For those who are puzzled by the distinction, maybe this will help a bit:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865582350/The-division-between-Sunni-and-Shi6ite-Muslims.html   Posted from Paris, France     Read more

    It’s Friday, and the folks who publish Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture were a bit desperate: http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/on-being-a-tool/   Posted from Paris, France     Read more

    Proof is only applicable to very rarefied areas of philosophy and mathematics. . . .  For the most part we are driven to acting on good evidence, without the luxury of proof.  There is good evidence of the link between cause and effect.  There is good evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow.  There is good reason to believe my mother loves me and is not just fattening me up for the moment when she will pop arsenic... Read more

    I announced many months ago that I would not, indeed could not, support Mr. Donald Trump for the presidency of the United States.   My position is unchanged.  I will not vote for him.   Never.  Ever.   I’ll vote for conservative Republicans, but I will not — because as a matter of principle, I cannot — vote for a non-conservative.  And I most definitely cannot vote for an unprincipled, fraudulent demagogue of remarkably poor character and unbelievably... Read more

    We were up early as usual.   First, we went to the Jerusalem Archaeological Park, which sits at the south end of Herod’s temple platform.  It’s a marvelous site, not least for the excellent little museum or display with which the visit always begins.  We walked through the ruins of the old Umayyad governor’s palace (from the early Islamic period) over to the first-century stairs that once led up onto the temple mount through the Huldah Gates.  This... Read more

    “It may seem bizarre, but in my opinion science offers a surer path to God than religion.” Paul Davies, Anglo-American theoretical physicist   Posted from Tel Aviv, Israel     Read more

    I confess that I just don’t see much point to the notion — increasingly popular, it seems, on the web — that there was no historical person corresponding to Jesus of Nazareth.   Although I obviously don’t, it’s quite easy enough to reject claims of his deity without feeling any obligation whatever to flatly deny his existence altogether.   Moreover — and I freely grant that this is a subjective matter — the historicity of Jesus seems to... Read more

    http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865653587/When-Jesus-purged-the-temple-at-Jerusalem.html   Posted from Tel Aviv, Israel     Read more

    http://m.deseretnews.com/article/865653604/Catholics-LDS-stand-together-on-issues-good-for-America-archbishop-says.html   I couldn’t agree more.  And I believe that such agreement is essential, as is making common cause, where we can — which is often — in order to advance and nourish our shared values.   Posted from Tel Aviv, Israel     Read more

    “People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature-the laws of physics-are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least they do not do so in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature... Read more