Who is DeLoy Bateman from Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith and what is their importance?

DeLoy Bateman is a former Mormon and Science teacher at Colorado City High School. He says that it was when he began to acquire knowledge that he began to realize the inconsistencies in his own religion. When the reader first meets DeLoy, he has just been excommunicated from the Mormon Church. He is a practicing polygamist with two wives and numerous children. At the end of the book, however, DeLoy's ideas have changed and he has become a self-professed atheist. Although he still resides in the Colorado City community, DeLoy no longer practices polygamy. DeLoy makes the statement that religion makes people happy because it provides answers to some of life's hard questions. He says, however, that he believes that being able to think for one's own self is more important than being happy.