“We can’t understand the universe in any clear way without the supernatural.”  Allan Sandage   Read more

    http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/events/2016-second-interpreter-science-mormonism-symposium-body-brain-mind-and-spirit/     Read more

    Some of the nation’s leading conservative Catholic intellectuals have come out in public opposition to the presidential candidacy of Mr. Donald Trump:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/432437/donald-trump-catholic-opposition-statement   I wish I were more optimistic that such a statement will have even the slightest impact on the Caesarotrumpist movement.  Alas, though, I’m feeling more and more like a stranger in a strange land, surrounded by a people who are, in many ways, very foreign to me.  I’m mystified and disheartened by the... Read more

    Good for them!   http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/lehi-teens-stand-up-to-lds-church-protesters/article_6d9197b9-3648-5218-a67e-c7fb16e1d9ca.html     Read more

    It’s been a very long day, what with preparing for and teaching my own classes, substituting in a colleague’s class, delivering a lecture to its major donors for the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, attending the reception and dinner for the President’s Leadership Council at BYU, and so forth.   So I’ll be brief right now with regard to today’s reading, Mosiah 1.  I just don’t have the energy for more.   The book of Mosiah begins rather... Read more

    “If the physicists seem to achieve their ends more successfully than the theologians, that is simply a reflection of how much easier science is than theology.” Sir John Polkinghorne     Read more

    It’s customary, among certain critics of the Church, to dismiss Dr. Brian Hales — who has published extensively on questions surrounding early Mormon polygamy but who is a professional physician — as not a real historian, merely an amateur, and, therefore, as someone whose work doesn’t need to be seriously engaged but can be safely ignored.   However, it’s intellectually disingenuous and wrong, in discussions on this difficult topic, simply to brush his work aside:   http://www.plonialmonimormon.com/2016/03/another-endorsement-for-brian-hales.html  ... Read more

    He’s told you that he is, and that ought to be enough.  Right?   He tells it like it is.  Right?   He’ll bring his legendary business acumen to bear on the federal government.  Right?   Let’s pray that he doesn’t.   Here’s some truth about his business skills:   http://www.npr.org/2016/03/09/469775355/trump-doesnt-own-most-of-the-products-he-pitched-last-night?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20160309   And here’s some eye-opening analysis from that bastion of left-wing anti-capitalism, Fortune Magazine:   http://fortune.com/2015/08/20/donald-trump-index-funds/   If you had an investment advisor with a track record... Read more

    http://www.sltrib.com/blogs/3635705-155/mormon-historian-sheds-more-light-on     Read more

  Trumpism — or maybe, for the sake of accuracy, we should now be calling it Caesarodrumpfism — seems to be an irresistible juggernaut.  But this nearly 21-minute video is an absolutely devastating put-down of Trumpism’s impresario, Mr. Donald Drumpf:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGc2nN9OguQ   Two caveats:   (1)  Be warned that there is some quite ripe language here.  As I say, the video is utterly devastating, and it’s very funny as well, but it doesn’t always meet, umm, sacrament meeting standards.  ... Read more