More Islands and Atolls
Interesting precursors of Mormon ideas I stumbled on in a couple of history books @ Zelophehad's Daughters
- This is exactly how I look when I’m reading. Except that I’m not this...
Obamacare vs. Trumpdoesn’tcare, Blue vs. Red Death Rates, and Utah’s Measles Outbreak @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- Let me start with a letter to the
editor I submitted to the Salt Lake Tribune that...
Class half full / Class half empty @ Zelophehad's Daughters
- The Church announced new names for the Young Women classes yesterday. They are...
California @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- We took a little vacation last
week to San Diego. It was splendid. This is the view...
A Heretic Reviews General Conference, April 2026 @ Zelophehad's Daughters
- Fastest hymn: Christ the Lord is Risen Today, Sunday morning
Slowest hymn: Consider the...
Glacial improvement: Women can be Sunday School presidents @ Zelophehad's Daughters
- Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash
In the early days of the Bloggernacle, I recall...
Jonathan Stapley’s Holiness to the Lord @ Zelophehad's Daughters
- Near the end of his book Holiness to the Lord: Latter-day Saint Temple Worship, Jonathan...
Dignity, Worth, and Fulfillment (or I Look Better on Paper Than in Person) @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- Fifty-two years ago this month, I
received a letter in the mail from an...
Onward Christian Trumpists @ Zelophehad's Daughters
-
Photo by Shelagh Murphy
I can neither confirm nor deny that the following rewrite of...
10 Observations about Donald’s 2026 SOTD Address @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- I suppose I’m a masochist, but
just for the hell of it (literally) I decided to...
Book of Mormon Questions #12 (Text and Translation) @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- To see the context for this and other questions in this series, please see the...
Clark G. Gilbert already has over a 50% chance of becoming Church president @ Zelophehad's Daughters
- Dallin H. Oaks selected Clark G. Gilbert to fill the Q12 vacancy left by Jeffrey R....
Pickup Lines for Missionaries @ Zelophehad's Daughters
- In an interview last month, Dallin H. Oaks said the missionary age change he recently...
Egos Are Like Balloons @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- Egos are like balloons. The bigger
they get, the more fragile they are. This...
Book of Mormon Questions #11 (Plates, History, Translation) @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- To see the context for this and other questions in this series, please see the...
A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and now there can be more Bibles. @ Zelophehad's Daughters
- Photo by Priscilla Du Preez ?? on Unsplash
The Church announced last month that the...
Announcing Segullah November 2025 issue @ Segullah
- We are pleased to announce the November 2025 Issue of Segullah, an online literary and...
November 2025 Issue @ Segullah
- Welcome to the delayed November 2025 issue of Segullah. Thank you for your patience. My...
Camilla Stark – Featured Artist @ Segullah
- I’ve been fascinated by Camilla Stark’s art since I first came upon it several years...
Poetry Editorial November 2025 @ Segullah
- I’m looking out my office window at trees turning colors – red and gold, the stubborn...
Back then @ Segullah
- you and I had faithin dreams and echoesof dreams. Earnest suits,macaroni, used cars.Now I...
Kintsugi @ Segullah
- To what I know— the sky, wind, water, trees.To what I don’t...
And Then @ Segullah
- Sodden leaves besmearthe patchy snow.The few birds thatbraved the winterchirp forlornly...
Tenderheart @ Segullah
- zipped into your fuzzy Care Bear suit(the only item on your Santa’s list that year)or...
Ethnographic Wear Patterns of Domestic Ceramics @ Segullah
- Filled up, emptied out, filled up again—stew bowl, fruit bowl, bowl for water—by...
How Are You? @ Segullah
- I was going to curl up in a ballAnd just cry my face all the way offWalk around as a...
I Will Miss President Holland @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- President Jeffrey R. Holland’s
passing has left a hole in my heart. My...
Nacle Notebook 2025: Funniest Comment @ Zelophehad's Daughters
- This post is my annual compilation of the funniest comments and parts of post I read on...
Book of Mormon Questions #10 (Plot) @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- To see the context for this and other questions in this series, please see...
Guns, Viruses, Pollution, Premiums, Racism, Hate, and Oil @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- What do these seven nouns have in
common? Maybe other connections than the one...
Book of Mormon Questions #9 (Scriptures) @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- To see the context for this and other questions in this series, please see the...
A License to Kill: When the Light of Christ Goes Dark @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- A few years ago, I read a couple
of books about psychopaths/sociopaths. The first...
Book of Mormon Questions #8 (Concept) @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- To see the context for this and other questions in this series, please see...
Praying for World Leaders – Week of Prayer for World Peace @ Josiah Reckons
- Each October, the Week of Prayer for World Peace takes place bringing togetherpeople from...
The Death of Justice in America @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- I’ll make this brief. If you are
under the delusion that the Department of...
Project 2025 Revisited @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- Last August (2024), I posted a description
of Project 2025, which at the time Trump...
Book of Mormon Questions #7 (Characterization) @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- To see the context for this and other questions in this series, please see the...
Rock Star Takes Down Trump’s Communications Director @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- Apparently, Steven Cheung, White
House Communications Director, took issue with...
The Last American President, a Book Notice @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- Thirty years ago, Berrett-Koehler
Publishers published my book Economic Insanity:...
Personality Types and Trump Support @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- A friend sent me a link to an article on the ZME Science website that I found both...
Book of Mormon Questions #6 (History, Geography, DNA, etc.) @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- To see the context for this and other questions in this series, please see the...
News Sources You Should Be Aware Of @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- Since there is so much disinformation
and misinformation out there masquerading as...
Thoughts from All Over on Originalism @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- Sorry for not posting for a while.
We’ve been busy with some basement remodeling...
Remembering Private Amos Franklin Terry Jr. @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- Today is Memorial Day. According to
the all-knowing Google,” Memorial Day is a...
My Education at BYU Studies @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- It has now been a little over a
year since I retired from BYU Studies after almost...
Charles Wesley, Hyfrydol, and the Tabernacle Choir @ Mormonomics & Mormonethics
- I have always enjoyed singing the
LDS hymn “In Humility, Our Savior,” but one...
Facial hair is growing on the saints @ Josiah Reckons
- I recently went to a barber for a haircut and a beardcut. My beard was about the longest...
Come Follow Me: Notes on Mosiah 7-11 @ Ben Spackman
- First, a summary.
Mosiah 7:1 Mosiah sends a much later follow-up team to the group that...
Come Follow Me: Mosiah 4-6 @ Ben Spackman
- I’d remind you of the book on King Benjamin’s speech (paper here), and the...
Come Follow Me: Mosiah 1-3 @ Ben Spackman
- To open, we need some big picture structural discussion.
Mosiah 1 is not Mosiah 1. In...
Come Follow Me: Jacob 5-7 @ Ben Spackman
- The previous lesson covered Jacob 1-4, and this one the lengthy allegory of the olive...
Come Follow Me: Jacob 1-4 @ Ben Spackman
- A candle inside Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulcher
Jacob marks a distinct and important...
Sabbath Speeches: Authenticity @ Josiah Reckons
- This talk was delivered in a sacrament meeting in the Summer Hill Ward, in Palmerston...
Come Follow Me: 2 Nephi 6-10 @ Ben Spackman
- Joseph Spencer’s book on typology and the Book of Mormon appears to be back in...
Come Follow Me: 2 Nephi 3-5 @ Ben Spackman
- First, if you haven’t read my post on 2Ne 1-2, you need to; it establishes that the...
Come Follow Me: 2 Nephi 1-2 @ Ben Spackman
- Today we enter into 2 Nephi, which immediately raises the question, why is there...
Joseph Fielding Smith, 2 Nephi 2:22, and “Death Before the Fall” in Church History @ Ben Spackman
- As many of my readers may know, President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876-1972) considered...
Come Follow Me: 1 Nephi 13-14 @ Ben Spackman
- For those of you who are new to the blog (and the stats suggest there are a few), check...
Modernising the standard works with machine learning (part III): LDSBot @ Josiah Reckons
- In part II, I used ChatGPT to modernise verses from the LDS standard works. ChatGPT is a...
Sabbath Speeches: Dirt and Dung – Salt of the Earth @ Josiah Reckons
- I gave a contracted version of this talk, in Polish, in the Warsaw Branch, in Poland on...
Modernising the standard works with machine learning (part II): ChatGPT AI @ Josiah Reckons
- How would ChatGPT modernise the standard works? Would there be doctrinal changes or loss...
Do babies need a name to be blessed before the church? @ Josiah Reckons
- I can imagine D&C 20:70 being followed to the letter, but in a variety of different...
Latest from the New Blog at AriseFromtheDust.com @ Mormanity
- In late June 2022, Mormanity officially moved to Arise From the Dust at...
Strengthen ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees @ Josiah Reckons
- When I was a deacon, I sometimes passed the sacrament to older people whose hands...
Taking half the sacrament @ Josiah Reckons
- We were late for church on Sunday. We use public transport, and there is no direct route...
COVID, Motorcycles, Mormonism and Rebellion @ Small and Simple
- Our unnecessary and absurd over-reaction to COVID had a dramatic effect on me. In the...
Mormanity is Moving to AriseFromTheDust.com @ Mormanity
- I've been wondering how to abandon the name "Mormanity" for a while. As a member of...
Will a man rob God? Tithing and temples @ Josiah Reckons
- "Paying a full and honest tithe leads us to the temple." - Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi
Preparing for Inflation and Yearning for Zion: Thoughts From My Visit to Turkey @ Mormanity
- The New Mosque (Yeni Cami) in the Eminönü quarter of Istanbul, on the Golden Horn at...
Lessons from Bulgaria: The Dangers of Censorship @ Mormanity
- During the Communist era in Bulgaria, the annual May Day parade was a major spectacle...
What Day Was Christ Crucified? Dr. Jeffrey Chadwick Argues That the Book of Mormon Provides Valuable Information @ Mormanity
- An archaeologist and professor at BYU, Dr. Jeffrey R. Chadwick, published an article...
What to Make of "Plagiarism" of the Bible in a Purportedly Ancient Text? A Jewish Scholar Offers a Thoughtful Perspective @ Mormanity
- The Book of Mormon's frequent "plagiarism" of passages from the Bible is one of the most...
About That Burial Marker in Yemen for a Man Named Ishmael: Impossible That He Was a Hebrew? @ Mormanity
- In a November 2021 post, "Recent Discoveries and Advances Published by Interpreter, Part...
Prayers for China @ Mormanity
- A view from Xi'an, China, the beginning of the Silk RoadChina has been in my...
The Words of Gad the Seer: Thoughts on a "Lost Book" Preserved by the Jews at Cochin, India @ Mormanity
- The cover of the Hebrew edition ofMeir Bar-Ilan's The Words of Gad the SeerAn old Jewish...
News from Mount Ebal: An Ancient Hebraic Inscription on Metal, a Chiasmus, Possibly Dating to the 13th Century BC or Earlier @ Mormanity
- An ancient Hebraic text dating to the 13th to 14th century BC has been discovered by...
Dinner with One of Africa's Richest Women @ Mormanity
- My wife and I are friends with one of Africa's richest women, at least by her accounting....
"O Captain, My Captain": Walt Whitman's Surprising Role in the Ultimate Refutation of All Book of Mormon Evidence @ Mormanity
- Fond Memories from Before the BlastBack before a massive nuclear logic bomb wiped out...
Preparing for War: The Folly of Trust @ Mormanity
- The Folly of Trust: A Medical Perspective Some of my more painful experiences in life...
An Update on Maps of the Arabian Peninsula Showing Nahom-related Names @ Mormanity
- In 2008, James Gee published the results of his extensive search for the rare European...
Taliban Hackers Hijack Salt Lake Tribune Website, Call for Totalitarian Oppression of Unvaxxed @ Mormanity
- Thanks to certain contacts across Asia and the Middle East, I've heard off the record...
Do I Dare Join the Woman in the Boat? @ Mormanity
- "Woman Reading in a Boat" by Arthur Becher, ca. 1910. I just awoke from a dream,...
Science as a Faith: Do We Need Another Restoration? @ Mormanity
- One of our nation's leading bodies of scientific influence, the Center for Disease...
Many Questions about Dementia and Just One Answer So Far @ Mormanity
- An expert on senior care, Professor Thomas Kitwood, once quipped that "when you've met...
May We Follow the Science and Stand for Life @ Mormanity
- From The Chosen, "The Messengers"I began my Christmas Day by watching the "Messengers"...
Recent Discoveries and Advances Published by Interpreter, Part 1 @ Mormanity
- If you aren't following the journal Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and...
Let's Have Some Compassion for Our Untouchables @ Mormanity
- If you grew up in a nation with a formal caste system, would you let society dictate how...
Institutional Bullying and the Question of Religious Exemption from Vaccine Mandates @ Mormanity
- I received a call this week from a father with two children facing intimidation and...
Zeal Without Data: Blaming the Church for Utah's Allegedly Low Vaccination Rates @ Mormanity
- Romans 10:2 speaks of those who "have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge."...
Medical Tyranny? When Your Government Tells You to Abandon Freedom and Personal Choice, It's Time to Speak Out @ Mormanity
- Victory BoydThe mainstream media has largely ignored a chilling story about disrespecting...
A Google Earth View of a Candidate for Bountiful, Khor Kharfot on Wadi Sayq @ Mormanity
- Here is a beautiful view from Google Earth of a leading candidate for the Book of Mormon...
Pyrric Victories @ Mormon Metaphysics
- JSTOR on Pyrric victories and the origin of the term.
Jerusalem’s Economy in Second Temple Period @ Mormon Metaphysics
- I’ve always had the assumption that the Jerusalem region was fairly poor — perhaps...
Chris on Religious Evolution @ Mormon Metaphysics
- Chris Goble has an interesting Twitter thread on the emergence of monotheism in axial...
Getting the Blog Back Together @ Mormon Metaphysics
- I’ve been posting regularly at Times and Seasons and plan on continuing with that....
To the People Defending the Church’s Decision to Ditch the “Mormon” Nickname @ Peculiar People
- First, I want you to know that I respect your decision to call yourself something other...
The Women Who Enable Abusive Men @ Peculiar People
- After the Kavanaugh hearing last Thursday, an image went viral that depicted a row of...
Joseph, Potiphar’s Wife, and the Truth about False Allegations @ Peculiar People
- In response to multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh,...
Robert Kirby and Edgy Mormon Men @ Peculiar People
- Like many progressive Mormons, I’ve enjoyed Robert Kirby’s self-deprecating humor...
To the Men Who Grabbed McKenna Denson and Dragged her away from the Pulpit @ Peculiar People
- To the men who grabbed McKenna Denson without her consent and dragged her away from the...
Why Would a Feminist Keep her Father’s Name? @ Peculiar People
- Back in April I wrote about my experience with software systems and institutions that...
Mormon: The New Shibboleth @ Peculiar People
- Here’s hoping Lindsey releases a new, revised video: I’m a member of Church of Jesus...
Sorry to Bother You: The (Human) Body as Technology @ Peculiar People
- This review contains major spoilers for Boots Riley’s 2018 film Sorry to Bother You....
Do Married Mormon Men Understand Consent? @ Peculiar People
- Image obtained through creative commons. I was 28 years old when I got married – an...
Making Ministering Holy @ Peculiar People
- My priesthood lesson prompt was very open-ended: “ministering.” My mind leapt to the...
What Will Combined MP Quorums Mean? @ Small and Simple
- In a shocking announcement during the Priesthood Session of the 2018 March/April General...
How Can Anyone Remain a Mormon in the Face of All the “Facts”? @ Small and Simple
- One of the things that you will see sometimes in anti-Mormon forums is what appears to be...
About That Taylor Christensen Video @ Small and Simple
- There is a video making the Mormon facebook circuit by Taylor Christensen. He starts...
The New York Times Thomas Monson Obituary and Fake News @ Small and Simple
- The president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently died, and the...
Perfect College Football Playoff System: 2017 Version @ Small and Simple
- Several years ago I published to the world the perfect college football playoff system. ...
Moderate Worship Losing Ground @ Mormon Metaphysics
- While it’s not really new news, Sociological Science had an interesting story on how...
Philosophy, Science and Religion: The Divine Hiddenness Argument @ Small and Simple
- The fourth week of the Coursera course on Philosophy, Science and Religion focuses on the...
Philosophy, Science and Religion: Friendly Disagreement, Testimonial Knowledge, and the Importance of Fellowship @ Small and Simple
- The third week of the Coursera course on Philosophy, Science and Religion addresses...
Philosophy, Science and Religion: The Conflict Between Science and Religion @ Small and Simple
- In the second week of the Coursera course on Philosophy, Science and Religion, professor...
Philosophy, Science and Religion: The Mind and The Religious Experience @ Small and Simple
- I am taking an online course through Coursera on Philosophy, Science and Religion. In...
Bows, Arrows & the Book of Mormon @ Mormon Metaphysics
- This is just a “holder” post for a discussion I was having over whether...
Salvation in Mormonism @ Mormon Metaphysics
- Robert at Scriptural Mormonism does a good job discussing the place of grace in “old...
Terryl Givens on Mormons at the Forefront @ Mormon Metaphysics
- Terryl Givens has up an essay at First Things called “Mormons at the Forefront.”...
God and Evolutionary Psychology @ Mormon Metaphysics
- Evolutionary psychology suggests God makes more sense than not. I’m not sure he sees...
PEL on Scientism @ Mormon Metaphysics
-
“…[scientism] is contributing to a growing trend on the left, quite as ferocious...
