Dave's Mormon Inquiry

A New Mormon Gateway

A website with answers. That's what Time Magazine calls the new religion website Patheos.com in "What Do Religions Believe? A Website with Answers." The Time article describes the new site as one "that sets out to explain the differences among religions as well as illuminate the areas of common ground." Just today the site unveiled its Mormon Gateway section, a menu of resources designed to complement the more detailed information presented in the Library section of the site.

Ending Polygamy One Man at a Time

The annual Mormon History Association meetings are underway in Springfield, Illinois. The Deseret News reports on the address of the outgoing MHA President, historian Kathryn Daynes of BYU. She spoke on the varied experience of 19th-century Mormons who struggled, under increasing pressure from the federal government, to give up the practice of polygamy.

Theology in the Wake of Evolution

It's not easy being a theologian in the 21st century. One of the main reasons is that science provides credible, non-theistic explanations for many of those "where did we come from?" questions that religion once had all to itself. Evolution seems to pose a particular challenge. John Haught, a professor of theology at Georgetown, tries to tackle the problem head-on in his book God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (Westview, 2000).

Fallible Certainty

"Yes, I'm certain of that" is often taken to be an assurance that the speaker really knows that the attested fact or opinion is correct. But it's not clear that a feeling of really knowing something is a good predictor of really knowing something, as discussed in "On Being Certain: An Overview," at LDS Science Review. The post is a review of Robert Burton's book On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not." The post implicitly suggests we should be more modest in phrasing our claims and arguments. The application to religious discussion seems obvious, but the critique applies to every topic where people often feel they really know.

The Puzzling Mormon Gender Gap

From a Washington Times article "Marriage as a Mormon value"

According to [the] Pew [Forum], Mormons have one of the most lopsided gender ratios of any religion: 44 percent men and 56 percent women.

You can't argue with the gender gap -- that's what the data is. The question is why such a disproportional gender gap emerges in the LDS Church. [And let's just take it for granted it's not because the researchers just forgot to factor in all those absent 19-to-21-year-old men off serving missions.]

History and Identity

I recently read a short essay by Eric Hobsbawm, "Identity History Is Not Enough." I came across it in his book On History, a collection of essays, but fortunately for you it is available online at the above link (except for the last page, for some reason). Mormonism is not mentioned, but the discussion seems to bear directly on the writing and reading of Mormon history.

Affirmation, Fellowship, and Transcendence

Last week I posted on the latest Pew Forum survey, arguing that the prevalent media summary of the survey -- that many people are drifting from faith to unbelief -- was misreading the data. Today there's an op-ed piece in the New York Times, "Defecting to Faith," suggesting the Pew Forum data show that most people raised to be atheists end up drifting into belief and participation in a faith community. What are they after?