http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/02/28/geert-wilders-islam-not-religion-totalitarian-ideology/   Yes, he sometimes looks rather weird in photographs.  But that’s by far not the most important reason for objecting to Mr. Geert Wilders, who may soon be the leader of the Netherlands.   His claim that Islam isn’t really a religion at all, but merely an ideology “with many of the trappings” of one, is flat-out, crazy, historically illiterate nonsense.  I can’t imagine that there’s a single serious scholar of the subject — religious or not — who... Read more

    King Benjamin’s remark at Mosiah 4:29 has just been demonstrated true, beyond any reasonable dispute:   “And finally, I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them.”   Here is an illustration of something that I had never, ever, recognized before as a grievous sin.  It’s a sin frequently committed, as it turns out, against the Germans and the Swiss — oppressed, miserable,... Read more

    “God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools . . . and He has not been disappointed. . . .  If I have brought any message today, it is this:  Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity.  Be fools for Christ.  And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.” Antonin Scalia (1936-2016)     Read more

    I didn’t hear Mr. Trump’s State of the Union address last night.  Not out of principle nor out of general distaste for the man — though, had I stayed home, I confess that I might still have chosen to read a mystery novel during that time, because I don’t like the man and I don’t consider him a conservative — but because I myself was giving a lecture simultaneously, up in Salt Lake Valley.   Still, I’ve heard that... Read more

    But the new Chief Judge in Nigeria’s Edo State is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . . . and a woman, to boot:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org.ng/article/god-is-just-says-chief-judge-ikponmwen     Read more

Hi, Lemmie!   Thanks for your help. Read more

    http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865674233/10-insights-about-Joseph-Smith-and-seer-stones-from-the-authors-of-Joseph-Smith7s-Seer-Stones.html   Michael Hubbard McKay and Nick Frederick and Anthony Sweat and Gerrit Dirkmaat at BYU are doing really, really interesting work on the origin stories of the Restoration,   I recommend it highly.     Read more

    A week or two ago, somebody — I cannot now recall who it was — challenged me to watch Brigitte Gabriel’s 16.5-minute video Islam: The Undeniable Truth, which offers her summation of the fourteen centuries of Islamic history.   I finally got around, just now, to looking at the first four minutes of her video.  (I tired of it, and I have other things to do.  But I hope to finish watching it at some later point.)  Here is a... Read more

    The video of the joint presentation by Royal Skousen and Stan Carmack at the August 2016 FairMormon conference is now finally up:   http://www.fairmormon.org/fair-conferences/2016-fairmormon-conference/book-mormon-critical-text-project     Read more

    “Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, ‘that Religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only be reason and conviction, not by force or violence.’  The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man: and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.” James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance... Read more