The estimable David French comments on an article in the New York Times that I myself mentioned (“Don’t Believe in God? Maybe You’ll Try U.F.O.s”) a few days ago:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449789/post-christian-america-superstitious-intolerant-reality     Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    The redoubtable Jeff Lindsay, a member of the executive board of the Interpreter Foundation, takes issue with an article published in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2017/07/an-unnecessary-attack-on-faithful-lds.html   There is no hive mind at the Interpreter Foundation.   I’m happy about that.   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    I continue to stand by my opinion that this isn’t actually the worst thing ever written about Muhammad or Islam:   https://www.amazon.com/Muhammad-Prophet-God-Daniel-Peterson-ebook/dp/B001F0RLLA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1500968025&sr=1-1&keywords=Daniel+Peterson   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    Are you sleeping too well at night?  Have you developed an unfortunate resistance to horror movies?  Do they no longer give you that delicious old thrill?   If so, consider reading this article about some of the world’s supervolcanos:   http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170724-would-a-supervolcano-eruption-wipe-us-out   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    A nice piece from Peggy Fletcher Stack:   http://www.sltrib.com/home/5536656-155/dust-and-tears-rain-and-realization   I’m sorry that I’m linking to it just a bit late for Pioneer Day.   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” Lewis B. Smedes, Reformed Protestant theologian (d. 2002)   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    As usual, Jonah Goldberg offers a humorous but also serious and balanced conservative view of the subject:   http://www.nationalreview.com/g-file/449747/donald-trump-defenders-rationalizing-failure   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    The basic geology of Maui is pretty obvious:  An older volcano to west-northwest, now much eroded, and a new and larger volcano to the south-southeast, connected by a plain formed by the confluence of their lava flows.   The larger, younger volcano to the east-southeast, Haleakalā (“house of the sun”), rises to a height of 10,023 feet (3,055 meters) above sea level.  More dramatically, perhaps, it measures five miles (eight kilometers) from seafloor to summit, making it one of the world’s tallest mountains.... Read more

    I can’t help but wonder whether there’s a relationship between these social trends and the rise of the religious “nones”:   https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/young-men-giving-up-on-marriage-women-arent-women-anymore?utm_content=bufferd83b3   See, in this context, “Faith and family depend upon each other.”   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more

    Some have suggested that, even if chiasmus exists in an ancient text, it would almost certainly be destroyed in the process of translation.  A post from Book of Mormon Central considers that issue:   https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/can-chiasmus-survive-translation   Posted from Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii     Read more