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

    A very helpful list prepared by Neal Rappleye:   http://www.studioetquoquefide.com/2017/06/the-15-best-books-to-read-before-having.html?spref=fb   I absolutely agree that it’s best to fortify oneself against assaults on one’s faith before they come, rather than trying to repair gaps in the fortress wall after enemy troops have breached one’s perimeter defenses and begun to wreak havoc within.   I myself have posted a short related piece, several times:   “Once again, four books to build faith”   Posted from Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain     Read more

    It’s Friday, so a new article has appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/how-big-a-book-estimating-the-total-surface-area-of-the-book-of-mormon-plates/   Happy reading!   Incidentally, Interpreter‘s critics used to like to claim that it was dying, indeed just about dead.  Now, they point out instead that quantity isn’t the same thing as quality.  Which is obviously true:  They’ve repeated the same attacks scores and scores of times.   Posted from Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain     Read more

    “A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about.” Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) Posted from Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain   Read more

    Some sane reflections on that shooting attack against baseball-playing Republican congressmen the other day:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448676/political-violence-big-government-ball-field-shooting-james-hodgkinson-jared-loughner-new-york-times   Posted from Zürich, Switzerland     Read more

    http://news.byu.edu/news/new-exoplanet-discovery-published-nature   At BYU, the vast majority of the students and faculty being irrational Mormon obscurantists, people hate and fear science.  Or so I’m told.   So this report must be a lie.   Posted from Zürich, Switzerland     Read more

    A truly remarkable experience for a newly-minted attorney to have had, and perhaps especially for one who would eventually be called to the Quorum of the Twelve:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormon-watergate-trials-apostle-reflects-lessons-learned   Posted from Zürich, Switzerland     Read more

    Now here’s a mind-expanding idea:   https://aeon.co/ideas/the-idea-of-creating-a-new-universe-in-the-lab-is-no-joke   The potential theological implications are interesting — and perhaps especially (and certainly differently) so for Latter-day Saints.   Posted from Zürich, Switzerland     Read more

    There’s a great deal of concern — sometimes bordering on paranoia — about Islamic shari‘a.  If more people understood the points made in this article, though, much of that concern would dissipate:   http://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2017/06/16/what_sharia_law_means_five_questions_answered_110152.html   Posted from Grindelwald, Switzerland     Read more