This installment from “Music and the Spoken Word” was apparently delivered yesterday by Dr. Lloyd Newell:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865684428/Music-and-the-Spoken-Word-Moments-in-nature.html   It dovetails nicely with my blog entry from yesterday on “Scientific Awe and Religion.”     Read more

    I really enjoyed this 8.5-minute video on the calling of the first sister missionaries in this dispensation:   https://history.lds.org/article/sister-missionaries-video?lang=eng&_r=1   If you’re a returned sister missionary, or a current one, or a prospective one, or the mother of one; or if you’re the sister or father or brother or son of one; or if you know or knew one; or you care about missionary work; or you are a member of the Church; or you are interested in... Read more

    Thanks to Kevin Taylor for calling my attention to this article:   Sowing seeds for an angry God   I have to admit that I’ve met more than a few devotees of this angry God — almost all of them, if indeed not every one of them, Evangelical Protestants.   Their religion seems to be about exclusion and hate and superiority and announcing what God loathes and who (almost always including Mormons but sometimes also Catholics and Arminians... Read more

    A touching eight-minute “Mormon Messages” video from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:   https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/a-pianos-purpose     Read more

    Incidentally, Professor Gary Rendsburg, who is cited in this article, will be among those participating in the upcoming conference on chiasmus to be held at Brigham Young University.   Author of 10th-century Hebrew biblical text is identified     Read more

    A short but interesting blog entry from the remarkable Jeff Lindsay:   http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-miraculous-feeding-in-3-nephi-20.html     Read more

    I’m not, to put it mildly, an uncritical fan of the late Carl Sagan.  But I’m afraid that this comment is, in many cases, far too close to the truth:   “In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be... Read more

    “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.” Blaise Pascal     Read more

      A thoughtful little essay from Shtephen Shmoot, whose liberal political views, regrettably, disqualify him from any and all consideration as a decent human being and a faithful Latter-day Saint:   http://www.plonialmonimormon.com/2017/07/modern-mormon-shibboleths-and-how-to.html?m=1   Of course, if I’m going to be in the “in-group,” it’s essential that there be an “out-group.”     Read more

    It’s very gratifying to learn about these things:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormons-around-the-world-country-newsroom-websites-july-1-2017   Does the Church make a difference?  Indeed it does.     Read more