Good summer reading

[ja9]

I liked "Under the Banner of Heaven". It was fascinating to learn that polygamy is this widespread in the US - I thought it was only a few people who actually still practiced this, but it turns out there are lots. It's distressing to read about, because there are lot of people who seem to be trapped in a lifestyle that they don't want to be in, but they don't have any education, and everyone they know is living this same life, so they don't know what to do.

Some of the men in the book were pretty disgusting, what with their 13 year old "brides" and all. I was also bothered by the fact that there is no possible way to support all those children, so they tend to have huge families all on welfare. I'm all for freedom of (and from) religion, but I don't want to pay - literally - for someone else's choices.

I didn't like "Into Thin Air" as much, but could be just that the topic was not as compelling for me.

 

[ja9]

Actually, I should not blame just the men - some of the women were pretty disgusting too. I have trouble understanding what kind of mother would condone her teenage daughter being married off to some guy 2 or 3 times her age who already has several other wives. Call me close-minded, but that just seems wrong to me!

 

[Ronny]

I find the whole polygamy issue very disturbing as well, I used to think it should be one's choice but after reading the book I felt quite different. Mainly due to the ages and close relations of the brides. I was alos shocked by some of the racial bias, the history of the founder, the early days of moving around and settling whole towns, the huge families with lack of income and the current growing numbers he gave.

Really everything in the book was an eye opener and having grown up with so many mormons I was shocked I never knew any of this about them, I think a lot of them were more mainstream but even the basic religion was quite different than I had imagined it to be.

Edit to add- To be fair I would be very interested to now read something from a positive perspective or currently involved Mormon and see how much of what shocked me is part of their present day beliefs, since every religion has skeletons in their closet.