Science takes things apart to see how they work.  Religion puts things together to see what they mean. Jonathan Sacks     Read more

    David McCullough, on the early nineteenth century Calvinist clergyman Lyman Beecher, father of the even more famous Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin:   “But something in him made him shy away from the strictest tenet of his creed — total predestination — and its logic.  Once when he had agreed to to exchange pulpits with another pastor, he was told that the arrangement had been preordained.  ‘Is that so?’ he said.... Read more

    I want to get aboard the bandwagon while things are still early, so today I declare my support for Kanye West’s 2020 presidential bid.   This article sets forth the rationale for Kanye as our conservative dream candidate four years from now:   http://www.redstate.com/prevaila/2016/10/29/brad-thor-kanye-2020/     Read more

    Trying to decide how to get into the . . . umm, vein?  Here are some suggestions, from an always interesting Deseret News movie writer:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865665901/A-Halloween-monster-movie-primer.html   Do not watch Eat Pray Love this weekend.  (Do not watch Eat Pray Love on any weekend, nor, for that matter on any day of any week.  Period.)     Read more

    One city on this list, in particular, caught my attention:   https://smartasset.com/mortgage/best-places-to-trick-or-treat-in-2016   Incidentally, I’m thinking of giving the children who ring my doorbell this year a choice of either Brussels sprouts, peanut-butter-coated liver jerky, or toothpaste.  That should send my neighborhood’s Halloween ratings through the roof!   Should I dress as Donald Trump, or as Hillary Clinton?     Read more

    “O God!  If I worship Thee from fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship Thee in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise.  But if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, withhold not Thine everlasting beauty!” Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiyya of Basra (d. AD 801)       Read more

    For anybody out there who thinks about questions of the nature of science and scholarship, peer review and conformism, academic orthodoxy and academic dissent, “fringe” thinking versus the mainstream, fashionable opinion and unfashionable views, paradigm shifts, and so forth, this article should be fascinating:   http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/what-counts-as-science     Read more

    Jonathan Tobin, senior online editor for what is perhaps America’s most prominent Jewish magazine, has noticed it:   https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/campaigns-elections/an-anti-mormon-trumpist-backlash-evan-mcmullin/     Read more

      http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865665842/In-Jerusalem-Mormon-apostles-and-Jewish-leaders-like-Joe-Lieberman-remember-Orson-Hyde-prayer.html?pg=all   Former Senator Joe Lieberman, who was Al Gore’s vice presidential running mate, remains one of my favorite Democrats.  He’s also the co-author of a good book on Sabbath observance.       Read more

    If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead. William Law (d. 1761)     Read more