Three quotations on the living cell, selected from some of my notes: The first is from Michael Denton: It is astonishing to think that this remarkable piece of machinery, which possesses the ultimate capacity to construct every living thing that has ever existed on Earth, from a giant redwood to a human brain, can construct all its own components in a matter of minutes and . . . is of the order of several thousand million times... Read more
In his 1912 book The Four Men, the Anglo-French writer and historian Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) — onetime president of the Oxford Union; for four or five years, Member of Parliament for Salford; devoted Catholic; and author of, among many other things, the wonderful Cautionary Tales for Children (which includes such masterpieces as “Jim, who ran away from his nurse, and was eaten by a lion” and “Matilda, who told lies and was burnt to death”) — included this theologically significant poem:... Read more
I posted an entry yesterday — see “Back of the Bus, Book of Mormon Boy!” — about the disgusting Trumpist bigot Steve Bannon and his cynically dishonest venture into anti-Mormon demagoguery. Here’s a bit more on that uplifting theme: National Review: “The Garbage Case for Roy Moore” National Review: “Bannon’s Ill-Conceived War on the Establishment” The Weekly Standard: “Bannon Attacks Romney’s Mormonism: Says the former presidential candidate ‘hid behind’ his religion to avoid war.” The Washington... Read more
Among other things, in the wake of the Christianization of the Roman Empire that commenced in the fourth century AD, government officials banned Jewish pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Here’s another passage from one of my manuscripts: Such treatment merely accelerated a process of de-Judaization that had been going on in Palestine since the Great Revolt of 66-70 A.D. Gradually, despite the efforts of the rabbis to preserve Jewish landholdings in Palestine and indeed to encourage foreign... Read more
Some thoughts on scientism from the late Austin L. Hughes (1949-2015), who was Carolina Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina: “The temptation to overreach . . . seems increasingly indulged today in discussions about science. Both in the work of professional philosophers and in popular writings by natural scientists, it is frequently claimed that natural science does or soon will constitute the entire domain of truth. And this attitude is becoming more widespread among... Read more
Washington Monthly: “Steve Bannon Disparages Mormon Missionary Work” If I were Orrin Hatch, I would be running for the hills at the very thought of an endorsement from the repulsive Steve Bannon. Personally, I hope that Mr. Bannon never desecrates the soil of Utah. “E.J. Dionne: Bannon plays to evangelical anti-Mormon sentiment by bashing Mitt Romney” “Back of the Bus, Book of Mormon Boy!” And I suspect that Senator Hatch agrees: “Hatch Denounces Bannon... Read more
In today’s Deseret News, the latest iteration of my weekly “Defending the Faith” column: “2 competing visions of ‘restoration'” *** It’s Day Seven of the Church’s “Light the World” campaign: “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” *** As you may have noticed, I’ve been devoting considerable attention, over the past month or two, to attempting to raise funds for the Interpreter Foundation. We need money to continue our efforts and,... Read more
I’m having a difficult time getting ahead of this campaign. But here, somewhat late, is the video for Day Six of the “Light the World” initiative that’s being sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: https://www.mormon.org/christmas/25-ways-25-days/day-6 *** I expect that this will probably offend a few people out there. (Virtually everything that I do offends certain people out there, redundantly proving yet again that I’m a hateful bigot, and so forth.)... Read more
Some quotations from the late great historian of science Father Stanley Jaki: … investing science with a prophetic and messianic role has not been the doing of science. Exact science, or rather its best cultivators, have never claimed that role. Exact physical science came into its own when during the seventeenth century it eliminated from its ken questions about existence, meaning, purpose, and the like. No wonder that sensitive physicists instinctively reject appeals from shortsighted humanists to... Read more
The Babylonian Talmud became, by a considerable distance, the more important of the two works, partly because Palestinian Jewry was steadily on the wane while the Jews of Babylon were relatively well organized and prosperous. “It became,” as Israeli historian Shmuel Safrai observes, the basic—and in many places almost the exclusive—asset of Jewish tradition, the foundation of all Jewish thought and aspirations and the guide for the daily life of the Jew. . . . In almost every... Read more
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