I’ve received some expressions of concern (and seen one or two expressions of delight) at what a few have taken to be my dismissal or demotion at the Deseret News, as revealed by the fact that my column for this week didn’t appear on the Deseret News website as expected on Thursday but, instead and to my surprise, on Friday on the LDS Living website.  (I posted a comment on this to me unforeseen event yesterday.)   Permit... Read more

    I had a couple of additional things that I wanted to say about the ludicrously determined insistence of a small handful of critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the silly claim that Latter-day Saint art and architecture is “Stalinist.”  So I might as well get on with it.   First of all, though, I’d like to express my enthusiasm for the cover art (as well as the contents!) of the first volume of... Read more

    This was, to me, an extraordinarily interesting article, for several quite distinct reasons:   “Is Science Infinite?  Science will never tell us who we really are, and that is why it will last forever”   The notion that there may be some aspects of reality — very expressly including consciousness — that are, in the end, altogether beyond the reach of science, is striking, of course.  So is the claim that most scientists reject religious belief, which seems... Read more

    I’m grateful to Matthew Wheeler for calling this very interesting site to my attention:   The Muslim Experience in World War I:  The most comprehensive story of the global allied Muslim contribution   For several reasons, it reminds me of this story, about which I first heard just today:   “Special Forces soldiers fight to grant last wish of Iraqi interpreter killed in action”   In my judgment, there should be no doubt or hesitation in any American mind... Read more

    So everybody is abuzz about the anonymous op-ed that appeared the other day in the New York Times — as well as about the new book by Bob Woodward that runs pretty much along the same lines — which claims to reveal that there is a patriotic “resistance” to Donald Trump within the current presidential administration and which describes Mr. Trump as undisciplined, without character, intellectually and psychologically unfit for the presidency, mercurial, incurious, potentially unstable, without settled political convictions,... Read more

    One of the greatest minds of the twentieth century was that of the English mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947).  Whitehead began his career with a primary focus on mathematics, logic, and physics, for which the greatest evidence is the famous three-volume Principia Mathematica, published between 1910 and 1913, which he wrote with a former student of his by the name of Bertrand Russell.  Somewhat before 1920, Whitehead’s interests began to shift to the philosophy of science and then to... Read more

    It seems that arrangements are shifting at the Deseret News.  So, to my surprise, the article that I submitted earlier this week to appear in the online and print editions of the newspaper on Thursday, yesterday, has actually appeared today in LDS Living.   “The Forgotten Witness of the Book of Mormon Who Refused to Deny His Faith Even Under Threat of Death”   Very curious.  I’m thinking about this new arrangement and about whether I want to... Read more

    My wife and I lived for roughly four years in Egypt, in a southern suburb of Cairo called Ma‘adi that lies on the east bank of the Nile River.  We didn’t plan to be there so long; it simply worked out that way.  We were doing reasonably well financially, partly because of the remarkable generosity of my brother in connection with the family business and partly because my wife, to our surprise, walked right into a good job... Read more

    We’re familiar, of course, with Oliver Cowdery as one of the official Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon.  But his role in the early events of the Restoration, and his experiences with the divine, were broader than that.  Here are some rough notes from a manuscript:   A letter of Oliver Cowdery to Phineas Young, dated 23 March 1846, and sent from Tiffin, Seneca County, Ohio, in which Oliver expresses his wish that, prior to returning to... Read more

    What if you slept?  And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed?  And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower?  And what if, when you awoke, you had that flower in your hand?  Ah, what then? Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)   Some of those who have related near-death experiences seem to have returned with just such “flowers.”  Here’s one account:   When I was five years old I... Read more