Book Notes

One example of Krakauer’s futile attempts to transfer his criticisms of Mormonism directly to all religions is his paragraph on the veracity of The Book of Mormon and other religious texts:

“Those who would assail The Book of Mormon should bear in mind that its veracity is no more dubious than the veracity of the Bible, say, or the Qur’an, or the sacred texts of most other religions. The latter texts simply have the considerable advantage of having made their public debut in the shadowy recesses of the ancient past, and are thus much harder to refute.”

Preceding this paragraph, Krakauer lists a collection of scholarly arguments calling into question the veracity of The Book of Mormon: lack of original sources (the gold plates from which the book was translated), lack of archeological artifacts supporting the civilizations described in the book, historical inaccuracies regarding both animals and technologies found in the New World at the time of Christ, and lack of DNA evidences for the claim that Native Americans were originally a Hebraic race. All of these arguments are compelling reasons to question the claim that The Book of Mormon is inspired.

On the other hand, the assertion that other religious texts (including the Bible) are equally unreliable is made without any proofs whatsoever. The one argument made for the unreliability of other religious texts is that it is harder to prove them false because of their age. If this is true, it should also be harder to prove them true–yet one of the religious texts Krakauer mentions has been proven to be correct in multiple instances.

While the Book of Mormon is said to have been “translated” from golden tablets presumably written in the seventh century after Christ, the earliest extant manuscript is Joseph Smith’s single “translation” published in 1830. Compare this with the Bible, which has literally thousands of independent manuscripts and manuscript fragments dating to within a century of the originals.

While no archeological evidence exists to support the Book of Mormon’s claims of a “Nephite” civilization in the Americas, abundant archeological evidence buttresses Biblical claims. Furthermore, while technologies such as iron and animals such as horses are not known to exist in the Pre-Columbian Americas (as the Book of Mormon claims), archeological evidence supports the accuracy of Biblical accounts of ancient Middle Eastern technologies and practices. Cities are where the Bible says they are. Peoples (such as the Hittites) not previously known to exist apart from Biblical records are found to indeed exist as archeology advances. Individuals named in the Bible are also found in contemporary secular accounts, with details that corroborate the Biblical account. The more archeologists find, the more the evidence mounts that the Bible is factually accurate regarding ancient Middle Eastern people, places, cultural activities, and events.

What’s more, while DNA evidence fails to support the Mormon claim that Native Americans are descendant from a Hebraic race, DNA evidence suggests that the Bible just might be right in its own claims of descent. It just so happens that analysis of human DNA finds that the closest common male ancestor of all humanity (the so-called “Y-chromosomal Adam”) is several thousand years younger than the closest common female ancestor of all humanity (the so-called “mitochondrial Eve”). This is exactly what one would expect based on the Biblical account, which indicates that the earliest common male ancestor of humanity is Noah, while the earliest common female ancestor of humanity is Eve.

So, Krakauer’s arguments against The Book of Mormon fail in every account to be transferable to the Bible. Instead of evaluating the evidences for and against specific religions or even religion in general, Krakauer makes blanket statements about all faiths without any rational or logical evidence supporting his assertions.

He is an unashamed bigot, guilty of the same blind faith he accuses all religious believers of and making the same leap into intolerance that he so hates in the religious.

Here ends the Krakauer rants. You’re welcome.

Prologue: My brother messaged me yesterday in comment to this mini-series. “Jon Krakauer really got you riled up.” I suppose he’s right. Krakauer did get me a bit riled.

Which means that you’re getting rants. Sorry.

Bigot: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance

~Merriam Webster Online Dictionary

So far, I have discussed Krakauer’s accusation that religion is the most potent force for inciting evil and his argument that faith is necessarily irrational.

Readers of my discussion so far might be inclined to think that Under the Banner of Heaven is an atheistic tract about religious abuses. But it isn’t.

Instead, it is a history of evils committed by so-called “Mormon Fundamentalists”, specifically those who hold to “Section 132” of the Doctrine and Covenants–that is, to the practice of polygamy.

Yet Krakauer clearly desires to carry his criticisms of these “Mormon Fundamentalists” first to all Mormons and then to all religions or religious persons.

Generalizing the practices of the “Mormon Fundamentalists” to that of mainstream Mormons (of “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints”) may or may not be justified. If the abuses of the “Mormon Fundamentalists” can be shown to logically stem from the “doctrine” of polygamy, then mainstream Mormons still have something to answer for. The founder of their religion, and the initial “prophets” in their religion, both taught and practiced (even commanded) this “doctrine”. Furthermore, Section 132 remains in the official “Doctrine and Covenants” of the “Church of Jesus Christ for Latter-Day Saints”.

On the other hand, the official position of the “Church of Jesus Christ for Latter Day Saints” is that so-called “plural marriage” is not to be sanctioned or practiced since it is against the laws of the land. Anyone within the LDS “church” who does practice “plural marriage” will be subject to church discipline. So certainly modern mainstream Mormons are opposed to the practice of the doctrine capable of such abuses, even if they have not abolished the doctrine entirely.

Krakauer’s jump from “Fundamentalist Mormonism” to all other religions is far less justified. He makes assertions but no logical arguments for the irrationality of all religion and for the propensity of all religion to incite “evil”. Essentially, Krakauer is a bigot, obstinately clinging to his prejudice against religion and spewing libelous statements against all religious peoples without making any rational argument to justify his hatred.

Krakauer’s accusation that religion is the most potent force for inciting evil (discussed here) is only the beginning of his baseless attacks on all religion.

Later in the prologue to Under the Banner of Heaven, Krakauer writes:

“Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a crucial component of spiritual devotion.”

In the sixth chapter, he repeats this refrain, saying:

“All religious belief is a function of nonrational faith. And faith, by its very definition, tends to be impervious to intellectual argument or academic criticism.”

Krakauer makes clear that his functional definition of faith is “belief without basis in fact or reality”. If his definition of faith is correct, then his accusations against the faithful are also correct. If this is so, then faith is antithetical to reason and is impervious to intellectual argument and academic criticism.

But is this an accurate representation of faith?

It is not.

Krakauer commits the intellectual fallacy (ultimately a straw man argument) that John Lennox points out in his definition of faith:

“Faith is not a leap in the dark; it’s the exact opposite. It’s a commitment based on evidence… It is irrational to reduce all faith to blind faith and then subject it to ridicule. That provides a very anti-intellectual and convenient way of avoiding intelligent discussion.”
~John Lennox, quoted by apologetics 315

While I do not know enough of other religions to say that their definitions of faith are similar to the Christian definition, I do know that the Christian definition of faith bears no resemblance to Krakauer’s straw man.

Krakauer’s definition of faith stands in direct contrast to those of Christian thinkers throughout the ages, whose definitions of faith can be concisely summed up in Kenneth Samples’ statement: “Faith is belief in a reliable source.” (See “Faith and Reason” by David Marshall for a collection of quotes from 30 Christian thinkers supporting this summation.)

The Christian faith is a faith that urges believers to “test everything; hold fast what is good.” (I Thessalonians 5:21)

By the Christian definition, the majority of human knowledge is based on faith. Even in our “hardest” sciences, we have axioms that we must simply believe without definitive proof. The rest of our knowledge is then built on these proof-less assumptions. Does this mean that to assert that the sum of two angles forming a linear pair is 180 degrees is illogical? Of course not. That is simple geometry, accepted by all rational people.

But even if we somehow exclude these axioms from the realm of faith, claiming them to be self-evident, we must still admit that most of our knowledge is taken on faith.

I do not objectively know that Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492. I do not know objectively and conclusively that he commanded three ships called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. I do not objectively know that he was funded by the Spanish Crown.

Yet I believe all these things to be true, despite not being alive in 1492, despite not knowing Christopher Columbus, despite never having seen either Spain or the three ships in question.

Why?

I believe these things to be true based on the testimony of reliable historians.

Even within my own field of nutrition, most of my knowledge is based on second-hand information. I have not personally determined the calories contained in the foods I serve my residents. I have not personally conducted the research indicating that a particular nutritional treatment is effective or not effective. I believe these things because I have read other people’s research, because I have examined their study methods, and because their conclusions have held true in my own practice.

While some people are more rigorous than others in testing a belief prior to holding it, all humans take things on faith.

Krakauer’s bigotry (his intolerant devotion to his own prejudices) accuses all religious faith of being baseless, while completely ignoring the necessity of faith (as the most prominent religion on earth defines it) for the logic and reason he claims to so admire.

Bigot: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance

~Merriam Webster Online Dictionary

In the world we live in, the word “bigot” is almost always proceeded by the modifier “religious”. As in “The religious bigot who runs Chik-Fil-A doesn’t think gays should get married.”

Per media report, typical targets of bigotry are racial or ethnic minorities, women, and homosexuals.

Undoubtedly Jon Krakauer, who is neither intolerantly religious nor (that I know of) prone to hatred of racial or ethnic minorities, women, or homosexuals would protest loudly to having the appellation “bigot” applied to himself.

Yet his writing in Under the Banner of Heaven makes clear that Krakauer is obstinately devoted to his own opinion and prejudice–and regards members of a certain group with hatred and intolerance.

Despite the book being a expose of various horrific crimes committed by those who call themselves “Mormon Fundamentalists”, the group that Krakauer is rabidly intolerant toward is not Mormons, per se.

Instead, he is determinedly anti-religious, and opposes all who hold religious beliefs.

Krakauer first reveals his bias in the prologue of his book, where he writes of a remorseless murderer:

“How could an apparently sane, avowedly pious man kill a blameless woman and her baby so viciously, without the barest flicker of emotion? Whence did he derive the moral justification? What filled him with such certitude? Any attempt to answer such questions must plumb those murky sectors of the heart and head that prompt most of us to believe in God–and compel an impassioned few, predictably, to carry that irrational belief to its logical end.”
~Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven (emphasis mine)

So Krakauer first considers belief in God to be an irrational belief, and second, believes that the logical end of belief in God is cruel inhumanity. He trots out the usual examples for evidence of his belief that religiosity is the most potent means of inciting evil: bin Laden, David Koresh, Jim Jones. Of course, he need not explicitly mention the crusades. Everyone knows that those are a strong example for the evils of religion, such that allusion is all that is necessary.

Of course, Krakauer’s narrative misses that many of the greatest atrocities of the twenty-first century were committed not by religious zealots but by atheists and atheistic regimes. Consider Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler (although there is some evidence that Hitler was not technically atheist, since he participated in occultism and believed in some sort of spiritual world), Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, and Mao Zedong. Together, the regimes of these five men murdered over 75 million people.

By contrast, Krakauer’s list of five religious zealots (Osama bin Laden, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara, and Dan Lafferty) killed less than 5,000. Of course, one might argue that this is comparing apples to oranges since the atrocities promoted by individuals on Krakauer’s list were not necessarily murder (Koresh, for example, has no murders to his record unless you count the seventy-six people who died in the Waco raids as victims of Koresh himself–which is tenuous to say the least.) But every atrocity committed by these men (rape, molestation, poisoning, murder) was also a part of the atheistic regimes I mentioned.

So is it really true to say that “as a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane–as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout–there may be no more potent force than religion”? I think rational people considering 20th century atrocities have to disagree. Religious fervor has resulted in far fewer atrocities than antireligious fervor.

Krakauer is most certainly prejudiced against religion, and his analysis of the evils of religion are based not on an objective review of religion or of “evil” but on a selective reading of history to support his thesis.