As do all Christians whom believe that the Father is the Father of all and read John 20:17. Just nobody goes about thinking / phrasing things that, including LDS Christians. This obsession is only found in "anti-cultists".
LDS, Mormons believe they will become a God.
“God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret.... It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know... that he was once a man like us.... Here, then, is eternal life – to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves... the same as all Gods have done before you...”
- Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., “King Follett Discourse,” Journal of Discourses, v. 6, pp. 3-4, also in Teachings of the Prophet of Joseph Smith, pp. 345-346.
“He is our Father – the Father of our Spirits, and was once a man in mortal flesh as we are, and is now an exalted being.”
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 7, p. 333.
“The Lord created you and me for the purpose of becoming Gods like himself.”
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 3, p. 93.
“... God... is a personal Being, a holy and exalted man...”
- Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 1966 ed., p. 250.
“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 that through which we are now passing. He became God – an exalted being – through obedience to the same eternal Gosepl truths that we are given opportunity to obey.”
- Apostle Milton R. Hunter, The Gospel Through the Ages, p. 104
“God is an exalted man. Some people are troubled over the statements of the Prophet Joseph Smith... that our Father in heaven at one time passed through a life and death and is an exalted man...”
- Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, v. 1, p. 10
“There is a statement often repeated in the Church, and while it is not in one of the Standard Church Works, it is accepted as church doctrine, and this is: ‘As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become.”
- Apostle LeGrand Richards, letter to Morris L. Reynolds, July 14, 1966, cited by Tanner in Mormonism: Shadow or Reality, p. 164.
The church's message, he explained, "is a message of Christ. Our church is Christ-centered. He's our leader. He's our head. His name is the name of our church." At first, Hinckley seemed to qualify the idea that men could become gods, suggesting that "it's of course an ideal. It's a hope for a wishful thing," but later affirmed that "yes, of course they can." (He added that women could too, "as companions to their husbands. They can't conceive a king without a queen.") On whether his church still holds that God the Father was once a man, he sounded uncertain, "I don't know that we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it... I understand the philosophical background behind it, but I don't know a lot about it, and I don't think others know a lot about it."
- Time, August 4, 1997
After a spokesman for the LDS Church questioned the accuracy of the Time quotation, the transcript was released:
“Q: Just another related question that comes up is the statements in the King Follett discourse by the Prophet [Joseph Smith, Jr.]
Hinckley: Yeah.
Q:…about that, God the Father was once a man as we were. This is something that Christian writers are always addressing. Is this the teaching of the church today, that God the Father was once a man like we are?
Hinckley: I don't know that we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it. I haven't heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don't know. I don't know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it. But I don't know a lot about it and I don't know that others know a lot about it.”
- Full transcript of Interview with Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, Time, August 4, 1997
“Q: There are some significant differences in your beliefs. For instance, don't Mormons believe that God was once a man?
A: [Gordon B. Hinckley] I wouldn't say that. There was a little couplet coined, ‘As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.' Now that's more of a couplet than anything else. That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don't know very much about.”
- San Francisco Chronicle, interview with Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, April 13, 1997, Sunday Interview, by Don Lattin, p. 3/Z1.
“None of you need worry because you read something that was incompletely reported. You need not worry that I do not understand some matters of doctrine... I think I understand them thoroughly.”
- Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, General Conference, October 4, 1997
“First, we believe that God is a being with a body in form like man's; that he possesses body, parts and passions; that in a word, God is an exalted, perfected man.
“Secondly, we believe in a plurality of Gods.
“Third, we believe that somewhere and some time in the ages to come, through development, through enlargement, through purification until perfection is attained, man at last may become like God – a God.”
- LDS Historian B.H. Roberts, The Mormon Doctrine of Deity: The Roberts-Van Der Donckt Discussion, p. 11
“God must have been engaged from the beginning, and must now be engaged in progressive development, and infinite as God is, he must have been less powerful in the past than he is today.... We may be certain that, through self-effort, the inherent and innate powers of God have been developed to a God-like degree. Thus he has become God.”
- Apostle John A. Widtsoe, Rational Theology, 1915, pp. 23-24
“The Father became the Father at some time before ‘the beginning' as humans know it, by experiencing a mortality similar to that experienced on earth... Gods and humans are the same species of being, but at different stages of development in a divine continuum, and that the heavenly Father and Mother are the heavenly pattern, model, and example of what mortals can become through obedience to the gospel.... Knowing that they are the literal offspring of Heavenly Parents and that they can become like those parents through the gospel of Jesus Christ is a wellspring of religious motivation.”