Another item from the apparently indefatigable Stephen Smoot (aka “Nanook of the North”):   http://www.plonialmonimormon.com/2017/06/nephi-among-nephilim.html   I hope that this clears up a misconception that I, too, have encountered from time to time.   Posted from Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain     Read more

    Many, though not all, criticisms of Mormonism and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are fairly shallow and rather obviously flawed.   The so-called “kalam infinity argument” is not one of those.  Drawn from the works of medieval Islamic philosophical theologians — hence the Arabic word kalam, which literally means “speech” but, in this context, refers to a kind of dialectical theology that flourished in Islamic circles from at least the 800s AD — it’s a... Read more

    I have to confess that I sometimes, er, marvel at the fact that some academics specialize in such things as comic books and Madonna music videos and the history of Cajun cookbooks.   I mean, Shakespeare, Dante, and Aristotle seem much worthier and more dignified topics.   But it’s true that comic books and such things can actually be windows into culture change and social psychology, so I guess that, in the end, I’m okay with it:   http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/06/15/muslims-comics-refugees... Read more

I thought it was rather funny for a Mormon group to descend on a rather extended drive through wine country, during which we received an extensive explanation of wine and wine-making, to a town that is well-known as one of the most gay-friendly in the world. Read more

    Should we be worried?   http://www.popsci.com/hypersonic-arms-race-china-united-states   After all, China isn’t necessarily our friend.   We focus on Iran and the so-called “Islamic State” and al-Qa‘ida and other manifestations of violent extremist Islamism.  And understandably so.  But they don’t represent existential threats to the United States.  China, on the other hand, potentially does represent such a threat.   Posted from Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain     Read more

    I strongly recommend this new little video, slightly more than four minutes long, featuring the omnipresent Stephen Smoot:   https://bookofmormoncentral.org/blog/watch-amazing-new-book-of-mormon-evidence-video   Of course, I also commend to your attention the much longer and more detailed 2006 film Journey of Faith:   https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Faith-S-Kent-Brown/dp/B0013N02YM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1497714682&sr=8-2&keywords=Journey+of+Faith   Posted from Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain     Read more

    Cure yourself of the affliction of caring how you appear to others.  Concern yourself only with how you appear before God, concern yourself only with the idea that God may have of you. Miguel de Unamuno   Posted from Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain     Read more

    At night, in Grindelwald, after very full days and after evenings spent out on our patio watching the sunlight dim and then disappear on the Eiger Nordwand, and after I’d done a bit of blogging and other writing, my wife and I took to binge-watching an episode or three every night of Designated Survivor on my computer.  (I was briefly a 24 addict, too.)     So it was fun to see posters around Interlaken and Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald... Read more

    You would think that this idea, that science (by definition) has certain limits, wouldn’t be terribly difficult to grasp.   But you would be wrong.   Several of those who’ve responded to my most recent Deseret News article — at the newspaper itself and elsewhere — seem to have utterly failed to understand the issue.   A poster on one rather low-voltage message board demands of “Peterson” that he “name one major life question or problem which cannot... Read more

    Back when I was deeply involved in what was then still called the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, one of the things that I headed up was its Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts (CPART).  And one of the projects that CPART undertook was the digitizing of Syriac religious documents in the Vatican Apostolic Library.   The man responsible for initiating the contact between us and the Vatican — it was his idea, originally —... Read more