I believe really strongly in the continual need for fresh expressions — not only in sermons and scholarly articles, but in music, literature, film, sculpture, painting, and every other medium — of the Gospel, the scriptures, and their doctrines.  So I’m really pleased that Book of Mormon Central sponsors an art contest.  You can see some of this year’s entries here:   https://bookofmormoncentral.org/content/art-contest-2017     Read more

    W. Montgomery Watt — Scottish historian, orientalist, Anglican priest, premiere biographer of Muhammad, prolific Islamicist, and Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh — on the founder of Islam:   “His readiness to undergo persecutions for his beliefs, the high moral character of the men who believed in him and looked up to him as leader, and the greatness of his ultimate achievement – all argue his fundamental integrity. To suppose Muhammad an impostor raises more... Read more

    A good article from Stephen Smoot:   http://www.plonialmonimormon.com/2017/02/make-america-great-again-by-protecting.html     Read more

    As I drive deeper and deeper into advanced geezerhood, I naturally wonder about things like this:   https://www.wired.com/2017/04/worth-worrying-dementia/     Read more

    “The rub is that the pursuit of happiness, as an end in itself, tends automatically, and widely, to be replaced by the pursuit of pleasure with a consequent general softening of the fibers of will, intelligence, spirit.” Whittaker Chambers (1901-1961)     Read more

      http://www.morningsun.net/opinion/20170429/illiberal-leftists-and-free-speech     Read more

    CNN:  “Mormon history scholars file court brief over Trump travel ban”   Washington Post:  “‘We have to take a stand’: Mormon history scholars file brief against Trump travel ban”   World Religion News:  “Mormon Scholars File Brief over Trump Travel Ban”   Huffington Post: “Mormon Scholars are Reaching Back into Church History to Support Muslims”     Read more

    “Children:  You spend the first two years of their lives teaching them how to walk and how to talk.  And then you spend the next sixteen telling them to sit down and shut up.”      Read more

    This looks really fun:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765693273/Utahs-Jurassic-Park-5-Reasons-You-Need-to-Go.html   Has anybody out there been to the place?   I spend so much of my disposable time traveling outside of Utah that I often feel that I’m neglecting my adopted home state.     Read more

    “Whoever kills a person who has a truce with the Muslims will never smell the fragrance of Paradise.”   This hadith is reportedly to be found in the Sahih Muslim.   “Beware!  Whoever is cruel and hard on a non-Muslim minority, or curtails their rights, or burdens them with more than they can bear, or takes anything from them against their free will, I will complain against that person on the Day of Judgment.”   This hadith is,... Read more