A brief but important post from Tarik LaCour:   http://tarikdlacour.blogspot.com/2017/07/understanding-apologetics.html?spref=fb   I myself have tried to make the same patently obvious and unquestionably true point on several occasions, without much success.  Maybe Brother LaCour will have more luck.   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    We attended the Lahaina 1st Ward today, having decided that an English-language service would be more appropriate for us than one in Tongan.   It was a very good meeting, organized loosely on a “Pioneer Day” theme.   Once again, I loved the roster of names and participants:   Conducting the meeting was Aloha Kaniho.   The invocation was given by Nathan Kahaialii.   The first speaker was Ryah Kaniho, who is back for the summer from the... Read more

    A provocative essay.  I expect that the title alone has already upset some of my secular-minded readers:   The Myth of Religious Violence   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    I suspect that we’re going to be hearing about bit about Grant Palmer again in the next week or two, so it seems not inappropriate to call attention to a few links regarding his work:   Brian C. Hales and Gregory L. Smith, “A Response to Grant Palmer’s ‘Sexual Allegations against Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Polygamy in Nauvoo’”   FairMormon, “A Summary of Five Reviews of Grant Palmer’s ‘An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins’ (with a Few... Read more

    “A scientific discovery is also a religious discovery. There is no conflict between science and religion. Our knowledge of God is made larger with every discovery we make about the world.” Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr. Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    This is a matter where bureaucratic decisions have direct and possibly fatal impact on real, individual, human lives.   http://www.christianpost.com/news/evangelical-advisory-board-pressured-trump-admin-not-deport-iraqi-christians-192709/   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    “The amount of knowledge which we can justify from evidence directly available to us can never be large.  The overwhelming proportion of our factual beliefs continue therefore to be held at second hand through trusting others, and in the great majority of cases our trust is placed in the authority of comparatively few people of widely acknowledged standing.” Michael Polanyi   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    I’m pleased to read about a new effort, under the auspices of BYU’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative (or METI), which I conceived and founded, to translate the homilies of the fifth-century Mesopotamian Christian theologian Narsai:   https://mi.byu.edu/narsai-memre/   One of the keenest regrets of my professional career is that, owing to Institute politics, I’ve been blocked from participating in METI since mid-2012.  And it’s a very keen regret.  I would dearly love to have been involved in this project, even... Read more

    I’ve made no attempt at even so systematic a survey as Jana Riess has, here in this article, but I too have noticed the fading away of the old classic Evangelical anti-Mormon publishing machine.   When the FARMS Review began back in 1989 (under the then title of Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, or, as it was also affectionately known, ROBOTBOM) it often responded to the emissions of Evangelical anti-Mormonism.  Gradually, though, as the years... Read more

    “A man who won’t believe in God,” G. K. Chesterton is supposed to have said, “will believe in anything.”   That statement has never actually been found in any of his works, although it certainly sounds like something he might say.   And, sometimes, it surely seems to be true.   See, for example, this article.   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more