True believers suffer a proclivity for binary thinking that blinds them to a greater truth: that light and dark coexist in all human organizations, virulence and virtues mingled, inextricably bound.Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
A suspicion of modernity had been a tenet of fundamentalist Mormonism from its inception.Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
It’s remarkable how many religious leaders have sexually victimized their followers. Perhaps that’s because so many unholy thoughts seem to occur to those who make a profession of holiness.Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
Men like Rulon Allred, Paul Kingston, and Warren Jeffs do not characterize themselves as lawbreakers, but as holy men beset by unrighteous legal impediments.Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
God could not create any intelligence, for He could not create Himself. Indeed, Joseph’s conceit that God and man were cut from the same cosmic cloth was wholly without precedent in Christian theology.Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
No creation would be possible without [the] laws and raw materials created by God, yet the best of humanity took these products and rearranged them in ways that made them more valuable.Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
What sort of person insists on remaining in the reality of the familiar and the comfortable, while ignoring the clear signs that something fundamental has changed in the world of faith and moral standards?Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
For an enterprise that prides itself on its moral standards and family values, Mormonism has a surprisingly laissez-faire attitude toward serial marriage.Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
For the Lafferty brothers, religious orthodoxy became the foundation for their delusions of grandeur, their paranoia, and their thirst for blood.Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
To its followers, the Mormon Church's innermost, occult teachings have the ring of ultimate truth. They view them as rational and scientific. To outsiders, however, they can be difficult to comprehend.Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer