've been toying with the idea of unity with god, like in marriage. all of man toegther and all of god. not sure what i think of it.
Arach,
Have you read any eastern thought? From what I've read on this forum you have a deep grounding in western Judeo Christian beliefs.
One major theme in the east is to look for the divine in the present moment in the present experience/self rather than to look to an authority from another time and place. The idea of the ego being either exalted, saved, made immortal is not held, rather the consciousness that takes itself to be the shifting organism awakens to it's real unborn nature that was never separate from the source.
I realize that Indian and eastern thought lacks appeal to many westerners but as you seem to be looking at alternatives to the mainstream conceptions I thought I would inquire as to your thoughts about the nondual conceptions.
Joeseph Smith seems to have added in some ideas that were fashionable in his times to his largely Judeo Christian based Book of Mormon. I don't think Smith either claimed or demonstrated that he was awakened. I agree with those who characterize him as a pious fraud.
I once heard a computer science type characterize the Mormon church as having awesome social engineering. He meant it respectfully as he was dating a Mormon girl at the time. I would like to ask setting aside questions of theology what about the Mormon life style or social order do you find so appealing, and could those elements be abstracted and applied to other religions or even in other non religious settings?
lfen