“There is no merit before God. Nor should there be merit before Him. True community does not count the merits of its members. Merit is a concept rooted in sin, and well disposed of”. I posted part of the above quote as my Facebook status a few Sundays ago. This is the trouble I cause when my wife is called to substitute in Primary. The status and the responses resulted in a response by Eric Nielsen at Small and Simple.... Read more
Recent comments around the blogosphere on the publication of the new NIV reminded me of my first encounter with biblical textual criticism at age 14. Curt Bench,1 my youth Sunday school teacher at the time, took me aside as Ammaron of old and gave me a bible. “Son,” he said, “You are a sober youth of sound mind and so I give you this.” It was a hardbound NIV. “This is not the King James version, but it is a... Read more
We are pleased to announce aliquis as our latest guest blogger. Join us in welcoming him! Read more
In God and the New Atheism, John F. Haught describes what he sees as the big question facing Richard Dawkins and Intelligent Design (ID) theists, respectively: “how to explain the incredible complexity and diversity in living organisms and cells” (88). ID proponents see the hand of a “master intelligence” making order from chaos, or complexity of simplicity. Dawkins cuts out the theological middle man by sticking to a naturalistic, Darwinian account summed up by Haught: (more…) Read more
With 71% of precincts reporting, the AP has called the Nevada U.S. Senate race for Harry Reid. When I saw this reported on Real Clear Politics, I got teary. Tears of joy. The Democrats got crushed Tuesday, but the re-election of Reid will be one of the best political moments of my life. As a Mormon Dem, we have few victories..but Harry Reid is still in the U.S. Senate. I am going to bed happy. Read more
Welcome to our open thread for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. All are welcome. The rally will be live on Comedy Central and C-Span. It will also be streamed at: http://www.comedycentral.com/ The start time is noon eastern/10 am mountain. (Update: the main program starts at 1pm eastern/11am mountain). Here is the tentative schedule (times are eastern): PRESHOW — 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. 12:00 – 12:40 — THE ROOTS will play for the crowd. 12:40 – 12:57 —... Read more
On Saturday at noon eastern time/10 am Mountain time, the rally on the mall in Washington, DC hosted by John Stewart and Stephen Colbert will begin. Here at FPR, I will be hosting an open thread for those of us watching on TV. We started this month with General Conference and we will end it will Stewart and Colbert. My kind of October (that, and it has been quite warm here in Casper). I will be watching the rally because... Read more
KUTV 2News in Utah is featuring an interesting story tonight (Thursday) at 10pm. It seems that most of the stories we hear on this issue are built around people who left the church over same-sex issues. I haven’t seen too many stories featuring somebody who has chosen to remain with the church. (Ty Mansfield comes to mind.) Here’s the teaser for the report: “Misty” is a woman in her mid 30’s. She married (in the temple) with kids, and is active in her... Read more
Without much heralding, the Joseph Smith Papers folks have snuck the contents of Journals, 1832-1839 onto their excellent website. The contents of the first volume of Journals are available here: http://beta.josephsmithpapers.org/thepapers An empty section is set up for the first Revelations and Translations volume as well. Those of you who already own the Journals volume might be interested to check out the “Documents” section. It appears to have the yet-to-be-published contents covering 1825-1831 and 1832-1833. Whether this indicates that these... Read more
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