I want to share a passage from a 2023 book by Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ, entitled Science at the Doorstep to God: Science and Reason in Support of God, the Soul, and Life after Death (Ignatius Press) that I marked while reading it a while ago: Though some have contended that scientific evidence overwhelmingly favors materialism—that is, rejection of God, religion, or a spiritual dimension of humans (e.g., a soul)—it is interesting to note a survey conducted by the... Read more
Some of you, I think, will be interested in this ninety-minute interview: “Mayim Bialik Chats with Bruce Greyson on Remarkable ‘Breakdown’ Podcast: Check out the new episode of Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown Podcast, where she sits for a chat about NDEs with IANDS founder Dr. Bruce Greyson.” “Mayim Bialik Explores Near-Death Experiences With Bruce Greyson, MD, in Not-To-Be Missed ‘Breakdown’ Podcast.” Neuroscientist and actress Mayim Bialik, Ph.D., interviewed IANDS founder and University of Virginia Professor Emeritus Bruce Greyson, MD, in... Read more
As I sit in the airport at Kansas City, waiting for a flight back to Salt Lake City that has been repeatedly delayed, news has just come out that American B2 bombers have struck nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. The bombers are now safely out of Iranian airspace. The big remaining question is whether the Iranian nuclear facilities have been destroyed. Israel has already used “bunker buster” bombs in the current conflict (as well as... Read more
The Interpreter Foundation’s bizarre obsession with Brigham Young — it’s all Brigham, all the time, right? — unabashedly continues with the Foundation’s latest publications, which were made available today: I’ve been looking forward to the appearance of this article since Josh Coates first told me that he was working on it: “A Combinatorial Approach to Modeling All Possible Golden Plates”: Abstract: Historical reports containing information about the properties of the golden plates provide upper and lower bounds for calculating... Read more
The Interpreter Foundation’s weirdly obsessive fixation on Brigham Young continues to be unashamedly displayed in these materials that have recently been posted on its website: The Temple: Plates, Patterns, & Patriarchs: “How Luke’s Gospel Portrays Jesus as the Exodus or Way of the Temple,” written by John S. Thompson: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in The Temple: Plates, Patterns, & Patriarchs, edited by Stephen D. Ricks and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw. For more information,... Read more
Here’s a little interview with me (not quite forty-two minutes long) on Keystone that some at least might find of interest: “LDS scholar: The Book of Mormon witnesses are DANGEROUS” The witnesses of the Book of Mormon “golden plates” either lied, were tricked, or were telling the truth. In this episode, David sits down with long-time scholar Daniel C. Peterson to talk about the different theories, and whether or not they align with the available evidence. We began the... Read more
Arriving here in Missouri today, I’ve thought of the hymn “Adam-ondi-Ahman,” written by William W. Phelps and included in the first Latter-day Saint hymnbook in 1835. But I’m thinking of it very specifically in my favorite recording of it, which I have at home on vinyl but cannot find online. That recording is by Marvin Payne, and his lyrics, if I recall them correctly, differ just a little bit from those of Brother Phelps. Here’s how I remember them:... Read more
I realize that I posted a melancholy blog entry about her just a few days ago, so I apologize for returning to her again so soon. But the previous entry marked her birthday and this one commemorates the day of her death. Her life was that brief. I maintain a blog for many reasons. One of them is purely personal: It’s a kind of journal for me, and, even more particularly, it’s a way of remembering things, and especially... Read more
The authors of the Bible, even across the centuries of its composition and the very different languages in which it was written, share a large number of distinctive traits. Among those, curiously, is a striking lack of interest in describing the principal figures in its narratives. Can you deduce from the New Testament gospels what Jesus looked like? Do Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell us whether he was short or tall? Do they even tell us whether or... Read more
Some readers here may recall that, in fits and starts, I’ve been working very occasionally on a massive project — planned to result, if it ever results in anything at all, in four or five sizable volumes — for which my working title has long been The Reasonable Leap into Light: An Argument for Skeptics. It is designed to argue, in a painstaking cumulative case, that it is rational to accept the claims of, first, theism; then, second, of... Read more
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