It’s time — actually, it’s probably past time — for me to post one of my very favorite poems — “Herbsttag,” or “Autumn Day,” by the German/Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926):   Herbsttag Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr gross. Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren, und auf den Fluren lass die Winde los. Befiehl den letzten Früchten voll zu sein; gieb ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage, dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage die... Read more

    From the files:   Frank Burch Brown, who made a careful study of Darwin’s writings in order to understand his religious views, concluded that they were very complex and variable: His beliefs concerning the possible existence of some sort of God never entirely ceased to ebb and flow, nor did his evaluation of the merit of such beliefs.  At low tide, so to speak, he was essentially an undogmatic atheist; at high tide he was a tentative theist;... Read more

    From one of my inchoate manuscripts:   Another indication of the Prophet’s sincerity is the striking fact that his own family manifestly believed him.[1]  “The parents and all living brothers and sisters of Joseph Smith believed his account of his visions.  In fact, the two grandparents still alive in 1830 also believed.”[2]  For example, the Joseph Smith Sr., the Prophet’s father, traveled two hundred miles—a significant and taxing journey in the frontier America of that period—to carry a... Read more

    I’m followed very closely by a small but quite dedicated cadre of anonymous critics — some of them people whose malice, impelled by motivations that I honestly don’t understand, apparently never sleeps — who comment constantly on what I do, say, write, think, and don’t think, on where I travel, what I read, what music I like.  One or two of them have even gone to the extreme of inventing idiotic or self-incriminating statements that they’ve then attributed to me online, of claiming... Read more

    A final reminder:   I’ll be speaking tomorrow at 10 AM as part of the annual symposium on “Reason for Hope: Responding to a Secular World” sponsored by BYU’s Wheatley Institution.  You can find details about the conference at   http://reasonforhope.byu.edu   ***     A paraphrase of Richard Panek, The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality (Boston and New York: Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), 59-61:   Here’s... Read more

    Several people have inquired about the “manuscripts” that I’ve been citing and from which I’ve been drawing in my posts over the past few months.  They want to know what they’re for, and when they might actually appear.  Permit me to explain:   Some of them — including a few from which I haven’t yet quoted much if at all — really deserve the term manuscript.  The materials that I’ve been posting about Muhammad and about the Jewish... Read more

    On Tuesday night, we had a great Indian dinner at the Kohinoor restaurant in Orem.  Then we attended a really strong performance of Hello, Dolly! at the Hale Center Theater, not too terribly far away.   The ensemble was excellent, and Ashley Gardner Carlson made a fine Dolly Levi.   ***   Here’s a useful little article from clear back in 2010:   “Five myths about mosques in America”   ***   “How the Muslim World Lost the Freedom to Choose: A... Read more

    I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)   ***   I admit that I had never previously heard of this unjustly neglected chemist:   “The Forgotten Scientist... Read more

    Three more on Moore:   “Roy Moore Loses the ‘He Said / She Said’”   “Moore Defenders Betray Conservative Women”   “Praying for a Sessions Write-In Candidacy: If you say you don’t have enough evidence to make a judgment, you are judging Moore’s accusers to be not credible.”   “If Roy Moore Were a Fictional Character: You’d Know He Was a Villain”   ***   I posted a whole slew of links relating to the case of Judge Roy... Read more