NOM

Wow, what a great interview, and it will require a second listen. The part I absolutely loved was that Brian went into the Gee/Interpreter hit piece on his/Jensen's volume of the JS papers. And the revelation that the church paid Gee for the hit piece, and then called him on the carpet for said hit...

I wonder how many scholars are apostates-in-the-closet. I am sure that most of those working in church history and scripture for the church have subscriptions to Dialogue. If they don't, they are regularly getting articles from the library. The leadership is happy to villainize the intellectuals, bu...

Interesting. A lawsuit would have been fascinating. Probably no one would have been willing to go on record.

We can see the switch in the type of apologetic that the church encourages. 30 years ago, it was a FARMS/FAIR-style, take-no-prisoners approach. That was all there was, at least all I was aware of. It reflected an insistence that we have the Truth. Anti-Mormons were the opposite, asserting that the ...

Wash your hands before delivering a baby.

I think they'd figure out a lot if they start there.

Yes, the church really needs to look at all the women who do not have a priesthood holding man in the home and realize that something important was being denied to a segment of the church and how denying that was cruel when blessing the sacrament over the phone or a dozen other ways to allow women ...

With this limited kind of God it may not be possible to even ask about the problem of evil. Elohim is powerless one way or the other. He's just a guy like us but with more bling. The Book of Mormon makes me wonder if we are barking up the wrong tree altogether. It tells us that God, being so limite...

1. Knock! Knock! (Door Opens) Hello, my name is Elder Jones, and this is my companion Elder Shumway, and we are missionaries from... Oh, my goodness! You two must be very hot and tired. Here, let me get you some water. 2. The name of the leader of our church is... How nice. I don't believe in organ...

Mormons don't have the first clue what great art is, all LDS-related art is shallow, phony, and puerile. Give me one example of a play, song, painting, sculpture, book, (or religion, for that matter) that is targeted at the LDS market that isn't. Except Arnold Friberg paintings. Those are awesome. ...

Kind of a tangent, but here is a deleted scene from the movie version of Saturday's Warrior, for anyone who has not seen it and might find it interesting: https://youtu.be/Jp86mQX127M I wondered why this song was not in the movie. Saturday's Warrior was one of the records our family listened to whe...

Unless, as some scholars believe, the Israelites' kaneh-bosm is the same cane-like plant that was burned in the other temples, which these days goes by a similar name: cannabis. Add to that the Old Testament's emphasis on burning things like frankincense and myrrh, both of which are psychoactive su...

Here is my best apologetic attempt. This is not the temple at Jerusalem, the only authorized temple in Israel at the time. These are apostate worshipers who did not have access to the true spirit, so they had to simulate spiritual experiences with psychoactive drugs. The true priests would have had ...

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the intention of the Second Anointing is that the ONLY way a man can get to the top-god level is as a member of the super-anointing club. Sure, you can get to one of the lower levels of the CK by living a near-perfect life, but that special 3rd...

http://www.ldsendowment.org/ Only the first portion of the second anointing--the anointing itself--can be performed vicariously for the dead. ' That's a new one to me. Again, I wonder what percentage of Second-anointed dead folks are in the bloodline of GAs. I would love for my parents to have this...

If Russell M. Nelson speaks to an empty conference center, does he make a sound?

The most recent Mormon Land podcast dealt with this. You can listen here: https://www.sltrib.com/podcasts/mormonland/ I guess what bothers me is that the "approved" artwork is so limited. It's like McDonald's or a Target. The church wants to establish a brand. The way to do that is to make sure that...

It seems like BYUPD is still arguing that BYUPD is not a public entity. Is not BYUPD a public entity? I thought that was rules a while back. They are now a public entity because a law was passed. I don't think the courts have ruled on whether BYUPD was a public entity at the time all the McKenna De...

To me, it seemed wise for RFM to concentrate his time on showing that decisions about what to redact probably had improper input from someone. Then the attorney for BYU made the attorney-client privilege argument for him. RFM was able to rebut in the end. This is going to wind through the courts for...

It makes me think of how the church runs other elections. At church, we are told who is being called. We can then raise our hand to sustain or oppose. If we oppose, it does not matter. It just makes the rest of the congregation look at you funny. I was told how department chairs are selected at BYU-...

This is an excellent idea. After the seer stone was acknowledged a few years ago, the apologetic explanations have been an attempt to normalize geomancy. But, this is a material claim, and we are requested to sustain Russell Nelson and the other apostles as prophets, seers , and revelators every si...