A bit more from Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperCollins, 2010):   Can we speak of consciousness when a person is in a coma?  A recent article in Science looked at the scientific evidence of awareness in a patient in a vegetative state.  This is a form of coma with spontaneous breathing and brain-stem reflexes.  Brain tests showed that when this patient was instructed to imagine certain activities like playing tennis or... Read more

    From a well-respected Dutch cardiologist:   It is 1969.  At the coronary care unit the alarm suddenly goes off.  The monitor shows that the electrocardiogram of a patient with a myocardial infarction (heart attack) has flatlined.  The man has suffered a cardiac arrest.  Two nurses hurry over to the patient, who is no longer responsive, and quickly draw the curtains around his bed.  One of the nurses starts CPR while the other places a mask over his mouth... Read more

    Returning to Geraint F. Lewis and Luke A. Barnes, A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016):   “[T]he up and down quarks are 4.5 and 9.4 times heavier than the electron.  These aren’t nice, neat numbers.  And yet, they are fundamental to the Standard Model of particle physics.  Frustratingly, we can measure them, but we can’t explain them in terms of anything else. “The other paraphernalia of the Standard Model aren’t any better.  The... Read more

    For one of the manuscripts that I’m tinkering with, I’m trying to outline the issues and options as clearly as I can, for myself and for readers.  Here’s a hasty first try, which follows a lengthy summation — still under construction — of various items of evidence and several distinct lines of argument:   It seems unlikely that Joseph was consciously deceptive. Let’s examine the various possibilities under this heading: It seems unlikely that he was consciously and... Read more

    Another few hundred words:   It was at Nahom, incidentally, that Lehi and his party abruptly turned due east after their long period of travel along the coast of Arabia in a southeasterly direction. A glance at the map shows that by doing so, they missed the area of what has long been known as Yemen. Instead, they moved along behind the mountains that form the natural division between Yemen and the rest of the Arabian penin­sula. (Most... Read more

    It’s Thursday, so another of my mean-spirited, rage-fueled columns has appeared in the Deseret News:   “‘Joseph Smith, American Prophet’ shares story of Restoration, to air on PBS”   ***   If you’re in the area(s), you might find this of interest:   “BYU Creates a Full-Sized Tabernacle of Moses You Can Tour”   ***   Here’s some additional fodder for your already bulging Christopher Hitchens Memorial “Religion Poisons Everything” file:   “Latter-day Saints Provide Famine Relief in Africa,... Read more

    The Church has created a one-minute animated video suitable for sharing on social media.  Check it out:   “What is the Book of Mormon?”   ***   Three private Latter-day Saints have created a two-minute “trailer” advertising this coming weekend’s General Conference.  It won’t be to all tastes.  Some really like it and some really don’t:   “Watch: Mormon Creates Epic General Conference Trailer That Shows Just How Awesome It Truly Is”   ***   For something a... Read more

    Still plinking away on various chapters of the manuscript:   The records that the Hebrews had so laboriously created would eventually prove to be of great worth to their descendants, helping them understand their own uniqueness and their special covenant rela­tionship with God.[1] New challenges were arising, and these records became invaluable. In the late fourth century B.C., the land­scape of the Near East was dramatically changed by the invasion of Alexander the Great. Alexander, descendant of a... Read more

    But, first, a pleasant blog entry from a Palestinian Latter-day Saint:   “BYU-I . . . . A great place”   You can read her story here.   Hers is an important Mormon voice and perspective that I very much appreciate.   ***   And this:   My longtime friend Scott Gordon, president of FairMormon, performs a thought experiment:   “What if People with Red Hair Were Denied the Priesthood?”   ***   Moreover, you might enjoy this little item:... Read more