Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

by Jon Krakauer

“He robbed them of their childhood. When I looked at this picture I realized it was about five women, all of them given in marriage by their mothers, all of them raised by their fathers to marry as children. They are victims of pedophiles, and they are victims of the state of Utah, which turned its back on polygamy for sixty years.”

Those who would assail The Book of Mormon should bear in mind that its veracity is no more dubious than the veracity of the Bible, say, or the Qur’an, or the sacred texts of most other religions. The latter texts simply enjoy the considerable advantage of having made their public debut in the shadowy recesses of the ancient past, and

And it is no accident that his theology in the end discarded all traces of Calvinism and became an ingenious blend of supernaturalism and materialism, which promised in heaven a continuation of all earthly pleasures—work, wealth, sex, and power.

“I went over to their house one day,” Weiss remembers, “and Dianna was shaking and shaking a gallon jug full of cream. I asked her, ‘What in the world are you doing?’ She said, ‘Ron wants me to make our own butter from now on.’

Just makes me think of when I open Instagram and everyone is longing to return to slower, simpler times.

He kept talking about the smell of blood on his hands. I put my hand on his shoulder and tried to comfort him.”

Reminiscent of Macbeth

“It’s amazing how gullible people are,” DeLoy continues. “But you have to remember what a huge comfort the religion is. It provides all the answers. It makes life simple.

shoe. “But some things in life are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself.”