http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/27138/Default.aspx?topic=article_title   Humongous is a technical term in advanced archaeological science, roughly synonymous with ginormous.     Read more

    I’ve seen comments describing this organization as a “hate group” and characterizing this meeting, in advance, as a “hate fest”:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/elder-ballard-addresses-traditional-marriage-world-congress-families   Such comments simply indicate, to me, how radically intolerant — and, yes, hateful — some of those advocating the redefinition of marriage and family have become over the past few years.  They can’t seem to admit the existence of honest, sincere, decent, and well-intentioned people who dissent from their views.     Read more

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/23/whole-foods-america-s-temple-of-pseudoscience.html   I’ve had dinner with John Mackey a couple of times and listened to him speak on several occasions.  I like him.  And I like his libertarian views.   But I don’t share his veganism, and I have to admit that I think this article lands some solid hits.   Furthermore, it makes the important point that, despite what you’re often told, pseudo-science isn’t a monopoly of irrationally religious right-wing knuckle draggers such as myself.  Whenever I’m in... Read more

    “Faith is trust in what the spirit learned eons ago.”  (B. H. Roberts)     Read more

      A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life. Muhammad Ali     Read more

    An interesting read on perhaps the most important remaining undeciphered ancient script in the world:   http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-civilization-cracking-the-indus-script-1.18587     Read more

    Matthew 22:15-22 Mark 12:13-17 Luke 20:20-26 Compare Mark 12:12; John 3:2   The episode described in these passages is pivotal for the history of western civilization, because it offers a basis for the separation of church and state.  No such basis is clearly established in the Hebrew Bible, and it’s not evident in the origins of Islam either, where Muhammad functioned for the last ten years of his life (AD 622-632) as both prophet and statesman.   Of... Read more

    I’ve already seen squeals of indignation complaining that Stephen Smoot is painting them with a broad brush, that what he says isn’t entirely representative of each and every ex-Mormon.  That his little piece is unfair.   Obviously.   But broad generalizations are virtually indispensable to satire.   Satire (think, for example, of political cartoons) is rarely if ever nuanced and entirely fair.  It shouldn’t be confused with a doctoral dissertation.   I’ve been studying anti-Mormons (and their subspecies,... Read more

    An interesting piece, kindly brought to my attention by Zander Sturgill, on the distinct authors of the Book of Mormon:   http://ldsmag.com/insights-into-the-authenticity-of-the-book-of-mormon/   Several others have approached the topic of potentially multiple authorship from different perspectives.  Here are two relevant books:   Roger R. Keller, Book of Mormon Authors: Their Words and Messages   Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon   And then there’s the whole matter of computerized “word print studies.”     Read more

    Matthew 22:1-14 Compare 8:12; Luke 14:15-24   Plainly, this famous parable points to the rejection of Jesus by his fellow Jews and to their eventual replacement by the Gentiles.   These things seem to provide types and archetypes, though, and history, as seen through a scriptural lens, tends to repeat itself (obviously with variations) in cycles. So I can’t help but thinking that, in this last dispensation, too, some of the children of the Kingdom, the invited guests, the... Read more