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Notes -
...how come?
see here.
But can you provide a more detailed explanation?
uh, sure, I guess. The following is speaking very generally and aiming for as neutral a view as I can manage.
Jews (speaking very broadly here as I will for all groups) think they have a revelation from God, and that revelation is at a certain point closed. Then they have a system pertaining to how that revelation interfaces with their community, which may not be closed per se but where thousands of years of tradition usually vastly outweigh present concerns.
Christians believe the Jewish revelation is valid, but don't see it as closed, and believe there was a subsequent revelation which at a later point closed. They likewise have a community-interface system which likewise draws on thousands of years of tradition, which is completely incompatible with the Jewish system. So while both Jews and Christians think the Old Testament is the word of God, Jews think the New Testament is heretical pagan nonsense and the church and its traditions have no valid connection to God, while (many) Christians think Jews missed the boat, the rabbinical system is in the same way heretical nonsense, made up to paper over the fact that Judaism ended with the destruction of the temple, when it became impossible to fulfill the requirements of the Law.
Mormons are to Christians as Christians are to Jews. They have what might be described as a Newer Testament, which they see as a subsequent revelation to the Christian one, which is, you guessed it, now also closed. And they have their own community-interface system which is only a couple hundred years old but hey give them awhile, sheesh. And to their credit, a couple hundred years ain't nothing, and they do seem to be going fairly strong to date, but this system is likewise incompatible with the Christian system in the same way that the Christian system is incompatible with the Jewish one. Christians think the Newer testament is bad fanfic, in the same way Jews think the Christian New Testament is bad fanfic, for similar reasons.
In each case, you have the older version rejecting the newer version as a heresy, and the newer version thinking the older version missed the boat. ...Only, I'm not actually sure whether Mormons think Christians are fine as-is, or should ideally become Mormons, the way Christians think Jews should become Christian. I'd assume so, just on a naïve application of memetics.
I was looking for examples of specific theological beliefs or other aspects of Mormonism that might render Mormonism incompatible with Christianity as it's traditionally conceived. Looks like Quantumfreakonomics has it covered though.
I can. The quickest one is they reject the oneness of God and Christ. This isn't in any standard nontrinitarian sense, it is in the uniquely Mormon polytheistic sense as they believe God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are three distinct gods, among multitudes. They employ rhetorical tricks, they believe in a "godhead" that is "one" and you'll find that "one" often in quotations because it's an equivocation. As trinitarian Christians mean one in the literal sense of one essential being, Mormons mean one in the figurative sense, acting in a common purpose. You could say that of the religion, the Church of Latter-Day Equivocations. Smith used a bunch of words because they sounded Christian when he meant anything but.
Yahweh said to Moses "I am." Christ said to the Pharisees "Before Abraham was, I am." The Pharisees understood he was claiming to be God, that's why they tried to stone him. Mormons post-hoc their nontrinitarian beliefs by saying instances of YHWH/Jehovah in the OT actually refer to Christ. False to an absurd degree, in the number of verses clearly describing Yahweh as God the Father, and those that go on to say "and no other gods exist."
Smith followed in the line of Muhammad. He gutted a religion, wore it as a skinsuit, and in America exploited some of its inertia for his cult. There are nominally Christian sects that also reject the divinity of Christ. Same goes for them. That's not what's really relevant here, though. Apropos this discourse, you see among righties some saying "Christendom is under attack" and the retort spiral of "Mormons aren't Christians" / "Yes we are" et refrain. Christianity, most historically, is the belief in Christ and God as one. Most Christians today believe in Christ and God as one. They think Mormons believe the same. If they knew Mormons didn't, they would no longer consider them Christian but a deeply heretical, borderline if not overtly blasphemous, likely Satanic cult. Dante would find Joseph Smith in the Eighth Circle, Ninth Bolgia. Ever-cleft from groin to abdomen.
Personally, I find polygamy, especially polygyny, as so gravely wicked as to be self-apparently disqualifying of Smith and so all of his work. Today, a man who wants multiple wives hates women to a degree I don't know how to put into words, and he hates men even more. Smith had 30-40 "wives." And that's always what it's about, at least in the US. Men go to remarkable lengths so they can have sex with whichever women they want.
Yes, they had a "revelation" to stop the practice, because if they hadn't, the army would have done it for them.
We believe the godhead is one in the scriptural sense.
It's hard to get more clear and straightforward than this.
On the meta level, you have reasons to think that Jesus was speaking figuratively here but literally when he said "there are no gods besides me." I have reasons to think the opposite. We could get into a very long, tiresome debate about which is correct, and as loathe as I am to begin such a debate, it's still far preferable to your current insinuation that the question is entirely settled; that one approach is straightforwardly un-biblical and heretical while the other is fully and self-evidently sound.
I suppose you would fully condemn the many wives God gave to David, too?
Please read the declaration, lol. You're implying here something like "LDS leaders pretended that God coincidentally told them to stop practicing polygamy just in time to avoid direct conflict with the army" It's actually the exact opposite--the declaration explicitly says that polygamy was ended due to external interference.
This is just dishonest.
So if it's legalized it would pop right back around? Is social tolerance enough?
It could. It's not currently authorized in countries where it's legal, but it never really went away. We actually still practice it in the sense that, if a man's wife dies, he can remarry and be sealed eternally to the second woman too, provided she was previously single.
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