Posted in COVID health Leadership Policies

How to Talk to Concerned Church Members Who Are “COVID Policy Doubters” (CPDs)

Some Latter-day Saints, probably only a minority, were frustrated with a recent request from Church leaders. Some of the frustration might be lessened after carefully considering the wording of the…

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Posted in Africa Gospel of Jesus Christ International language Sabbath The Church Translation

A Sacrament Meeting Worth Shouting About

Sunday turned out to be one of the most exciting sacrament meetings I can recall. It was exciting because a wonderful young lady, a 16-year-old who came to America as…

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Posted in Family Family history work history Temple

BillionGraves: A Remarkable Tool for Finding Graves of Your Ancestors

With the need to return to Utah for a while, my wife and I decided to drive instead of our normal routine of flying. This gave us a chance to…

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Posted in Book of Mormon Evidence history Origins Problems Scholarship Translation

New Scholarship on the Influence of the Small Plates on Mormon’s Writings

One of the things that fascinates me in my role as a co-editor for the Interpreter Foundation’s journal, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, is seeing how…

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Posted in Ancient Near East Antiquity Book of Abraham Books Critics Egyptian Evidence history Scholarship Translation

Geocentric Astronomy in the Book of Abraham? Dan Vogel’s Refutation of LDS Scholars

  Circumpolar star trails in a long-exposure photo of several hours, showing that stars closer to Polaris move on shorter trails, thus moving more slowly. The circumpolar stars always stay…

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Posted in Ancient Near East Arabia Asia Book of Mormon Books Evidence Hebrew history Judaism Scripture Stories

The Jewish Copper Plates of Cochin, India and a Hint of an Ancient Jewish Tradition of Writing on Metal Plates

A recent post here critiqued an attempt to explain the origins of the book of Ether based on inspiration from a rare book, A Key to the Chronology of the…

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Posted in freedom government history politics Society Stories

Religious Liberty: Have We Forgotten the Pain of the Hutterites?

College students these days learn what a wise leader President Woodrow Wilson was, a good progressive. An example of the positive summary of his work is the historical summary of…

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Posted in Book of Mormon Critics Evidence history

No, B.H. Roberts Did Not Abandon Belief in the Book of Mormon

Sad to see an irresponsible critic of the Church pushing the easily debunked theory that a General Authority, B.H. Roberts, lost his testimony due to the overwhelming problems in the…

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Posted in Book of Mormon history Scholarship Translation

Further Thoughts on the Nephite Interpreters and Mesoamerican Culture

An important new study on relationships between the Book of Mormon and Mesoamerican culture was just published on Friday by Mark Alan Wright: “Nephite Daykeepers: Ritual Specialists in Mesoamerica and…

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Posted in COVID Evidence government health Policies Scholarship Science Society Surviving

Fear and Trembling and Sickness Unto 47 Million Deaths: Basic Math and the Pandemic Panic

A well-educated friend with a graduate degree from an outstanding university sent me this video from Dr. Emily Porter of Austin, Texas and felt it was enlightening. She artfully and…

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