Author: Frank McIntyre
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OT Epistemology
Reading Stephen’s Old Testament posts I found them interesting but tended to come back to how to think about certainty. I started writing a comment but once I hit 500 words I figured it made more sense to just write a separate post. Start with a general observation: the claim “in the field of x,…
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Through two doors at once…
I recently finished an excellent book providing a pop-science level understanding of the experiments surrounding the bizarre fact that very small objects are neither particles nor waves, or they’re both, or, you know, something.
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Moving on up
So the announcement that youth would rotate up in each January came as a surprise to a lot of people. Here are my first thoughts on the matter: I have heard more concern expressed recently that children in Senior Primary needed to be getting more attention than they were. This pushes the eldest part of…
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Welcome Guest Blogger Chad Nielsen
We are delighted to welcome guest blogger Chad Nielsen to Times and Seasons. Chad’s three great intellectual passions in life are science, history/religious studies, and music. He has pursued a career in biotechnology, but maintains an active interest in both of his other passions on the side. Chad is a four-time winning contestant in the…
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That time President Nelson released me from the pulpit
One week before general conference I got up in High Priest Group and conducted the meeting for the first time. We’d moved into the ward six months ago and I’d just been called as the new group leader. Sunday the Stake Presidency called me in and officially released me. We all thought it was pretty…
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The Ever-So-Slightly Endangered BYU Man
A recent leak revealed what appears to be an old scale for evaluating potential BYU students. Basically, you take 10*GPA + ACT and then add points for stuff, like being from outside the West or taking AP classes. The most one could possibly get is 100 points, but this would require being… rather unique. There…
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Clark Goble on deck.
We’re delighted to welcome Clark Goble back to T&S! Clark grew up in Canada in that part that appears like a strange looking foot extending south and east of Maine. There in the city of Halifax he watched the church grow from a small branch into numerous wards eventually even getting a temple. His father…
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Entitled
I very much enjoyed Elder Renlund’s comments on entitlement. First, because he made clear one of the reasons why we should be very conscientious about how we give help. It affects the receiver’s spiritual progression. Second, the King Benjamin-esque tie-in to all of us who, like any Church welfare recipient, are beggars before God. Lastly,…
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Recently uncovered texting conversation from 1600 BC
Shem: Oh great. Moses just posted a new policy. Mannassah: More animals we can’t eat? S: Nope, it says we wander in the desert until we are all dead.
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Saul Callings
Saturday Morning conference referenced how Samuel was unsure that Saul was the right man to lead Israel. With the benefits of hindsight, one indeed wonders about the choice. Saul, in the end, had some serious problems as King. Does God call people knowing that they will, to a significant degree, fail? Yes, I think he does.…
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Small Group Dynamics
Far and away, when I am in a small group and decisions need to be made, most people would prefer that someone else make them. There are notable, and loud, exceptions. Four year olds, for example, very much want to make decisions. But for most adults, I’ve found that the majority typically prefer that someone else…
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Priors
In statistics, a popular approach is to think of the statistician as having a set of views (“priors” or “prior distributions”) that are based on past evidence and when new evidence comes in, one integrates that information in and forms a new set of beliefs (“update your priors”). So, for example, if I think I am brilliant…
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Whining at Moses
Now that we’re up to Exodus in Sunday School, I am reminded once again of how much murmuring and whining the Children of Israel do. Clearly the major theme of Exodus is God’s power to save. But packed in there is a pretty strong message that God’s people:
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We’ve All Been Set Up
We’ve all been set up for failure. Consider the plan: go to Earth and obey the commandments. How likely is that to turn out well? Add in that part with Adam, Eve, and the fruit and I think it is pretty clear that this was a set up to force us to… turn to God. Failure makes…
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Dell, Obedience, and Parachute Mishaps
Last week, as the PC market faced DOOM!, Dell had a potential buyer, Blackstone, back out. While that was not particularly interesting to me, what happened next was. Another investor, Oakmark Funds, sold their 24.5 million Dell shares. To quote: A “potential acquirer with access to non-public information decided to end its quest to acquire…
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I’m a Mormon Easy Chair and I believe that women
… should not get ordained to the priesthood. I know that reasonable chairs can disagree, but as Frank’s easy chair, I know what to expect once women are ordained. Frank is going to spend a lot more time sitting on me. Probably asleep. Sure, it will start with a little story time to the kids,…
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Welcome Maren Mecham
We are delighted to welcome Maren Mecham as a guest for the next couple weeks. Maren Mecham is a native Northern Virginian, earned her BFA from BYU and was a photographer for the church before moving to Palo Alto, CA, where she produced portraits and computer graphics. She has lived in the East, Northeast, Midwest, Intermountain…
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Charity Free Riding
As we all know, the gospel is overrun with economic doctrine. On that note, I noticed a quote about free riding from President Monson (which I just saw at Mormon Times): “I am confident it is the intention of each member of the church to serve and to help those in need,” he said. “At…
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“Fathers do not mother”
Kaimi put up a sidebar link to a NYT piece on parenting. It had an interesting quote: “Fathers tend to do things differently, Dr. Kyle Pruett said, but not in ways that are worse for the children. Fathers do not mother, they father.”
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President Monson wins the prize
So Slate keeps track of who it considers the most powerful octogenarians and President Monson tops the list. If ever there was a list where Mormons could shine that did not have to do with singing and dancing I guess it makes sense that it would be “powerful old men”. To loosely paraphrase President Hinckley, isn’t…
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Royal Skousen’s 12 questions — The Critical Text Version
Last month we posted Royal Skousen’s discussion of his work on recovering the earliest version of the Book of Mormon, along with some updates. Unfortunately, that post garnered some annoying formatting problems — mostly due to the new format T&S adopted this year. We’re happy to now present to you mark III of Royal Skousen’s…
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12 Questions and a Book by Royal Skousen
5 years ago we published one of my favorite “12 Questions” posts, in which Royal Skousen discussed in some depth what he has learned from his extensive work on the earliest editions of the Book of Mormon. His book, The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text, is being published in September by Yale University Press…
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PSA — email junk from Wegame
So if you get an email over the next little while purporting to offer you pictures or a message from someone you know, and the email comes from Wegame, it’s very likely junk.
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Things to be thankful for
If the gravitational constant were just a little bit different than what it is, you would not be here. Nor, for that matter, would anything else. So we’ve got that going for us.
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Pew Facts
The Pew study has this awesome little database for comparing religious groups. Check it out. Did you know 7% of Mormons are Hispanic and 22% are Democrat or lean Democrat? And only 44% of Mormon adults are men? We need affirmative action!!
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YoutuBYU
You will all be delighted to know that youtube appears to be up and running on BYU campus again. Perhaps in part thanks to this. UPDATE: It’s blocked again.