One of the questions that I was asked at the Phoenix-area events over the weekend went roughly as follows:   In Islam, does Satan rebel against God and attempt to take away the agency of humanity?   The answer to this is “Not quite.”   There is nothing in the Qur’an to suggest that he sought to deprive us of our freedom or agency.  But the Qur’an does portray him as a tempter who exerts himself to seduce... Read more

    Two quick notes on today’s reading:   1.   When, in verse 6, the people of Ammonihah proudly demand “Who is God, that sendeth no more authority than one man among this people?” they unwittingly repeat the question of King Noah (see Mosiah 11:27), who unwittingly repeated the words of Pharaoh (see Exodus 5:2).  In the two prior cases, human arrogance led to humiliation, death, and destruction.  Unsurprisingly, the city and people of Ammonihah will meet a similar fate.   2.... Read more

    The interesting stuff continues to pour out.  I haven’t seen this one; it was evidently published just today:   https://www.createspace.com/6221667     Read more

  We’re headed to Asia in a couple of days, but not to the right part of it for this kind of thing.  So my wife and I very much enjoyed a meal tonight at Chef Gao, in north Orem.  And that put me in the mood:       It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.   *   Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every... Read more

    So the headline, as advertised, reads “Donald Trump Comes Out in Favor of Men in Women’s Restrooms.”   And he really did say something along those lines.   (If you can make much sense of this or most of the Leader’s other policy pronouncements, to the extent that the Leader has actually made any such pronouncements, you should probably be serving our nation as a cryptographer or codebreaker.)   Anyway, whatever the Leader said, whatever the Leader was feeling when he... Read more

    An interesting piece on the Forbes site by Dr. Travis Bradberry:   http://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2012/08/21/caffeine-the-silent-killer-of-emotional-intelligence/#3520547f67c9     Read more

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/04/20/how-should-muslim-parents-and-teachers-talk-to-children-about-donald-trump/   Of course, somebody might respond that we shouldn’t care about the sensitivities of Muslim children or the fears of minorities.   For any Mormons who might be inclined to that response, I offer the following, from the Wikipedia article regarding the 30 October 1838 Haun’s Mill massacre, in which, thanks to the efforts of a roughly 250-member mob, at least seventeen Mormons and one non-Mormon sympathizer were killed and thirteen more (including a woman and a nine-year-old child)... Read more

    Many years ago, when we had far less data than we have now, a pioneering student of apostasy in the Internet Age formulated what has come to be called, in his honor, Novak’s Rule. It runs essentially as follows:   When you become an apostate, expect your IQ to drop by about eighty points. In other words, God strikes you stupid.   Now, as formulated, the Rule is obviously too simple. As with all illnesses, the incidence of... Read more

    An interesting profile of a professor at Harvard Divinity School whose father may be familiar to a few of you:   https://www.tumblr.com/humansofhds/139762278233/professor-david-holland-associate-professor-of   Thanks to Cassandra Hedelius for calling this article to my attention.     Read more

    Today’s installment of my weekly Deseret News column is now up:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865652649/Sharing-the-gospel-in-an-argument-culture.html     Read more