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Mormonism and the Natural World Karin Anderson and Danielle Beazer Dubrasky, eds., Blossom as the Cliffrose: Mormon Legacies and the Beckoning Wild

Moroni, Moses, and President Nelson: Vital Correlations with the COVID-19 Vaccine

I listen to the Book of Mormon almost every day and often find what I consider to be interesting correlations with other goings-on in life. Most recently, I am struck by the similarities between the…

World Without Masks

Today, June 20, 2021, is the first day since March 15, 2020 that we in the Stanford First Ward have been allowed to attend service in our own building without masks and social distancing. As…

Diné Doctor: A Latter-day Saint Story of Healing

Podcast version of this Personal Essay. “They say that they are like firemen. They know what they signed up for. They must fulfill their call for duty.” This is what my mother told me when…

From the Pulpit: My Mother’s Eclipse

New Voices: Ecology of Absence

Leveling the Earth, Expanding the Circle

The Faith of a Psychologist: A Personal Document

In 1933 James Leuba[1] conducted a survey of the beliefs in deity held by scientific and professional men. He found that only ten per cent of the psychologists surveyed admitted to a belief in God.…

The Structure of Genesis, Chapter 1

The first chapter of the first book of the Bible is probably one of the most influential, derided, pervasive, debated, and misunderstood religious texts in our culture. Some light may be shed on its significance…

Geological Specimen Rejuvenates an Old Controversy

Under the title “Puzzling Fossils Unearthed,” the Deseret News of 13 June, 1968 reported the discovery of “a fossilized footprint” which was said to pose a “dilemma for geologists.” The discovery was made in the…

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Mormonism and the Natural World Karin Anderson and Danielle Beazer Dubrasky, eds., Blossom as the Cliffrose: Mormon Legacies and the Beckoning Wild

Moroni, Moses, and President Nelson: Vital Correlations with the COVID-19 Vaccine

I listen to the Book of Mormon almost every day and often find what I consider to be interesting correlations with other goings-on in life. Most recently, I am struck by the similarities between the…

World Without Masks

Today, June 20, 2021, is the first day since March 15, 2020 that we in the Stanford First Ward have been allowed to attend service in our own building without masks and social distancing. As…

Diné Doctor: A Latter-day Saint Story of Healing

Podcast version of this Personal Essay. “They say that they are like firemen. They know what they signed up for. They must fulfill their call for duty.” This is what my mother told me when…

From the Pulpit: My Mother’s Eclipse

New Voices: Ecology of Absence

Leveling the Earth, Expanding the Circle

The Faith of a Psychologist: A Personal Document

In 1933 James Leuba[1] conducted a survey of the beliefs in deity held by scientific and professional men. He found that only ten per cent of the psychologists surveyed admitted to a belief in God.…

The Structure of Genesis, Chapter 1

The first chapter of the first book of the Bible is probably one of the most influential, derided, pervasive, debated, and misunderstood religious texts in our culture. Some light may be shed on its significance…

Geological Specimen Rejuvenates an Old Controversy

Under the title “Puzzling Fossils Unearthed,” the Deseret News of 13 June, 1968 reported the discovery of “a fossilized footprint” which was said to pose a “dilemma for geologists.” The discovery was made in the…

The Book of Abraham and Pythagorean Astronomy

Dialogue 8.3 (Winter 1973): 11 – 72
The subject of Pythagoreanism is so controversial and loaded with uncertainties that what follows should be considered as speculation and suggestion for future research.

Dialogues on Science and Religion

Dialogue 8.3/4 (1973): 109–126
To answer that question we needed to create some instruments with which we could gather the data. We are currently engaged in that instrument-building phase. As one step in that process, we interviewed several well-established LDS academicians located at various institutions of higher education in the United States.

A Dialogue with Henry Eyring

Dialogue 8.3/4 (1973): 99–108
Over the years Henry Eyring’s status in the first rank of scientists has become secure. He has produced a staggering volume of research publications in the fields of his interests: application of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics, radio￾activity, theory of reaction rates, theory of liquids, rheology, molecular biology, optical rotation, and theory of flame.

Treasures In the Heavens: Some Early Christian Insights into the Organizing of Worlds

The canonical writings and the apocrypha have a good deal to say about “treasures in the heavens.” If we compare the “treasures” passages in a wide sampling of these writings, including those of Qumran, Nag…

Science and Religion: A Symbiosis

For most of us, there is little doubt that science was victorious in its centuries-long warfare with theology. From Galileo—kneeling in the robes of a penitent criminal before his Inquisitors, pleading for mercy on the grounds of age and infirmity— we have come full circle, to William Jennings Bryan in the dock at the Scopes “Monkey Trial”—trying desperately to demonstrate the Bible as the infallible guide to the story of Creation, then succumbing without dignity to the pitiless goad of Clarence Darrow. 

Introduction

When this special issue of Dialogue was first conceived, it became evident that the phrase “science and religion” has quite different meanings for different people. It was clear that the issue could not be comprehensive…

Science, Religion and Man

Dialogue 8.3/4 (1973): 4–6
The divergence of science and religion is essentially a modern phenomenon. Until the 18th century, theology was considered the queen of the sciences and scientists considered that their discoveries allowed them “to think God’s thoughts after Him.”

Herbal Remedies: God’s Medicine?

A recent listener-response radio program in Salt Lake City discussed the death of a young father from bleeding ulcers. Believing it wrong to seek medical help, he had sought a cure from an herbal practitioner.…

The Imperfect Science: Brigham Young on Medical Doctors

Not long after Utah was linked by railroad with the rest of the country, Brigham Young expressed these views: “Doctors and their medicines I regard as a deadly bane to any community. . . .…

Medicine and the Mormons: A Historical Perspective

At the time of the American revolution, most medical care in America was provided either by self-taught practitioners or by those who had apprenticed under other doctors. A few doctors were immigrants from Great Britain…

His Chastening Rod: Cholera Epidemics and the Mormons

In the spring of 1826 cholera broke out in the delta area of the Ganges River in India and began to spread over the country. Within two years Asiatic Cholera ascended the river with its…

An Official Position

Dialogue 12.4 (Winter 1979): 90–92
In postscript let me say that I have been accused of forging this letter and of taking unfair advantage of President Smith. Let the readers judge. I am personally grateful that the Church has not been caught in the position of taking a stand that might very well prove to be wrong in the future

On Mormonism, Moral Epidemics, Homeopathy and Death from Natural Causes

These three brief reprints provide interesting insights into early Mormon medicine. The first piece, from an essay entitled “Millerism” in The American Journal of Insanity (January 1845), although not directed at Mormons is relevant to…

Quackery and Mormons: A Latter-day Dilemma

The following interview is with a man tried by the state of Utah as a “quack.”[1] His practice is based on massage, herbs, health foods and in reading the iris of the eyes. The trial…

The New Biology and Mormon Theology

Exegetes as willing and capable as Orson Pratt to combine empirical and theological insights have all but disappeared from the Mormon scene. His successors have retained the enthusiastic optimism of early Mormonism, but they have not replaced the empirical beliefs of the nineteenth century with the more correct information which is available to us now.

Science: “Forever Tentative”?

Although the exchange in Dialogue (Winter 1989) between Charles Boyd and David Bailey concerning the epistemological status of con temporary science was interesting and informative, in the final analysis it was lacking.  To begin, Boyd…

John Willard Young, Brigham Young, and the Development of Presidential Succession in the LDS Church

On November 22, 1855, eleven-year-old John Willard Young, son of Brigham Young, received his endowment, undoubtedly accompanied by his father. Brigham Young clearly felt there was something out of the ordinary in John Willard, which…

Spreading Zion Southward, Part I: Improving Efficiency and Equity in the Allocation of Church Welfare Resources

The year was 1983. Sister Mercedes Pico de Coello was dying of tuberculosis, coughing up blood. A frail and thin 43-year-old mother of twelve, her life could probably have been saved for $200. As a missionary, I had baptized her in 1980. As a BYU student, I had just spent $850 for this return visit to Ecuador. Neither of us was aware that her illness could be fatal if untreated. With an annual family income of $1200, she could not afford the treatment she needed. I considered giving her the $200, but ultimately I did not do so. Three years later she died from the disease. 

Two Studies of Health and Religion in Utah

The Human Genome Project, Modern Biology, and Mormonism: A Viable Marriage?

Dialogue 34.4 (Winter 2002): 61–71
THE WORLD IS RAPIDLY CHANGING as new technologies change the way we think, act, and live. This is particularly true with the many changes biol￾ogy has wrought in our lives over the last few years.

Mormonism and the New Creationism

Dialogue 34.4 (Winter 2002): 39–59
This paper will deal with a more specific form of creationism, which is often termed “creation science” or “scientific creationism” (these terms
will be used synonymously).

The Mormon Myth of Evil Evolution

Dialogue 34.4 (Winter 2002): 19–38
In the years since this event, I’ve found that there are a number of members who believe that evolution is a doctrine of the devil.

Thoughts on Mormonism, Evolution, and Brigham Young University

Dialogue 34.4 (Winter 2002): 1–18
Well, I was raised in a rather unscientific environment , a little farming community.

Endowing the Olympic Masses: Light of the World

Refashioned beyond recognition, Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Games in February 2002. While the world partied Olympically—Budweisers in hand, whooping it up in chaotic street fetes—Latter-day Saints found haven in the LDS Conference Center.…

Spinning Gold: Mormonism and the Olympic Games

As in the lives of individuals, certain events in the lives of cities leave such a mark that time is thenceforth measured in terms of before and after. For example, following the Columbian Exposition that brought more than 27 million people to Chicago in 1893, that city would always be something more than “hog butcher to the world.” The dazzling Midway Plaisance, one of the fair’s high lights, soon disappeared. But an amazing stretch of parks and buildings along Chicago’s Lake Michigan waterfront continues to be a reminder that this Mid-western metropolis was once host to the world. 

Science and Religion: A Dialogue: Response

When I saw the title David Allred chose for his remarks, I wondered if he would directly address the issues I’d raised in my essay. I’m afraid I don’t think he did, and I will…

Science and Religion: A Dialogue: What the Universe Means to People Like Me

When I picked up David’s paper to read it, I had a pencil in my hand. Years of reading my students’ and my own papers made it natural to edit as I read. How ever,…

Short Creek: A Refuge for the Saints

Dialogue 36.3 (Spring 2003): 71–87
Watson shares why early fundamentalists broke off from the main church  and decided to leave Utah and settle Short Creek.

Crawling Out of the Primordial Soup: A Step toward the Emergence of an LDS Theology Compatible with Organic Evolution

Dialogue 43.1 (Spring 2010): 1–36
And in fact, what might it mean that God “used” evolution tocreate life’s diversity? Was this a choice for God among other al-ternatives? Do Wildman’s pessimistic conclusions hold for Mor-monism? Does evolution imply a noninterventionist Deity? Arethere more optimistic views possible, some of which may actuallysuggest that evolution enhances and expands our view of God?

Creationism and Intelligent Design: Scientific and Theological Difficulties

This Little Light of Ours: Ecologies of Revelation

A Perch, A Foothold, A Float

“The Blood of Every Beast”: Mormonism and the Question of the Animal

Whither Mormon Environmental Theology

Flexibility in the Ecology of Ideas: Revelatory Religion and the Environment

Enoch’s Vision and Gaia: An LDS Perspective on Environmental Stewardship

Faith and the Ethics of Climate Change

Why Nature Matters: A Special Issue of Dialogue on Mormonism and the Environment

Absent Sound

Dialogue Topic Pages #9: Evolution

This month, we are looking at the history of scholarship on Evolution. Now, this one is a little different from others. It is a topic that once dominated the pages of Dialogue and was a…

Mormonism and the Natural World Karin Anderson and Danielle Beazer Dubrasky, eds., Blossom as the Cliffrose: Mormon Legacies and the Beckoning Wild

Moroni, Moses, and President Nelson: Vital Correlations with the COVID-19 Vaccine

I listen to the Book of Mormon almost every day and often find what I consider to be interesting correlations with other goings-on in life. Most recently, I am struck by the similarities between the…

World Without Masks

Today, June 20, 2021, is the first day since March 15, 2020 that we in the Stanford First Ward have been allowed to attend service in our own building without masks and social distancing. As…

Diné Doctor: A Latter-day Saint Story of Healing

Podcast version of this Personal Essay. “They say that they are like firemen. They know what they signed up for. They must fulfill their call for duty.” This is what my mother told me when…

From the Pulpit: My Mother’s Eclipse

New Voices: Ecology of Absence

Leveling the Earth, Expanding the Circle

The Faith of a Psychologist: A Personal Document

In 1933 James Leuba[1] conducted a survey of the beliefs in deity held by scientific and professional men. He found that only ten per cent of the psychologists surveyed admitted to a belief in God.…

The Structure of Genesis, Chapter 1

The first chapter of the first book of the Bible is probably one of the most influential, derided, pervasive, debated, and misunderstood religious texts in our culture. Some light may be shed on its significance…

Geological Specimen Rejuvenates an Old Controversy

Under the title “Puzzling Fossils Unearthed,” the Deseret News of 13 June, 1968 reported the discovery of “a fossilized footprint” which was said to pose a “dilemma for geologists.” The discovery was made in the…

The Book of Abraham and Pythagorean Astronomy

Dialogue 8.3 (Winter 1973): 11 – 72
The subject of Pythagoreanism is so controversial and loaded with uncertainties that what follows should be considered as speculation and suggestion for future research.

Dialogues on Science and Religion

Dialogue 8.3/4 (1973): 109–126
To answer that question we needed to create some instruments with which we could gather the data. We are currently engaged in that instrument-building phase. As one step in that process, we interviewed several well-established LDS academicians located at various institutions of higher education in the United States.

A Dialogue with Henry Eyring

Dialogue 8.3/4 (1973): 99–108
Over the years Henry Eyring’s status in the first rank of scientists has become secure. He has produced a staggering volume of research publications in the fields of his interests: application of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics, radio￾activity, theory of reaction rates, theory of liquids, rheology, molecular biology, optical rotation, and theory of flame.

Treasures In the Heavens: Some Early Christian Insights into the Organizing of Worlds

The canonical writings and the apocrypha have a good deal to say about “treasures in the heavens.” If we compare the “treasures” passages in a wide sampling of these writings, including those of Qumran, Nag…

Science and Religion: A Symbiosis

For most of us, there is little doubt that science was victorious in its centuries-long warfare with theology. From Galileo—kneeling in the robes of a penitent criminal before his Inquisitors, pleading for mercy on the grounds of age and infirmity— we have come full circle, to William Jennings Bryan in the dock at the Scopes “Monkey Trial”—trying desperately to demonstrate the Bible as the infallible guide to the story of Creation, then succumbing without dignity to the pitiless goad of Clarence Darrow. 

Introduction

When this special issue of Dialogue was first conceived, it became evident that the phrase “science and religion” has quite different meanings for different people. It was clear that the issue could not be comprehensive…

Science, Religion and Man

Dialogue 8.3/4 (1973): 4–6
The divergence of science and religion is essentially a modern phenomenon. Until the 18th century, theology was considered the queen of the sciences and scientists considered that their discoveries allowed them “to think God’s thoughts after Him.”

Herbal Remedies: God’s Medicine?

A recent listener-response radio program in Salt Lake City discussed the death of a young father from bleeding ulcers. Believing it wrong to seek medical help, he had sought a cure from an herbal practitioner.…

The Imperfect Science: Brigham Young on Medical Doctors

Not long after Utah was linked by railroad with the rest of the country, Brigham Young expressed these views: “Doctors and their medicines I regard as a deadly bane to any community. . . .…

Medicine and the Mormons: A Historical Perspective

At the time of the American revolution, most medical care in America was provided either by self-taught practitioners or by those who had apprenticed under other doctors. A few doctors were immigrants from Great Britain…

His Chastening Rod: Cholera Epidemics and the Mormons

In the spring of 1826 cholera broke out in the delta area of the Ganges River in India and began to spread over the country. Within two years Asiatic Cholera ascended the river with its…

An Official Position

Dialogue 12.4 (Winter 1979): 90–92
In postscript let me say that I have been accused of forging this letter and of taking unfair advantage of President Smith. Let the readers judge. I am personally grateful that the Church has not been caught in the position of taking a stand that might very well prove to be wrong in the future

On Mormonism, Moral Epidemics, Homeopathy and Death from Natural Causes

These three brief reprints provide interesting insights into early Mormon medicine. The first piece, from an essay entitled “Millerism” in The American Journal of Insanity (January 1845), although not directed at Mormons is relevant to…

Quackery and Mormons: A Latter-day Dilemma

The following interview is with a man tried by the state of Utah as a “quack.”[1] His practice is based on massage, herbs, health foods and in reading the iris of the eyes. The trial…

The New Biology and Mormon Theology

Exegetes as willing and capable as Orson Pratt to combine empirical and theological insights have all but disappeared from the Mormon scene. His successors have retained the enthusiastic optimism of early Mormonism, but they have not replaced the empirical beliefs of the nineteenth century with the more correct information which is available to us now.

Science: “Forever Tentative”?

Although the exchange in Dialogue (Winter 1989) between Charles Boyd and David Bailey concerning the epistemological status of con temporary science was interesting and informative, in the final analysis it was lacking.  To begin, Boyd…

John Willard Young, Brigham Young, and the Development of Presidential Succession in the LDS Church

On November 22, 1855, eleven-year-old John Willard Young, son of Brigham Young, received his endowment, undoubtedly accompanied by his father. Brigham Young clearly felt there was something out of the ordinary in John Willard, which…

Spreading Zion Southward, Part I: Improving Efficiency and Equity in the Allocation of Church Welfare Resources

The year was 1983. Sister Mercedes Pico de Coello was dying of tuberculosis, coughing up blood. A frail and thin 43-year-old mother of twelve, her life could probably have been saved for $200. As a missionary, I had baptized her in 1980. As a BYU student, I had just spent $850 for this return visit to Ecuador. Neither of us was aware that her illness could be fatal if untreated. With an annual family income of $1200, she could not afford the treatment she needed. I considered giving her the $200, but ultimately I did not do so. Three years later she died from the disease. 

Two Studies of Health and Religion in Utah

The Human Genome Project, Modern Biology, and Mormonism: A Viable Marriage?

Dialogue 34.4 (Winter 2002): 61–71
THE WORLD IS RAPIDLY CHANGING as new technologies change the way we think, act, and live. This is particularly true with the many changes biol￾ogy has wrought in our lives over the last few years.

Mormonism and the New Creationism

Dialogue 34.4 (Winter 2002): 39–59
This paper will deal with a more specific form of creationism, which is often termed “creation science” or “scientific creationism” (these terms
will be used synonymously).

The Mormon Myth of Evil Evolution

Dialogue 34.4 (Winter 2002): 19–38
In the years since this event, I’ve found that there are a number of members who believe that evolution is a doctrine of the devil.

Thoughts on Mormonism, Evolution, and Brigham Young University

Dialogue 34.4 (Winter 2002): 1–18
Well, I was raised in a rather unscientific environment , a little farming community.

Endowing the Olympic Masses: Light of the World

Refashioned beyond recognition, Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Games in February 2002. While the world partied Olympically—Budweisers in hand, whooping it up in chaotic street fetes—Latter-day Saints found haven in the LDS Conference Center.…

Spinning Gold: Mormonism and the Olympic Games

As in the lives of individuals, certain events in the lives of cities leave such a mark that time is thenceforth measured in terms of before and after. For example, following the Columbian Exposition that brought more than 27 million people to Chicago in 1893, that city would always be something more than “hog butcher to the world.” The dazzling Midway Plaisance, one of the fair’s high lights, soon disappeared. But an amazing stretch of parks and buildings along Chicago’s Lake Michigan waterfront continues to be a reminder that this Mid-western metropolis was once host to the world. 

Science and Religion: A Dialogue: Response

When I saw the title David Allred chose for his remarks, I wondered if he would directly address the issues I’d raised in my essay. I’m afraid I don’t think he did, and I will…

Science and Religion: A Dialogue: What the Universe Means to People Like Me

When I picked up David’s paper to read it, I had a pencil in my hand. Years of reading my students’ and my own papers made it natural to edit as I read. How ever,…

Short Creek: A Refuge for the Saints

Dialogue 36.3 (Spring 2003): 71–87
Watson shares why early fundamentalists broke off from the main church  and decided to leave Utah and settle Short Creek.

Crawling Out of the Primordial Soup: A Step toward the Emergence of an LDS Theology Compatible with Organic Evolution

Dialogue 43.1 (Spring 2010): 1–36
And in fact, what might it mean that God “used” evolution tocreate life’s diversity? Was this a choice for God among other al-ternatives? Do Wildman’s pessimistic conclusions hold for Mor-monism? Does evolution imply a noninterventionist Deity? Arethere more optimistic views possible, some of which may actuallysuggest that evolution enhances and expands our view of God?

Creationism and Intelligent Design: Scientific and Theological Difficulties

This Little Light of Ours: Ecologies of Revelation

A Perch, A Foothold, A Float

“The Blood of Every Beast”: Mormonism and the Question of the Animal

Whither Mormon Environmental Theology

Flexibility in the Ecology of Ideas: Revelatory Religion and the Environment

Enoch’s Vision and Gaia: An LDS Perspective on Environmental Stewardship

Faith and the Ethics of Climate Change

Why Nature Matters: A Special Issue of Dialogue on Mormonism and the Environment

Absent Sound

Dialogue Topic Pages #9: Evolution

This month, we are looking at the history of scholarship on Evolution. Now, this one is a little different from others. It is a topic that once dominated the pages of Dialogue and was a…