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 enlarge | Manufacturer: Anchor
Category: EBooks
List Price: $9.95
Buy New: $7.96
You Save: $1.99 (20%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  730 reviews
Sales Rank: 384
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Dewey Decimal Number: 289.33
ASIN: B000FC1R2S
Publication Date: June 8, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
Charles Manson vs. the Lafferty brothers; cut from the same cloth July 31, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
Both cowards, psychos, willing and able to kill innocent women and babies/children in the most violent way possible. Both believing that they got direct revelation from God to kill. I read the book; I agree with most of what I've read thus far; I'm not going to waste bandwidth repeating the same thing. I am po'd right now that a 24 year-old wife and mother and a 15 month old baby got their life snuffed out by cowardly weasels who were afraid of a young woman and a dear innocent baby. Death is too good for these murderers. The most heinous form of torture is too easy/good for them. Beating them to a pulp, electrocuting them - just a few degrees from death is what's appropriate here. The trouble is that they'd find reason to like it and would attribute their pain and suffering to God's revelation or something. Living in the gutter eating trash out of dumpsters would be 100% better than living with these types of psycho cowards.
Good Primer on Mormonism and Fundamentalism July 27, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Any time a book is written on the subject of religion, controversy is bound to ensue. Extend the subject to religious extremism and/or fundamentalism and you can ratchet it up a notch. When the book is written by a "non-believer", you can bet that it will come under vicious attack by proponents of the religion in question. Such is the case with Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer's expose on Mormonism and Mormon fundamentalism.
I read Krakauer's Into Thin Air and was riveted by his writing on the subject of Mt. Everest. I would not place this work in that category, but found it be a very instructive primer on the origins and background of the Mormon religion and its various fundamentalist offshoots.
The book essentially tells two stories, the threads of which alternate throughout the book. In one thread, Krakauer tells the story of Joseph Smith, the founding of the Mormon religion and its evolution to the present day. In the other thread, he explores the various fundamentalist offshoots of Mormonism through the prism of a vicious double murder committed by a pair of its proponents.
It is difficult to argue with most of the facts presented in relation to the founding and evolution of Mormonism. As Krakauer points out, it is a religion of such recent vintage that the historical record is quite clear. He does make a few assumptions and extensions which have earned him the ire of the official church. In those cases, however, he states his grounds for doing so quite well. It is doubtful that anyone except a true believer in Mormonism would ever write a history to the liking of the church.
The beliefs and practices of some of the fundamentalists profiled in the book are scary in their level of extremism, however, they take their beliefs directly from the pages of Joseph Smith, the founder of the religion. Polygamy, or plural marriage, was one of the chief tenets of his church, and one that was stubbornly clung to for many years by the leaders of the church. It can hardly be argued that many heinous instances of statutory rape and sexual child abuse have resulted and continue to occur.
While Mormonism has come under attack throughout its history, both for some of its practices and the highly dubious circumstances surrounding its founding (Joseph Smith was likely no more than a charlatan and a fraud who concocted a religion that guaranteed him access to a never ending cache of nubile virgins), very few of the world's religions have better legs to stand on. Old Testament Christianity is filled with barbarous practices and outlandish fables (Noah's Ark, parting the Red Sea, burning bushes). Islam, ditto. I'm not even going to mention Scientology.
So, before anyone tears off on a rant concerning Mormonism, just make sure your own house is in order. If you want a quick and dirty outline on Mormon beliefs and foundations, this is a good place to start. If you want a good example of the effects of extremism (not limited to Mormonism) this is also a good example.
 Just chilling! July 22, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Never before have I had to actually turn my eyes from the page because the text/truth was too horrific to read. This book takes you into the lives of the FDLS. It should scare the bejeezus out of anyone that this sort of thing is going on right here in our country. Not to mention the predicted effect the FDLS may have on the way our country is run in under a century.
I found the book to be a fasinating read and eye opening experience.
Compelling July 14, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book really left me marveling at the situation Mormons find themselves in - there is so much to recommend the culture that has grown up around the religion, and yet it's based on what is, to an outsider, silly stuff. I didn't understand until reading this the dynamics around the Smart kidnapping. The sexism which is inherent in LDS (fundamental or not) is invidious.
Thought provoking July 7, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
Under the Banner of Heaven is an in depth and eye opening historical account of the Mormon church. I am looking at the Church of LDS in a different perspective. It has made me question my own religious beliefs.
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