- Kent Larsen on Second Nature Reactions (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 7/26: “Anonypup: I like your reaction to the A/C issues in the building. No one can easily control things like that, so you might as well find a way to see what you can get out of it anyway. Maybe learning to live without A/C on occasion has a value. jader3rd: Your talk sounds great. I’m glad your talk was a response to the assigned GC address instead of a summary. That’s valuable!” Jul 30, 10:50
- on Cutting Edge Latter-day Saint Research, July 2026: “That’s a good point about the Dominican Republic, at least in regards to the natural disasters. Two very different backgrounds and contexts, if a natural disaster affects both of them in a similar way that’s reasonably strong evidence for the Durkheimian hypothesis. (Although of course the DR isn’t a control for political turbulence).” Jul 30, 08:47
- on Cutting Edge Latter-day Saint Research, July 2026: “The Haiti study seems problematic in a variety of ways. For example, who the mission president was and what areas he was emphasizing (reactivation, baptism numbers, baptism quality) affects baptisms. Because of Haiti’s social and political instabilities, and its susceptibility to natural disasters, the study’s conclusions would not be particularly relevant in other locations. To compare yearly baptism without considering retention seems of questionable value. I wonder if a more useful study might be to compare baptisms (and retention rates) in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. They share an island. On the subject of aid to Indonesia, there’s an obvious solution to Christian aid. Take the labels off. Are we providing humanitarian aid or are we in a PR campaign?” Jul 29, 20:06
- on A Review: The Deseret Alphabet: A Fixed and Unalterable Sound: “I agree that this is a terrific book, scholarly yet approachable. I was astonished to learn how complex the story is and how rooted in Mormon utopianism. Great review!” Jul 29, 16:21
- on Second Nature Reactions (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 7/26: “My thoughts about church on Sunday: I gave a Sacrament Meeting talk. I was asked to talk about Elder Chi Hong Wong’s Remember, Remember General Conference talk. Instead of focusing on the five Book of Mormon Remember, Remember’s (they did get honorable mention), I talked about how Elijah and Elisha performed many super natural miracles, yet they didn’t lead to conversions, but if we study scriptures and remember our personal experiences, it gives the Holy Ghost opportunity to teach and convert us. There were many compliments afterwards.” Jul 28, 22:36
- on A Review: The Deseret Alphabet: A Fixed and Unalterable Sound: “There were just a lot of bizarre choices, and El Call has a more thorough look at those (https://www.associationmormonletters.org/reviews/current-reviews/shosted-and-davis-the-deseret-alphabet-a-fixed-and-unalterable-sound-reviewed-by-el-call/). I.e., lots of highly technical language about language, but a refusal to use International Phonetic Alphabet because they didn’t want to burden a non-specialist audience. As a biologist, I was annoyed that they skipped right to referring to honey bees as A. mellifera without ever actually introducing the genus in full before abbreviating, which is a technical failure on their part, and another odd choice, but also nitpicky on my part.” Jul 28, 16:18
- on A Review: The Deseret Alphabet: A Fixed and Unalterable Sound: “At least in the introduction, I didn’t find the vocabulary too far outside the norm for the academic humanities, but introductions are often more approachable. The choice to occasionally refer to the Deseret Alphabet as just “the Deseret” seems utterly bizarre to me, and I wonder how well the authors understood the source or informant from which they borrow this usage. After reading the introduction, my impression is that the authors do not respect the people they are writing about.” Jul 28, 15:14
- on A Review: The Deseret Alphabet: A Fixed and Unalterable Sound: “You missed the best one. It is not the Book of Mormon. It is the Book of Mahrman according to the Deseret Alphabet edition.” Jul 28, 12:57
- on Second Nature Reactions (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 7/26: “This made me laugh: Do we label things as “bad” just because they made us uncomfortable at first blush? No! Make me uncomfortable. Push the boundaries of my understanding of God-nature and human-nature. But more concretely, the cycle is actually: cue, behavior, reward — best set up if the reward is another cue leading to more of a behavior cycle (but I digress – and my interest in behaviorism comes out of training dogs, although mammal brains are mammal brains) I only have vague recollections of church yesterday, primarily because something was wrong with the A/C and being overheated makes me drowsy. We had a fabulous speaker and I felt sorry for him because if it was rough on me, it was even rougher on the parents with overly warm kids. Which is interesting in and of itself though. As in seeing what an effect outside stimuli have on the cue, behavior, reward cycle. The outside cue (heat) overshadowed the goal cue (the speaker). (Afterwards the bishopric profusely apologized. Not anyone’s fault. Just one of those moments life goes wrong.)” Jul 27, 18:38
- on Unnecessary Spiritual Hierarchies: Leaders Receiving the Sacrament First: “Interesting thoughts. Recall the design of the Kirtland temple. There’s a pretty big emphasis on hierarchy in it. Consider the nature of the work of eternity as flash-backed and foreshadowed in the temple drama with the returning and reporting. The structure of the higher and lesser priesthood and different offices all have some degree of seniority to it. It might rub an egalitarian the wrong way. But only if you view it wrongly. We could make all kinds of replies about what would Jesus do. But I think the symbolism of him going first, in the suffering of Gethsemane and the sacrifice on the cross sets the right pattern to follow. The leaders in authority aren’t honored for being special. They are literally the ones who sacrifice first of themselves for the congregation. I think we get that wrong idea that the bishop, stake president or general authorities are enjoying cushy perks of their leadership. Especially at the general authority level, their time is no longer their own. It’s no mere job. It become their life and they essentially sacrificed all their desires to do it.” Jul 27, 00:28
