Author: Nate Oman

I like Michael’s post about seer stones.

It was a long, hot day filled with furniture assembly and nagging ideological frustrations.

Statistically speaking, males seem to be responsible for the great majority of human-made suffering.

How seriously ought we to take Satan?

In 1958 a political scientist published a book on the culture of Southern Italy that may have something to say about one of the potential pit falls of Mormonism.

As readers of this blog may know, I have my problems with narrative.

Perhaps it is just me, but “scriptorian” seems to be an honorific that has fallen out of favor.

By and large, I don’t think that we do a particularlly good job preparing members to go to the temple for the first time. As a result, I think that many members — especially converts without close family members who have been to the temple — get worried about what is going to happen, especially…

I mainly read history because it is fun. I do, however, occasionally have other reasons.

I love Elder Oaks’ talks.

Here is my personal legal analysis of the “Marriage Protection Amendment” that is pending before the U.S. Senate.

I am not longer an attorney.

Eons ago in blog time, I did a post called “An Open Letter to the Dialogue Editorial Board.”

The feel and smell of kangaroo fur is a central part of my understanding of Mormonism.

Weimar Germany was a tremendously sophisticated and creative place.

I don’t really believe in coincidences since my last visit to Palmyra, New York, where I learned of the deep relationship between jello and Mormonism

Earlier this week the Utah Supreme Court issued its opinion in State v. Holm. If you are interested in Mormonism, law, history, or (best of all!) Mormon legal history, you ought to read it.

Yesterday saw an interesting thread at BCC on the question of what sorts of procedures could we imagine for creating better feedback from members to leaders within the Church.

To a large degree Mormonism is about the recapitulation of the past.

Maybe it is time to turn correlation over to the market.

Maybe we should spend more time thinking about how the ancient Romans dealt with the problem of globalization.

What is the precise nature of Mormon liberalism?

Consider the following two scriptures about the scriptures:

One of the more interesting pieces that I have read on Mormon intellectual life is Armand Mauss’s essay “Alternate Voices,”Sunstone April 1990. The article was written in response to a General Conference sermon by Elder Oaks of the same name. (Also worth reading here.) Brother Mauss’s article in its entirety is reproduced here with the…

If I ever to write a country-western song about religious epistemology, I will call it “One afternoon in Amarillo.”

Sunday afternoon I found myself reading the Oxford Book of English Verse (the Quiller-Couch edition in honor of a great advocate of the Inner Temple), and I read the following:

In one of its fitful bursts of faux-oracular prose, the Supreme Court once declared that the U.S. Constitution knows no blasphemy.

Authority is a key concept in Mormonism.

Three of the best books that I have ever read on Mormonism are not about Mormonism at all:

Mother in Heaven recently made a cameo appearance in correlated materials.