“Our solar system’s formation was a lot messier than you think”   ***   This is a longish piece, I’m afraid, but it’s really quite interesting:   “How Beauty Is Making Scientists Rethink Evolution: The extravagant splendor of the animal kingdom can’t be explained by natural selection alone — so how did it come to be?”   ***   Some commenters on my blog like to point out the great contributions of science to human knowledge and well-being.  By… Read more

    Suicide furnishes an issue that more than a few critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have sought mightily to weaponize against the Church.  But it may not be the effective tool that they plainly hope it to be:   “Utah researcher: theory of religious influences in Utah LGBT suicides may be overblown”   Suicide is a terrible, terrible thing, and a tragedy.  It would be a much better world if people didn’t occasionally attempt… Read more

    “Humans think they are free, conscious beings, when in truth they are deluded animals. At the same time they never cease trying to escape from what they imagine themselves to be. Their religions are attempts to be rid of a freedom they have never possessed. In the twentieth century, the utopias of Right and Left served the same function. Today, when politics is unconvincing even as entertainment, science has taken on the role of mankind’s deliverer.”   (John… Read more

    Over the past few days, two or three very passionate writers have insisted to me that Muslims — and perhaps, it seems, all non-Latter-day Saints — worship false gods.   I strongly disagree.   Do we conceive of God differently than others do?  Yes.  There’s no question about that.  Does that effectively make all non-Latter-day Saints idolators?   I’ve written on this subject before:   “‘Allah’ is not pagan term — it means ‘God'”   And this column,… Read more

    I continue with my quick response to a reader of my blog who was not at all pleased with my assertion that, although we have different views about him, Muslims and Christians (including Latter-day Saints) — and, for that matter, Jews — worship the same God.   He points to what he sees as a fundamental moral difference between us as proof that we worship distinct divine beings.   “The Israeli Jews,” he says, “are constantly battling for… Read more

    New, via the website of the Interpreter Foundation, a fifty-minute audio interview by Stephen Smoot:   “Studying the Book of Mormon with Grant Hardy”   And, of course, Professor Hardy was interviewed during the first hour of the Interpreter Radio Show on 13 January 2019, as well:   https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-january-13-2019/   ***   Something else that you might find helpful:   “Reflections on Come Follow Me 3: “We Have Come to Worship Him” (Matthew 2; Luke 2)”   ***… Read more

    In response to my blog entry of a few days ago on the question “Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?” one reader responds “Definitely not!”   He elaborates:  “In no way can Allah be equated with Elohim and Jehovah. That dog simply does not hunt.”   Actually, though, it’s a pretty good hunting dog:   “‘Allah’ is not pagan term — it means ‘God'”   “The true Godhead,” he explains, “includes two embodied Personages and one as… Read more

    A while ago, in two or three responses to comments on my blog, I referred to my blog’s most prolific atheist respondent in the third . . . um, third “person,” as “it.”  (For the same reason, I’ve once or twice referred to him as a “meat unit” or a “cell colony.”)   The context, as I recall, was a discussion of the nature of consciousness, which he, in truly reductionist-materialist fashion insists on understanding — if, given… Read more

    The 13 January 2019 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show featured Martin Tanner, John Gee, Kevin Christensen, and guest Grant Hardy.  The discussion for the first hour centered on Professor Hardy’s new study edition of the Book of Mormon.  The second hour was devoted to a Come Follow Me roundtable on the lesson for Matthew 3, Mark 1, and Luke 3 (Come, Follow Me Lesson 5).   “Interpreter Radio Show — January 13, 2019”   That audio roundtable — for Come, Follow… Read more

    I published this article in the Deseret News back on 13 May 2010:   The earliest Christians didn’t believe in the New Testament. They couldn’t. It didn’t exist yet.  When Paul praises young Timothy because “from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15), the only “holy scriptures” to which he can be referring are those contained in what… Read more