Home > Work > Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
21 " We were brought up to be very independent. Our parents taught us that we were given certain talents and we needed to pursue them -- that we shouldn't go through life relying on others when we had all these abilities. "
― Jon Krakauer , Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
22 " And although his perspective was absolutist and unyielding, it presented a kinder, gentler alternative to Calvinism, which had been the ecclesiastical status quo in the early years of the American republic. "
23 " I have to admit, the terrorists were following their prophet,” Dan says. “They were willing to do essentially what I did. I see the parallel. But the difference between those guys and me is, they were following a false prophet, and I'm not. “I believe I'm a good person,” Dan insists. “I've never done anything intentionally wrong. I never have. "
24 " On the morning of the July 24, Pioneer Day, Dan got up, prayed, and felt prompted by the Lord to saw the barrel and stock off a 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun that he had been storing at his mother’s house. "
25 " How can a society actively promote religious faith on one hand and condemn a man for zealously adhering to his faith on the other? "
26 " Both revelation and delusion are attempts at the solution of problems. Artists and scientists realize that no solution is ever final, but that each new creative step points the way to the next artistic or scientific problem. In contrast, those who embrace religious revelations and delusional systems tend to see them as unshakeable and permanent. . . . Religious faith is an answer to the problem of life. . . . The majority of mankind want or need some all-embracing belief system which purports to provide an answer to life’s mysteries, and are not necessarily dismayed by the discovery that their belief system, which they proclaim as “the truth,” is incompatible with the beliefs of other people. One man’s faith is another man’s delusion. . . . Whether a belief is considered to be a delusion or not depends partly upon the intensity with which it is defended, and partly upon the numbers of people subscribing to it.* ANTHONY STORR, FEET OF CLAY "
27 " For years he had complained that political leaders were disregarding their sworn duty to safeguard the Mormons' constitutionally guaranteed freedom to worship without being subjected to harassment, and worse, at the hands of the religious majority. Yet in both word and deed, Joseph repeatedly demonstrated that he himself had little respect for the religious views of non-Mormons, and was unlikely to respect the constitutional rights of other faiths if he somehow won the presidency and were running the show. "
28 " And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few more modest trusts: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why - which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. "
29 " The LDS Church has annual revenues estimated at more than $6 billion, and it is currently the largest employer in the state of Utah. "
30 " In any human endeavor, some fraction of its practitioners will be motivated to pursue that activity with such concentrated focus and unalloyed passion that it will consume them utterly. "
31 " You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. . . . "
32 " says Brother Richard, a wide, cheerful man with liver spots and a comb-over, who brags that he has twenty-eight grandchildren. "
33 " What distinguishes gurus from more orthodox teachers is not their manic-depressive mood swings, not their thought disorders, not their delusional beliefs, not their hallucinatory visions, not their mystical states of ecstasy: it is their narcissism.* ANTHONY STORR, FEET OF CLAY "
34 " The LDS Church has annual revenues estimated at more than $6 billion, and "
35 " If the expansion of the LDS faith continues at its current pace, within sixty years governing the United States will become “impossible without Mormon cooperation,” according to the eminent scholar Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities at Yale University—and an unabashed admirer of Joseph Smith and the Mormons. "
36 " narcissistic personality disorder, or NPD. According to DSM-IV, NPD is distinguished by a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy "
37 " Between 1840 and 1844 God instructed the prophet to marry some forty women. "
38 " In any human endeavor, some fraction of its practitioners will be motivated to pursue that activity with such concentrated focus and unalloyed passion that it will consume them utterly. One has to look no further than individuals who feel compelled to devote their lives to becoming concert pianists, say, or climbing Mount Everest. For some, the province of the extreme holds an allure that’s irresistible. And a certain percentage of such fanatics will inevitably fixate on matters of the spirit. "
39 " that's a real big part of what holds this religion together: it's not having to make those critical decisions that many of us have to make, and be responsible for your decisions. "
40 " passing: the righteous, fair-skinned Nephites, led by Nephi, and their bitter adversaries, the Lamanites, as the followers of Laman were known. The Lamanites were “an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety,” whose behavior was so annoying to God that He cursed the whole lot of them with dark skin to punish them for their impiety. "