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<\/a>Newly up on the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s website as part of our ongoing Thursday series of \u201creprints\u201d: \u00a0Joseph Smith and Our Preparation for the Lord\u2019s Final Judgment: Essays by George L. Mitton<\/em>, \u201cPreface: Inspiration, Writing, and Life,\u201d<\/a> written by George L. Mitton<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAs an introduction to the four essays in this book, I would like to give some background so their origin will be known. I feel the Lord has blessed me with some wonderful experiences in life, and those experiences sometimes carried seeds that germinated and grew into essays that required considerable research. In some cases, I received specific impressions that I should put in writing the inspiration that came from them. I will discuss each essay separately, as they were published as journal articles and a book chapter by the Interpreter Foundation. This summary is based on an interview that was recorded, hence the conversational style.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Joseph Smith and Our Preparation for the Lord\u2019s Final Judgment: Essays by George L. Mitton<\/em>. For more information, go to https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/books\/joseph-smith-and-our-preparation-for-the-lords-final-judgment\/<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In May of this year, the Interpreter Foundation will be conducting a thirteen-day educational tour in \u201cEngland\u2019s green and pleasant land\u201d focused on the topic of \u201cChurch History and Britain\u2019s Victorian Century.\u201d<\/a> \u00a0The tour has been listed for quite some time as \u201csold out,\u201d but I\u2019ve just been told that as many as six spots on the tour may have just opened up. \u00a0(I hope that I haven\u2019t been misled on this.) \u00a0If you are interested, you should call the folks at Bountiful Travel.<\/p>\n The tour will be a special one, among other reasons because it will be accompanied by, and enhanced by the expertise of, Kristine Wardle Frederickson<\/a> and Peter Fagg<\/a>.<\/p>\n I called attention the other day to a new book by the New York Times<\/em> columnist Ross Douthat that is entitled\u00a0Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious<\/a><\/em>. \u00a0Today, I read a column that he had written \u2014 it\u2019s apparently an extract from his book \u2014 for Christianity Today<\/em> under the title of \u201cHow I Lost My Faith in Atheism: A career arguing about faith has made religious disagreement easier to understand\u2014but outright atheism more unfathomable.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 I don\u2019t know whether you\u2019ll be able to access it. \u00a0But I enjoyed it, and I append a few passages from it that I noted:<\/p>\n I\u2019ve entirely lost what faith I once had in the plausibility and durability of atheism. . . .<\/p>\n I understand perfectly well how a reasonable person could have doubts about the exact nature of God, his specific intentions or his perfect goodness, or any of the particular claims that Christianity makes about the divine. But the idea that the universe and human existence have no plan or intentionality or purpose behind them, that mind, consciousness, reason, logos are purely epiphenomenal rather than fundamental, that our existence is finally reducible to the accidental, to the undesigned, to the bouncing billiard balls of hard material determinism\u2014I don\u2019t see how anyone can reasonably believe this.<\/em><\/p>\n I don\u2019t see how anyone can believe it given everything that we know now, not just about the basic order of the cosmos, but about the exquisite fine-tuning required to give rise to stars, planets, life itself. (The attempt by atheistic intellectuals to find refuge in the theory of the multiverse, which casts our universe as a rare life-supporter among trillions of dead ones that we can never actually observe, seems similar to the epicycles attached to the Ptolemaic system when it became clear it couldn\u2019t accurately describe reality.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I could easily quote at least two further paragraphs from Douthat\u2019s article here, but I think that I should not.<\/p>\n Official Notice: \u00a0While it will probably result in our being barred from the Oval Office of the White House<\/a>, this blog and its proprietor will continue to refer to the oceanic basin that is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southwest and south by the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucat\u00e1n, and Quintana Roo; and on the southeast by Cuba by its historical name of \u201cthe Gulf of Mexico.\u201d That is the name that, in all of its linguistic variants (e.g., golfo de M\u00e9xico<\/i>, golfe du Mexique<\/i><\/span>, Golf von Mexiko<\/em>, \u041c\u0435\u043a\u0441\u0438\u043a\u0430\u043d\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0439 \u0437\u0430\u043b\u0438\u0432, \u039a\u03cc\u03bb\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u039c\u03b5\u03be\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd, and \u062e\u0644\u064a\u062c \u0627\u0644\u0645\u0643\u0633\u064a\u0643), is \u00a0officially recognized by the International Hydrographic Organization. The name first appeared on a world map in 1550 and in a historical account in 1552, and it has been the most common name for the body of water in question since the mid-1600s.<\/p>\n Also for the record: \u00a0This blog and its proprietor will not be referring to Greenland as Red, White, and Blueland<\/a>. And I won\u2019t be spending any time reading and relaxing on the beach in a depopulated and American-owned Mar-a-Gaza. \u00a0Not in this lifetime, anyway. \u00a0I really am a conservative.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s for that very reason \u2014 despite the fact that we\u2019re talking here about \u201cmy own, my native land\u201d \u2014 that I think that we should seriously consider a new proposal from the country where my paternal grandfather was born: \u00a0\u201cHygge to Hollywood: Petition calling for Denmark to buy California reaches 200,000 signatures: \u201cM\u00e5ke Calif\u00f8rnia Great \u00c6gain,\u201d reads the top of the petition website, replacing some English letters with Danish ones.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n It seems to me that a transfer of the title to California from the United States to Denmark could be a win-win for everybody concerned.<\/p>\n As if we needed any further evidence of the evils of religion, here are three appalling theistic crimes that have recently been committed against humanity, as documented in the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122:<\/p>\n \u201cTechnical School in Ghana Receives Church Donation of Tools and Equipment:\u00a0Hundreds Attend Joyful Celebration of Handover\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Lancashire](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2022\/08\/Main_Street_Downham_geograph_3136786-1.jpg\")
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(Wikimedia Commons public domain image). It was in this little village that Heber C. Kimball had some of the most astonishing success of the first Latter-day Saint mission beyond the United States and Canada \u2014 success that had enormous impact on the subsequent history of the Church.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"European](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/07\/800px-Admiring_the_Galaxy.jpg\")
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(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/blockquote>\n![\"Preparing](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/11\/cannery-606759-gallery.jpg\")
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