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<\/a>Newly posted on the perpetually somnolent website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0\u201cHugh Nibley Observed<\/em>: Nibley as an Apologist,\u201d<\/a> written by Daniel C. Peterson<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cListening to that very generous introduction, I\u2019m reminded of a time when I was asked to chair or moderate a session in which Professor Nibley was speaking. I was sitting next to him when someone gave a prayer, and the prayer went on and on and on and on about what a great privilege it was to sit in the presence of this great man, and so on and so forth. And very audibly, about three minutes into the prayer, sitting next to me, I heard him say, \u2018Aw, shucks.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Hugh Nibley Observed<\/em>, edited by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Shirley S. Ricks, and Stephen T. Whitlock. For more information, go to https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/books\/hugh-nibley-observed\/<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Some of you are probably aware that the singer David Archuleta has announced his departure from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> over his homosexuality and his perception that the Church is unwelcoming to him. \u00a0And that he has taken his mother out of the Church with him. \u00a0I\u2019ve never followed David Archuleta, but his announcement saddens me. \u00a0I like this published response: \u00a0\u201cAn Open Letter of Hope to David Archuleta: It\u2019s natural to wonder about the future for those navigating the intersections of faith, sexuality, gender and identity. I believe that future can be filled with peace, happiness and love beyond even their fondest imagination.,\u201d<\/a> written by Ty Mansfield<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hard to believe though it is, President Russell M. Nelson may finally be feeling some of the effects of age: \u00a0\u201cPresident Nelson says age, longevity of service of senior Latter-day Saint leaders is \u2018cause for \u2018celebration\u2019: Some leaders may sit for messages or prerecord for this weekend\u2019s general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n I hate to see it, but I suppose that he may be warning us what to expect this coming weekend. \u00a0And, after all, I\u2019m thinking that, in his hundredth year, he may actually have earned the right to sit while speaking, or even to pre-record his message.<\/p>\n And, while we\u2019re thinking about the approaching General Conference of the Church, I call this article by Shalissa Lindsay<\/a> to your notice. \u00a0I enjoyed it: \u00a0\u201cScrewtape to Wormwood on General Conference\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n I\u2019m extracting some notes from Mario Beauregard and Denyse O\u2019Leary, The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist\u2019s Case for the Existence of the Soul<\/em> (New York City: HarperOne, 2007), so I thought that I would share a couple of them with you.<\/p>\n The first quotation comes from a famous 1996 Athenaeum Reading Room<\/em> essay (entitled \u201cSorry, but Your Soul Just Died\u201d) \u00a0by the late Tom Wolfe (1930-2018), who was a novelist, a social critic, and the holder of a Ph.D. from Yale University (though in a field quite unrelated to neuroscience). \u00a0Wolfe was an atheist and saw himself expounding the \u201cneuroscientific view of life.\u201d \u00a0Here is one of the conclusions that, in his opinion, are entailed by that view:<\/p>\n Since consciousness and thought are entirely physical products of your brain and nervous system \u2014 and since your brain arrived fully imprinted at birth \u2014 what makes you think you have free will? \u00a0Where is it going to come from? \u00a0What \u201cghost,\u201d what \u201cmind,\u201d what \u201cself,\u201d what \u201csoul,\u201d what anything that will not be immediately grabbed by those scornful quotation marks, is going to bubble up your brain stem to give it to you? \u00a0I have heard neuroscientists theorize that, given computers of sufficient power and sophistication, it would be possible to predict the course of any human being\u2019s life moment for moment, including the fact that the poor devil was about to shake his head over the very idea. \u00a0(cited on 4)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n However, Mario Beauregard, a French Canadian cognitive neuroscientist who earned his doctorate from the University of Montreal and who is currently at the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona, dissents. \u00a0He responds that<\/p>\n neuroscientists have not<\/em> discovered that there is no you in you; they start their work with that assumption. \u00a0Anything they find is interpreted on the basis of that view. \u00a0The science does not require that. \u00a0Rather, it is an obligation that materialists impose on themselves. \u00a0(4, emphasis his)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n On a quite distinct topic, Professor Beauregard writes that<\/p>\n most humans have never believed in atheism or materialism. \u00a0Indeed, religion may well have been around as long as humans. \u00a0Seventy thousand years ago, the Neanderthals, an extinct species of human, buried their dead with tools, apparently to be used in another world. \u00a0Significantly, many Neanderthal dead were placed in a fetal position, suggesting that Neanderthals expected to be \u201cborn again\u201d when they died. \u00a0British archaeologist Paul Pettitt reports:<\/p>\n At the Sima de los Huesos (\u201cPit of the Bones\u201d) at Atapuerca in Spain, over 32 individuals of <\/em>Homo heidelbergensis dating to over 200,000 years ago were found at the bottom of a deep shaft. \u00a0It is possible that these bones . . . all got there accidentally \u2014 but I doubt it. \u00a0Caves and sinkholes are dark, mysterious places; they echo with the strange sounds of wind and water. \u00a0In later periods they were regarded as gateways to the \u201cotherworld.\u201d \u00a0It seems far more likely that early Neanderthals perceived them in a similar way. \u00a0<\/em>(7, italics mine)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a><\/a>
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n