I disagree though when what someone who is not of my faith (especially if they are a murderer) is compared to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as a proof that all Mormons are crazy.
Krakauer writes about the Laffety brothers who attended a fundamentalist "school of prophets" in the county backyard of BYU. Two of the Lafferty brothers were convicted of murdering a sister-in-law and her young child.
Then, in post #168, you hit upon a major theme of one of Krakauer's chapters--that one thing widespread among LDS is the ability to claim personal inspiration (by praying about something).
You stated: The Church actually has a mechanism to deal with things such as this. The Prophet can say something. Then the members are told to go home and pray about it. Each person is free to agree or disagree with what the prophet says based on their own inspiration.
Krakauer says pretty much the same thing...and then mentions that the "school of prophets" would have these meetings so that they could corporately decide whether these revelations (impressions) were ones they were supposed to act upon. You see, it wasn't just that the Laffertys were cold-blooded killers. The eldest Lafferty brother, who was a former LDS bishop of his ward (he was influenced by his brothers to join the fundamentalist sect), said he had a revelation that he was supposed to kill his sister-in-law.
Now, keep in the mind that the fundamentalist school of prophets rejected this as a revelation from God. Yet this former upstanding member of the LDS church maintained his belief it was from God.
All it took was a burning bosom. Now who do you suppose left him with the idea that a burning bosom is all that's needed for a revelation to be true? The fundamentalists? Nope, try again. It's a standard teaching of the LDS church from beginning to current times!
Yet this former upstanding member of the LDS church maintained his belief it was from God.
Elizabeth Smart's abductor was an excommunicated Mormon. Does that mean the Mormon church is responsible for the pedophiles crimes? No.
The book is the one that makes that leap in putting together themes.
It goes like this.
Some ex Mormons killed a person.
They used to be Mormons.
Therefore Mormons must have a belief system of killing people.
That is the intent of the author to implicate the larger faith of Mormons for the murders of a few. It is a false argument.