Yesterday afternoon, about 1:50 pm, I received a phone call from a friend. She had just heard that a shared friend had collapsed at work and passed away suddenly, without any warning or indication. That friend, Ryan Runia, was special to me. I served as his bishop for several years, and we spent lots of… Read More »
In a different post I addressed what I see as limitations (failings, if you will) in a proposal for apologetics put forward by Bill Reel and ostensibly agreed to by Richard Bushman. In this post I thought it productive to address a related issue which has to do more with how apologists address the doubts… Read More »
This morning while doing my daily work, I listened to a podcast interview with Richard Bushman. The interviewer is Bill Reel, a volunteer with FAIRMormon, the rebranded successor to FAIR. Bill’s purpose in interviewing Richard, at least in part, is to discern how one can and should treat doubt, doubters, criticisms, and critics.
There is a great, simple, easy-to-read post over on Seth Adam Smith’s blog entitled Marriage Isn’t for You. It was posted a few days ago and it has gone viral (to say the least), being viewed by millions of people. It has been commented on in lots of places, including the Huffington Post, the Today… Read More »
I ran across a poem yesterday (well, I ran across it again), and I absolutely love it. At this point in my life it has much more meaning than it did in my earlier life, and I think it profound. The name of the poem is If, and it was written by Rudyard Kipling.
Last evening my wife and I went on a date (gotta love date night!) and decided to see Ender’s Game. This is actually a movie that I’ve been anticipating for quite a while. I used to read a lot of science fiction, and I always considered Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, to be one… Read More »
I was sitting in a business conference today, and for a few moments one participant embellished a discussion tangent by making the following statement about religion: Every single war was started by and about religion. You may think that they weren’t, but every single war was. I’ve heard that statement before, but there was one… Read More »
Public perceptions can be a fickle thing, and a common method of forming (or reinforcing) public perceptions is in the incessant and never-ending e-mails that get composed and forwarded by partisans of whatever stripe you may choose. Today I received one such e-mail that was obviously written by a Republican trying to demonstrate how terrible… Read More »
OK, so I am not really frolicking, but I am staying in Frisco. I’m not talking San Francisco here, but a small mountain community nestled in the high mountains of Colorado. This week I’m attending a semi-annual conference for business entrepreneurs, this time being held in Golden, Colorado. I decided to stay about 60 miles west… Read More »
Continuing my browsing of old copies of the Conference Report, I ran across another quote by President Joseph F. Smith that struck my interest. I think it has interest for a couple of reasons. First, the complaints we often hear from critics concerning how LDS leaders deceive regular members is nothing new; it has been… Read More »