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392 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2003
He [describes] how he found his fifteen-month-old niece, Erica, standing in her crib, smiling up at him. ‘I spoke to her for a minute,’ Lafferty recalls. ‘I told her, I’m not sure what this is all about, but apparently it’s God’s will that you leave this world; perhaps we can talk about it later.’ And then he ended her life with a ten-inch boning knife.For me, as a father of two little girls, this is one of the most disturbing passages I have ever read.
Mormon authorities treat the fundamentalists as they would a crazy uncle - they try to keep the "polygs" hidden in the attic, safely out of sight, but the fundamentalists always seem to be sneaking out in public at inopportune moment to create unsavory scenes, embarrassing the entire LDS clan.
1) the flimsy nature of the societal line between a man--this seems primarily limited to men--being deemed a lunatic and seen as a religious prophet, when he says, "God told me [to do this] [I must sow my seed] [we must travel West] [I must impregnate your lovely daughter]"; and,
2) how shortly after Joseph Smith's death, the Church leaders' ubiquitous practice of prefacing nearly every decision or action with "God spoke to me," may have precipitated today's fundamentalists' justifying criminal conduct by saying God told him to ignore the laws so that he could marry and rape your daughter, and further, may have ultimately contributed to a fringe fanatic, whose black heart overflowed with resentment and revenge, perpetrating homicidal retribution by reading his demoniac thoughts as God's statement of a divine will.
What about Osama's underlings, the holy warriors who sacrificed their lives for Allah by flying jumbo jets into the World Trade Center? Surely their faith and conviction were every bit as powerful as Dan's. Does he think the sincerity of their belief justified the act? And if not, how can Dan know that what he did isn't every bit as misguided as what bin Laden's followers did on September 11, despite the obvious sincerity of his own faith?
As he pauses to consider this possibility, there comes a moment when a shadow of doubt...and then it's gone. "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."