One of the complaints commonly leveled against science focuses on its tendency toward reductionism, toward leaving us with a disenchanted cosmos.  Stars are no longer gods, but spheres of burning gas.  We know about photosynthesis, but we’ve lost the dryads and hamadryads who once inhabited trees.  I’m not altogether sure that I share the complaint or even agree with or sympathize with it, but here it is in three interesting poetic expressions:   1.   Sonnet—To Science Science!… Read more

    John 14:27-31   Apart from noting that Jesus’ declaration that “the Father is greater than I” has substantial theological significance (indicating, for instance, an important distinction between Father and Son), I really can’t see, once again, how I can improve very easily on the text itself, which I offer here — for the sake of freshness — in the New International Version:   27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to… Read more

    “Is vegan diet healthy for kids? Belgian doctors say no”   I’m certainly no expert on dietetics and nutrition, but my sense (having read a few things on the subject over the years) is that virtually all of us in the developed “Western” world would tend to do better, in terms of our health, were we to move somewhat in a vegetarian or even vegan direction.  But I have reservations, for a wide spectrum of reasons, about a… Read more

    A potentially significant article recently appeared on a certainly controversial topic:   Joshua David Wright and Yuelee Khoo,  “Empirical Perspectives on Religion and Violence,” Contemporary Voices: St Andrews Journal of International Relations 1/1 (2019)): 1–26.   The authors examine the claim that religious faiths are more inherently prone to violence than secular ideologies are and, following an evaluation of the scientific literature on religion and violence, argue that wherever evidence appears to link specific aspects of religion with aggression… Read more

    John 14:15-26   1.   “If you love me, you will obey my commandments. . . .   The person who has my commandments and obeys them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him.”  (John 14:15, 21)   There is, as I’ve noted before, little if anything to support a teaching of salvation by grace alone, without works,… Read more

    Here’s the official Church press release:   “President Nelson Meets with New Zealand Prime Minister: Global faith leader reaches midway point on Pacific Ministry”   And here is a more complete account of the meeting from the Deseret News, which is accompanied by some very nice photographs:   “President Nelson meets New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, says church will donate to mosques”   (Please note that last phrase.)     And, still rolling in from a preceding stop… Read more

    “Egypt explosion: Tourists on bus injured near Giza pyramids”   A number of people have written to inquire whether we’re alright.  We are.  We (and the other members of our group) have been out of Egypt for several days now.   But, of course — and very troublingly to the Egyptian government and to those who care about the economy on which the well-being of Egypt’s roughly one hundred million people depends — incidents such as this one… Read more

    John 13:31-35   It’s impossible to improve upon this passage by commentary but, for the sake of freshness, I offer a likely unfamiliar translation (by J. B. Phillips) of a simple and very familiar text:   “Now I am giving you a new command—love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another. This is how all men will know that you are my disciples, because you have such love for one another.”   The… Read more

    Being in this general area reminds me of a column that I published in the 20 September 2012 issue of the Deseret News:   During a rambling, all-night discussion in the late 1960s, a famous Nobel laureate physicist told a group of Caltech students and their friends (among the latter a high school girlfriend of mine) that, though he loved C.S. Lewis’ science fiction novels, he hated the “religious propaganda” that Lewis tacked on to them. But surely… Read more

    A Facebook comment demanding to know, essentially, why there are so many Muslim terrorists if Islam isn’t fundamentally rotten reminded me of the following Deseret News column, which Bill Hamblin and I published back on 31 March 2017:   Charles Kurzman, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has carved out an important scholarly niche for himself. His 1998 Oxford anthology “Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook,” for example, represents a fundamental resource on the little-known (and often… Read more