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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
Going into this book I did not realize that it was a nonfiction book or that it would include basically the complete origin story of the Mormon faith. I saw that it was being made into a show starring Andrew Garfield and just checked it out from the library automatically without reading the synopsis. Based on the show trailer, I assumed it was going to be a fiction story about a murder having to do with Mormons. Wow was I wrong haha. At first I was sort of disappointed, but then once it started branching out to include information about Mormons in general and how the religion was founded, I became more and more interested. It is fascinating how this one guy, Joseph Smith, had such an impact on the world and essentially created this religion from scratch. I’m glad that I read this book because it taught me a lot. I knew very little about the Mormon faith prior to this book.
As an extremely stupid aside, I will comment that I now better understand some of the lyrics in the musical The Book of Mormon, haha!
If you are a religious person, maybe do not read this book unless you are willing to question your faith and every other religion in existence.
I am just going to copy and paste the notes I took while reading the book below..
- This book got me thinking way too much. First of all, these people are insane. The whole religion is insane and makes no sense. I feel the need to read the Book of Mormon just like I did the Bible out of a sense of curiosity and to give myself fully the right to critique/doubt said religion.
- That got me thinking about how all of the major world religions were created because basically some man was charismatic enough to influence enough people to literally start a religion. And people were crazy enough to believe them. And people are still following what this overly charismatic men declared hundreds of years ago. It blows my mind. Maybe it is worse in this particular case because Mormonism was so recently created and we have a lot of documented information on Joseph Smith’s life etc… but still.
- And now that got me thinking about how Stephenie Meyer (the author of the Twilight series and The Host) is a Mormon. I always knew that but I didn’t really know enough about the Mormons for that fact to make me think twice about it. I know people pretty much universally mock the Mormons but I always just sort of thought of them as a strange branch of Christianity. They are not. They are a whole other thing. And now I completely do not understand how a Mormon woman could write an entire romance series about vampires. Or how she could write The Host which is a romance about worm-like aliens who implant themselves into human bodies and take over the species. She got the idea for Twilight based on a dream. Based on how Mormons feel about dream prophesies we are lucky she didn’t start another branch of Mormonism that believes in the coming of an advanced race of people. Do the Mormons approve of her writing? I feel like vampire and alien romances must be looked down upon by the religion being described in this book. With all that said…. I still absolutely love her writing and adore the Twilight series.
- I’m now convinced that all religions are insane. I’ve often joked saying “wouldn’t it be funny if Mary was just some girl who got knocked up before she was married and was desperate to dig herself out of that hole in any way she could?” It seemed like plausible theory after reading about Muhammad and the start of Islam in college… another religion whose origin story leads me to doubt the whole thing. The idea that Christianity is completely made up seems even more plausible after reading about the origin of Mormonism. What makes the ridiculous aspects of Christianity any more plausible than the ridiculousness of these other religions?
- 93% Dan Lafferty is most definitely insane and he believes in some crazy stuff…. But he said something that I agree with… “Organized religion is hate masquerading as love”. That is part of the reason I started turning against religion. Yes, the things religion claims are ridiculous and that is part of why I have turned against religion… but it also is a hypocrite. Most religions claim that they promotes love and compassion for one another, yet at the same time it shuns those who have differing beliefs and it is often used to justify violence. And because it is religion and “God”, people are less likely to question it. My mother-in-law attended catholic school in Baltimore back in the day, and relatively recently it came out that all of these men-of-power within the school and Catholic faith were sexually abusing the young female students. Her fellow classmates were being abused for YEARS and it didn’t come out until now, when all of these women are reaching grandmother age. Part of the reason that that was able to happen to the extent that it did is because it was happening under this umbrella of religion. How can you trust religion in general when the leaders of the faith are are awful as that?
As an extremely stupid aside, I will comment that I now better understand some of the lyrics in the musical The Book of Mormon, haha!
If you are a religious person, maybe do not read this book unless you are willing to question your faith and every other religion in existence.
I am just going to copy and paste the notes I took while reading the book below..
- That got me thinking about how all of the major world religions were created because basically some man was charismatic enough to influence enough people to literally start a religion. And people were crazy enough to believe them. And people are still following what this overly charismatic men declared hundreds of years ago. It blows my mind. Maybe it is worse in this particular case because Mormonism was so recently created and we have a lot of documented information on Joseph Smith’s life etc… but still.
- And now that got me thinking about how Stephenie Meyer (the author of the Twilight series and The Host) is a Mormon. I always knew that but I didn’t really know enough about the Mormons for that fact to make me think twice about it. I know people pretty much universally mock the Mormons but I always just sort of thought of them as a strange branch of Christianity. They are not. They are a whole other thing. And now I completely do not understand how a Mormon woman could write an entire romance series about vampires. Or how she could write The Host which is a romance about worm-like aliens who implant themselves into human bodies and take over the species. She got the idea for Twilight based on a dream. Based on how Mormons feel about dream prophesies we are lucky she didn’t start another branch of Mormonism that believes in the coming of an advanced race of people. Do the Mormons approve of her writing? I feel like vampire and alien romances must be looked down upon by the religion being described in this book. With all that said…. I still absolutely love her writing and adore the Twilight series.
- I’m now convinced that all religions are insane. I’ve often joked saying “wouldn’t it be funny if Mary was just some girl who got knocked up before she was married and was desperate to dig herself out of that hole in any way she could?” It seemed like plausible theory after reading about Muhammad and the start of Islam in college… another religion whose origin story leads me to doubt the whole thing. The idea that Christianity is completely made up seems even more plausible after reading about the origin of Mormonism. What makes the ridiculous aspects of Christianity any more plausible than the ridiculousness of these other religions?
- 93% Dan Lafferty is most definitely insane and he believes in some crazy stuff…. But he said something that I agree with… “Organized religion is hate masquerading as love”. That is part of the reason I started turning against religion. Yes, the things religion claims are ridiculous and that is part of why I have turned against religion… but it also is a hypocrite. Most religions claim that they promotes love and compassion for one another, yet at the same time it shuns those who have differing beliefs and it is often used to justify violence. And because it is religion and “God”, people are less likely to question it. My mother-in-law attended catholic school in Baltimore back in the day, and relatively recently it came out that all of these men-of-power within the school and Catholic faith were sexually abusing the young female students. Her fellow classmates were being abused for YEARS and it didn’t come out until now, when all of these women are reaching grandmother age. Part of the reason that that was able to happen to the extent that it did is because it was happening under this umbrella of religion. How can you trust religion in general when the leaders of the faith are are awful as that?
This was a book club book and it took me down to the last day to finish it. Part of the problem is my child is a similar age to Erica Lafferty. Whenever I tried to read before bed I'd be up hours just thinking about it. I didn't find the book to be very cohesive. It was hard to follow and pick back up again; in fact only two people in the book club finished the book. I'd also like more information on the non-fundamentalist Mormons. It was great for discussion- so a great book club book but I couldn't/wouldn't read this for pleasure. I found the 19th Wife much better at exploring the history of Mormons while following a modern day (fictional) story.
dark
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
While I found this book pretty interesting and I learned a lot (for example, I didn’t really know that Polygamy was still a thing, had never heard of the Mountain Meadow Massacre, and didn’t know much about Mormon beliefs in general), I found the book somewhat disorganized. I’m still not totally sure what the thesis of this book was. Was it a true crime book? A history of the Mormon church? A look at fundamentalism in general? It was sort of a soup of all of these topics and I came away unclear about which one was dominate.
Also, I am not a Mormon and have always considered the Mormon religion outlandish. To me Joseph Smith was an extremely successful con artist who wanted so badly to have sex outside his marriage and justify it that he made up a whole religion and pressured people to follow him. However, I have to agree with Mormon critics that this book was very much biased. The mainstream Mormon faith and the FLDS fundamentalist offshoot seem pretty unrelated, and yet Krakauer seems to link them as if they are the same.
Overall 3 stars.
Also, I am not a Mormon and have always considered the Mormon religion outlandish. To me Joseph Smith was an extremely successful con artist who wanted so badly to have sex outside his marriage and justify it that he made up a whole religion and pressured people to follow him. However, I have to agree with Mormon critics that this book was very much biased. The mainstream Mormon faith and the FLDS fundamentalist offshoot seem pretty unrelated, and yet Krakauer seems to link them as if they are the same.
Overall 3 stars.
dark
emotional
medium-paced
I read this expecting it to be another story of life in the Colorado FLDS, and it is that, but it's also much more. The heart of it is the story of Ron and Dan Lafferty (part of an unrelated fundamentalist Mormon cult) who murdered the young wife and infant daughter of their brother Allen because they saw her as a threat to their faith and family.
And because Ron received revelations from God telling him to "remove" them.
Krakauer does a masterful job of researching not only the story of the Laffertys but the history of the LDS itself and why its fundamentalist sects so easily turn to violence. In my reading of escapees from the Colorado City FLDS, one thing is stressed over and over: Warren Jeffs taught Blood Atonement, the belief that some sins cannot be purified by Christ's blood and must be washed away with the sinner's own, but it was never practiced. No matter what horrors the writers endured during their time in the cult, they insist, no one was ever actually sacrificed under the prophet's orders.
Now I understand that this must apply only to that specific community, and even then probably only within the lifetimes of the individual writers. Because Blood Atonement is something that early Mormons under Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and modern fundamentalists in their little cults, have always done. And they're still doing it. It's a fundamental doctrine of the faith, right up there with plural wives and not working on Sunday.
Krakauer shows us, in this well-researched, heavily annotated, and extremely readable book how Joseph Smith, a charismatic, illiterate farmer who couldn't keep his pants on, created the quintessential American religion. Not to spread the truth of Christ or seize continents for his king, but to justify his lusts for women, power, and blood by convincing people that he was the prophet of the Lord foretold in the Old Testament. Obviously the NT doesn't much figure in his philosophy, or that of his fundamentalist followers. These followers are a nightmare for many of their children, and sometimes the odd gentile who gets in their way, but I'm certain Old Joe would be proud.
And because Ron received revelations from God telling him to "remove" them.
Krakauer does a masterful job of researching not only the story of the Laffertys but the history of the LDS itself and why its fundamentalist sects so easily turn to violence. In my reading of escapees from the Colorado City FLDS, one thing is stressed over and over: Warren Jeffs taught Blood Atonement, the belief that some sins cannot be purified by Christ's blood and must be washed away with the sinner's own, but it was never practiced. No matter what horrors the writers endured during their time in the cult, they insist, no one was ever actually sacrificed under the prophet's orders.
Now I understand that this must apply only to that specific community, and even then probably only within the lifetimes of the individual writers. Because Blood Atonement is something that early Mormons under Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and modern fundamentalists in their little cults, have always done. And they're still doing it. It's a fundamental doctrine of the faith, right up there with plural wives and not working on Sunday.
Krakauer shows us, in this well-researched, heavily annotated, and extremely readable book how Joseph Smith, a charismatic, illiterate farmer who couldn't keep his pants on, created the quintessential American religion. Not to spread the truth of Christ or seize continents for his king, but to justify his lusts for women, power, and blood by convincing people that he was the prophet of the Lord foretold in the Old Testament. Obviously the NT doesn't much figure in his philosophy, or that of his fundamentalist followers. These followers are a nightmare for many of their children, and sometimes the odd gentile who gets in their way, but I'm certain Old Joe would be proud.
I really enjoyed the insight in this book into a culture that I know very little about. That being said, I'm afraid this book was a bit too detail-oriented for the most anal of readers (i.e., me). I found myself bored at times and skimmed a great portion of it. Not Krakauer's best work, but not bad either.
dark
informative
mysterious
slow-paced