Digital Faith

Carl Sagan on God and Mormonism, Part 2

[Part 1] Sagan has a paragraph on Mormonism in the chapter entitled "Extraterrestrial Folklore: Implications for the Evolution of Religion," offered as one of several examples of the wacky things religious people believe. Might as well just throw it out there.

The Technology of Scripture

The following is the text of a Sacrament Meeting talk Dave presented on October 24, 2010. The title, subtitles, links, and images have been added.

The theme for this month is the scriptures, and the Bishop asked me to address to address this topic for a few minutes. I'm going to talk about reading the scriptures, learning the scriptures, and practicing the scriptures.

Carl Sagan on God and Mormonism

Carl Sagan (1934-1996) recently published a new book. In 1985, he delivered the Gifford Lectures, a year-long Scottish academic appointment designed to promote the study of natural theology. The transcripts of the lectures were lost for many years, but were finally rediscovered, edited, and published in 2006 as the book The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God. I found it impossible to read this enjoyable and enlightening book without hearing Sagan's distinctive verbal delivery echoing in my mind as I read the text. I'll touch on a few of the topics he covered: God, the Universe, extraterrestrial life, religion, and Mormonism.

LDS apps: How I learned to stop worrying and love the iPad

For once in my life I'm an early adopter, having recently purchased a 32G iPad with 3G capability. Well, twice -- I was an early blogger. Okay, three times -- I mastered RPN on HP handhelds when classmates were still struggling with TI klunkiness. Anyway, here's the lowdown on LDS iPads and their apps.

First, download the Gospel Library (free and correlated app) for LDS scriptures, manuals, conference talks, and magazines, and you'll never have to carry around the oversized LDS Bible in church again. It's like losing ten pounds on Sunday. The only item I don't seem to be able to find at Gospel Library is the new Duty to God booklet recently distributed through the Young Men's organization.

This is the place ...

... where I'll be doing solo posting from now on.

I'll use the other place for archiving and diverse blogrolls.

Human Nature: The Evolutionary Context

That's the title to Chapter Three of Polkinghorne's Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion. Polkinghorne was a particle physicist before he became a theologian, so he brings an unusual perspective to a discussion of human nature and evolution.