Enigmatic Mirror
http://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2015/01/13/the_decline_of_philosophy.html Indeed. Read more
http://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2015/01/13/the_decline_of_philosophy.html Indeed. Read more
What any individual knows is only a minute fraction of the aggregate of all human knowledge in the modern world. What is collectively known today is only a minute fraction of all that can be known of the cosmos as a whole, and will be known in the future. What can be known today is undoubtedly only a small fraction of all that is, but which cannot be known by the human mind. So, given the necessarily abysmal level ignorance of even... Read more
The vast majority of people understand precisely the implications of a fictional Book of Mormon. Like Avi Steinberg, author of The Lost Book of Mormon. A review here. Read more
David Bokovoy is a smart guy, a good scholar, and a wonderful human being. But he is hopelessly muddled in his thinking about historicity. He recently posted some thoughts on the matter on his blog. His claims there raise literally dozen of questions, and I really hope he’s willing to engage in a detailed discussion on the matter. Lack of clarity of thought on this (and any other important topic) is highly counter-productive. So let me start with one simple question.... Read more
In order to be more inclusive of apostate, cultural, marginal, liberal and progressive Mormons, the Church has just announced a change in Moroni 10:4-5. Here is the new text, with the changes highlighted in bold. 4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not fiction; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the nineteenth-century fictional origin of it... Read more
Often what we hear from progressive and liberal Mormons is that the way to keep secularized youth in the Church is to admit that it’s basically bogus–that is, fundamental truth claims of the church are “fables”–but claim that it is a good way of life, and it’s possible you might feel some type of connection to God there, so you should stick with it. This is basically a variation on the “Noble Lie” argument from Plato’s Republic (3.414e–15c). This supposedly “keeps people... Read more
Why–I find myself asking–is it legitimate scholarship when the new Maxwell Institute publishes reviews critical of books written by LDS scholars Richard Draper, Michael Rhodes, and Kent Brown (in the latest Studies in the Bible and Antiquity 6 (2014)), while it was unchristlike and unscholarly for Classic FARMS writers to publish reviews critical of books written by LDS Scholars? Read more
John Gee has post two important blogs on the question of why youth leave the LDS Church (and religion in general). Unlike much opinion, his analysis is based on hard statistical data from the National Survey of Youth and Religion. http://fornspollfira.blogspot.com/2014/12/why-do-they-leave.html http://fornspollfira.blogspot.com/2015/01/why-do-they-leave-ii.html He promises a third post will be forthcoming. Read more
A list of important new books and articles on biblical studies that might be of interest to LDS from David Larsen’s always insightful “Heavenly Ascents.” Read more
Dan Peterson’s response in our conversation with David Bokovoy. Read more
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