Finishing up with some very basic notes.   Differences (concluded):   Evangelization, in the Islamic view, tends to be a one-way street.  People can and should convert to Islam.  If a person converts from Islam to some other (necessarily inferior) religion, many Muslims will deem that person worthy of death.  The view that “apostasy” is a capital offense has been represented in Islamic law since roughly 800 A.D.  That is, it is a post-Muhammadan development, but nonetheless very... Read more

    Here’s another account of a near-death experience or NDE, drawn from Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperCollins, 2010):   While clinging to that buoy I felt that my situation was hopeless, and I was about to let go and drown.  Suddenly I found myself in another world — a world full of wonderful, green-glowing hills, covered with the most beautiful flowers you could never find here on earth.  The most gorgeous... Read more

    This earth is not our home. We are away at school, trying to master the lessons of “the great plan of happiness” so we can return home and know what it means to be there. Over and over the Lord tells us why the plan is worth our sacrifice – and His. Eve called it “the joy of our redemption.” Jacob called it “that happiness which is prepared for the saints.” Of necessity, the plan is full of... Read more

    Differences (continued):   Related to this point is the fact that, for Muslims, we are not all brothers and sisters because we are the children of the same God.  They understand what Christians mean when such words are used, and may even be sympathetic to the point a Christian might be trying to make, but, in their view, God does not have children.  We are creatures of God—no more related to Deity than the light bulb was related... Read more

    I’m sometimes quite puzzled by certain television commercials.  Recently there was an ad — I can’t recall what it was for — that used a non-Beatles version of the old Beatles song “Getting Better.”  I think it changed the lyrics just a tiny bit, from   I’ve got to admit it’s getting better, A little better all the time    to something like   I have to admit it’s getting better. It’s getting better all the time  ... Read more

    A little bit more, now, from Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperCollins, 2010):   We still do not know how it is possible for people to experience an enhanced consciousness during a cardiac arrest, that is, during a period when the brain displays no measurable activity and all brain function, such as bodily and brain-stem reflexes and breathing, has ceased.  Looking at the interaction between consciousness and the brain, we concluded that... Read more

    I will be introducing Royal Skousen in the Hinckley Center tomorrow (Tuesday) night, on the BYU campus, for the lecture that he will deliver, assisted by Stanford Carmack, on “The Nature of the Original Language of the Book of Mormon.”   Here’s the text of the introduction that I gave to his lecture in April 2017, when the second edition of his enormous six-part Analysis of Textual Variants appeared:   I’m honored to introduce to you my friend... Read more