Three more passages extracted for my notebook from Michael Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006):   Seen in this way, are these jihadists of today the direct heirs of the raiders and ghazis of the ‘Abbasid, Ottoman, and other premodern Islamic empires and states?  For a number of reasons, the answer seems to be “no.”  To begin with, they do not follow the classical rules (ahkam) that prohibit, for instance,... Read more

    Many, many years ago, before my mission, somewhere around 1970-1971 when I was a freshman at BYU, I began to attend the regular (weekly? monthly?) Sunday evening meetings somewhere in Provo of a group that, if I’m not mistaken, was known simply as “The Group.”  It was, I think, loosely intended to help people coming into activity in the Church from drug backgrounds, or something like that.  I really enjoyed its meetings because they were so unconventionally Mormon,... Read more

    Notes from a rough and incomplete manuscript:   Even many of Joseph’s critics wrestled with the possibility that he might actually have been honest and sincere.  Josiah Quincy sums up his account of his 1844 visit to Nauvoo with the comment that, “If the reader does not know just what to make of Joseph Smith, I cannot help him out of the difficulty.  I myself stand helpless before the puzzle.”  In June 1851, a journalist connected with London’s... Read more

    Here are three further notes taken from Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperCollins, 2010).  The first is a specimen of the panoramic life review reported by many who experience NDEs:   My whole life so far appeared to be placed before me in a kind of panoramic, three-dimensional review, and each event seemed to be accompanied by an awareness of good and evil or by an insight into its cause... Read more

    In a recent post, I cited Michael Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006):   How were people expected to know that these words of Revelation were indeed of divine origin?  One answer to the question was that the Prophet Muhammad, through whom the words came into the world, was a trustworthy man whose life and behavior conformed to established patterns of monotheist prophecy.  The books of sira [biography] and... Read more

    The biggest story related to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of late, has probably been the release — simultaneously, and in various formats, in Cebuano, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Samoan, Spanish, Tagalog and Tongan — of Saints: The Standard of Truth: 1815-1846.   It’s the new official history of the Church.  I’ve been reading it in little daily bits, and, as of this moment, I’m somewhat more than a quarter of... Read more

    Those reporting near-death experiences (NDEs) often mention having seen a wall, valley, bridge, river, thick fog, or gate that they sensed as an pivotally important border.  They were somehow aware that, if they crossed this border, they would be unable to return to their mortal bodies and to resume their earthly lives.   In this context, I offer two further notes taken from Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperCollins, 2010).... Read more

    From Michael Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006):   How was one to know whether Muhammad’s revelation, the Qur’an, was actually true?   How were people expected to know that these words of Revelation were indeed of divine origin?  One answer to the question was that the Prophet Muhammad, through whom the words came into the world, was a trustworthy man whose life and behavior conformed to established patterns... Read more

    A remarkable passage from page 88 of The Abundance of the Heart (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1986), by Arthur Henry King:   My first real discovery of nature in life came one morning in April 1916. My father put me on the back of his bike, where I had a little seat, and said, “Off we go.” And then he turned in the wrong direction for I thought he was taking me down to Quakers’ meeting — it... Read more

    This won’t go on forever, but I’m continuing to extract — and to share — notes from my reading of Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), by the Dutch cardiologist and researcher Pim van Lommel:   When heart patients without an NDE were asked to describe their resuscitation, they always made one or more essential errors, unlike patients who had an NDE during their resuscitation and who were able to recall surprising details... Read more