http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865645824/Recent-scholarship-and-the-search-for-the-historical-Jesus.html   Posted from Terricciola, Italy     Read more

    Everywhere science is enriched by unscientific methods and unscientific results, . . . the separation of science and non-science is not only artificial but also detrimental to the advancement of knowledge.  If we want to understand nature, if we want to master our physical surroundings, then we must use all ideas, all methods, and not just a small selection of them.  (Paul K. Feyerabend, Austrian-American philosopher of science [1924-1994], in Against Method)   Posted from Terriccialo, Italy     Read more

    We spent a substantial part of our day today in the picturesque medieval town of San Gimignano, not terribly far from Siena.     It’s a gem.  Really a gem.  Stepping inside the walls, you’ve essentially entered the Middle Ages.  I would love to spend an evening within the gates.   We devoted most of our time to wandering in and around the Collegiata, the so-called “cathedral” of the town — technically, it’s not a cathedral, because there is... Read more

    http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865632206/The-failing-churches-of-ancient-Roman-Asia.html?pg=1   Posted from Terricciola, Italy     Read more

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435138/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-conservatives-never-trump-2016   Victor Davis Hanson — a farmer, a prolific historian, and a political commentator with a Stanford Ph.D. in classics (!) who is now associated with Stanford’s Hoover Institution — is one of my favorite writers, so I’m happy to comply:   I understand that many good people, solid conservatives, are coming to the reluctant conclusion that, in a presidential battle between the repulsive Donald Trump and the repellent Hillary Clinton — with a nod to Dr.... Read more

    I’ve already called attention to the Protestant theologian Richard Mouw’s article in the journal First Things entitled “Mormons Approaching Orthodoxy,” and to the excellent response to it, in the same journal, by Terryl Givens.   Now, I’m happy to call to your notice yet another superb reply, also published in First Things.  This one is by Ralph Hancock:   http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/05/mormons-and-creedal-christians-common-ground   Posted from Terricciola, Italy     Read more

    ” . . . a view that we call ‘scientism’: and that is that science is the only way to truth.  Now that is just logically false, because the statement ‘science is the only way to truth’ is not a statement of science, so if it’s true, it’s false.” John Lennox, Ph.D. Sc.D. D.Phil, Professor of Mathematics, University of Oxford   Posted from Terricciola, Italy     Read more

    I admire him very much and, during the time that I led BYU’s Islamic Translation Series, we published bilingual editions of two of his books:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865588685/The-surprisingly-modern-story-of-a-medieval-Muslim.html     Posted from Terricciola, Italy     Read more

    It was my science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more complicated than can be explained by science. It is only through the supernatural that I can understand the mystery of existence. Allan Sandage (d. in San Gabriel, California, 2010), American astronomer   Posted from Terricciola, Italy     Read more

    The hilly and elevated character of Jerusalem is one of its most obvious features.  (The Latter-day Saint creator of the beloved Christmas carol “Far, Far Away on Judea’s Plains” plainly never visited the Holy Land.)  One climbs up to the city, literally and physically.   However, because of its holiness and the longtime presence of the temple there, one also climbs up symbolically:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865627563/Going-up-to-Jerusalem.html   This is a point that I try to emphasize whenever I lead... Read more