat with someone representing the church.