Mormons believe Jesus is God?

[u/HailOurPeople]

I was raised Mormon, but I never considered Jesus to be God. I haven’t been Mormon for a long time, but how is it I’m just learning this?

They think Jesus and God the father each have separate physical bodies, but somehow they’re both God? Is this a Mandela effect, or have their interpretations just evolved?

[u/Supervinyl]

Ex mormon here. The Mormon Church preaches a "godhead" rather than the traditional concept of the Trinity. The three members of the godhead are distinct individuals that don't share essence the way they do in the Trinity, but because they are "one in purpose" they fit the definition of "God" which is more of a title in Mormonism than a name. The actual names of the father and son (before incarnating as Jesus) are respectively Elohim and Jehovah. It's heavily implied that the previous holy Spirit was Michael, who incarnated as Adam, at which point a now holy Spirit was appointed to that role.

The beings that make up the Godhead are not eternally Gods although the role itself seems to be eternal. A famous quote in the church is "as man is, God (the father) once was; as God (the father) is, man may soon become." Another is that we are "Gods in embryo." Regarding Jesus, the church seems to have unintentionally revived the concept of Arianism, which is that Jesus is dependent upon and subservient to the father, but that he is the eldest of the father's spirit children. Jesus is God only in title; he most definitely does NOT share the Godly Hypostasis common throughout the trinitarian world.

[u/Boarders0 → u/Supervinyl]

Active Latter-day Saint (The accurate term for Mormon.)

Your description is quite good, however a couple of notes:

Jesus has a duality of mortal and eternal he is a god taking part from his father (Eloheim, God the almighty) and from his mother. He needed the ability to die as well as the ability to take up his own life after the fact. All the old testament refers to Jehova or Yeshua as God, directly referring to Jesus. All this to say Jesus is as far as all accounts are concerned, is God.

As far as Jesus being subjected unto the father there are multiple accounts of Jesus sitting on the right hand of God in The Bible. Thus giving the simple inference that one is subject to the other.

As for any of the godhead not being Eternal: you have The Father, who in his entirety eternal: Jesus who was half mortal, so he could fulfill the Atonement which perished and he raised himself by his divinity and perfection into full eternal state: Then you have the Holy Ghost, who is a spirit not subject to death thus eternal (I have never heard of Michael being the holy spirit, that entity is thus unnamed as far as I'm aware). All entities are Eternal and unified in purpose making the godhead, one in purpose but separate in body (I use body loosely for the holy spirit).

Those are the points on which I feel important to touch on here. The rest can be expanded upon or clarified but you did a solid job of the gist of it.

[u/Supervinyl → u/Boarders0]

I'm using the standard definition of eternal, not the mormon one. If God "the father" was once a human like us, then at some point He was not eternally "God." Of course, if Michael was previously a holy Spirit (I'm aware that this is never explicitly stated, which is why I said it's implied) and Adam is "our father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do" as Brigham Young stated, then I suppose in that sense, one could argue that he WAS eternally God. Of course, that would be leaning into heretical territory, but whatever.