Beginning a new chapter from my manuscript: Classical Arabic Civilization The late Marshall G. S. Hodgson, one of the greatest Western students of Islam of the twentieth century, developed an outline of Islamic history that I find very helpful.[1] In it, he distinguishes seven different periods. Let me summarize them here. First, Hodgson states, there was the “Pre-Islamic Period.” It isn’t hard to understand what this is about, since it simply refers to the years from earliest... Read more
Something quite unexpected: “New observations of galaxies challenge the standard cosmological model: New observations of satellite galaxies don’t seem to fit our models.” *** “Supermassive black holes can feast on one star per year” Mmmmm. Crunchy! *** This is potentially quite important: “Does Titan’s Hydrocarbon Soup Hold a Recipe for Life?” *** From Huston Smith, Beyond the Post-Modern Mind, rev. ed. (Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1989), 118: To... Read more
I’m a bit late with the announcement, but — huge surprise! — it’s Friday, and a new article has appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture: “Playing to an Audience: A Review of Revelatory Events” *** This one is really late, too. But it’s not my fault. The Deseret News was inexplicably very slow in posting my latest column online. However, it’s finally up: “Are there any good reasons to believe?” ***... Read more
Keith Ward, Why There Almost Certainly Is a God: Doubting Dawkins (Oxford: Lion, 2008), 16-17: When we come to consciousness, things get much worse. The problem of consciousness is so difficult that no one has any idea of how to begin to tackle it, scientifically. What is that problem? It is basically the problem of how conscious states — thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions — can arise from complex physical brain-states. Even if we are sure that... Read more
Concluding a section of my manuscript: God’s all-powerful Lordship is an ever-present reality in the daily life of Muslims. The Qur’an directs its people to say “If God wills” whenever they announce their intention to do something. “Do not say, regarding anything, ‘I am going to do that tomorrow,’ but only, ‘If God wills.’”[1] It is not surprising, thus, that in sha’a Allah (“if God wills”) is one of the most commonly heard phrases in the Arabic... Read more
Keith Ward, Why There Almost Certainly Is a God: Doubting Dawkins (Oxford: Lion, 2008), 14-15: To most philosophers, materialism has looked like a non-starter: Most of us do not want to deny that material things exist. But we are no longer very sure of what ‘matter’ is. Is it quarks, or superstrings, or dark energy, or the result of quantum fluctuations in a vacuum? It is certainly not, as the ancient Greek materialist Democritus thought, lumps of... Read more
It seems that Stephen Smoot and I have been thinking along parallel lines this week. Here’s his very good new blog entry: “Do Mormons ‘Just Believe’ Their Religion?” In certain ways, it treats the same issue that my Deseret News column for today discusses. In the print edition, my article is titled “Any good reasons to believe?” For some mysterious cause — probably connected with the fact that my usual editor has been out of town... Read more
Continuing with my introduction to Islam for Latter-day Saints: This focus upon submission to the inscrutable will of God as the characteristic mark of true religion points to Islam’s emphasis upon the omnipotence of God. It is an emphasis that is absolutely fundamental to the religion. It underlies Muslim rejection of the doctrine of the atonement of Christ and flavors daily life and speech throughout the Islamic world. To elaborate, God forgives whomever He chooses to forgive,... Read more
Another interesting passage from the late Huston Smith, for whom I had and still have great personal affection: The powers of life, consciousness, and self-awareness are entirely invisible (without color, sound, taste, or smell) while being — this is important — what we are mainly interested in. All our thoughts, emotions, feelings, imaginations, reveries, dreams, fantasies, are invisible, and this has implications that are more startling than we normally realize. As it is these interior features that... Read more
The following notes are drawn from Keith Ward, Why There Almost Certainly Is a God: Doubting Dawkins (Oxford: Lion, 2008). Now retired, Keith Ward was Professor of Philosophy at King’s College of the University of London and then, thereafter, Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford. Darwin felt this difficulty strongly. Darwin said, in the Origin of Species, ‘How infinitely complex and close-fitting are the mutual relations of all organic beings.’ And again, in a... Read more
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