A Prophet calls for greater civility

At the end of the Sunday Morning session of the April 2023 General Conference, LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson expressed concern about the loss of civility and decency in the world. Civility and decency seem to have disappeared during this era of polarization and passionate disagreements. Vulgarity, faultfinding, and evil speaking of others are … Read more

The Golden Rule

The “Golden Rule” is often considered to be a one sentence summary of what Christianity is all about. Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12 Jesus said this in the context of promising that … Read more

Spreading hatred at Christmas time

While shopping three days before Christmas, I saw a group of 3 or 4 young men walk by a large display of Christmas wrapping paper that was on sale. One of them said, gleefully, “I’d like to take all the Democrats and wrap them all up in a ball and throw them away!” I was … Read more

Eight false beliefs voters cling to

Many Americans will be basing their voting decisions this year on strongly held beliefs that are complete nonsense. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that voters are stupid. I am saying that they often don’t do their homework thoroughly and are therefore easily deceived by simplistic slogans, false conspiracies, and fake outrage. Even worse, … Read more

Republican Liars and Crazies

The Republican Party has encouraged and exploited bigotry, extremism, and paranoia for decades. They have done this deliberately and unashamedly in order to acquire and keep power (and gain). Rather than present practical, useful, well-considered, policy proposals to better the lives of the American people, they have found it much easier to attract votes by … Read more

Fiction vs. Reality

The world is full of lies. Deliberate, insidious, corrosive lies. They come from many quarters: commerce, politics, the media. They have many sources: the evil, the manipulative, the selfish, and the ignorant. The “very elect” have been, and are being, deceived by these lies, which have been carefully constructed to masquerade as the truth. Those … Read more

Joe Biden’s America

Incumbent Utah Senator, Mike Lee, currently running for re-election, has a scary-looking TV commercial out that shows a bleak, photoshopped image of the President and starts, “This is Joe Biden’s America.” The voice then goes on to whine about “Inflation” blah, blah blah, “immigrants,” blah, blah, blah. The first lie here is that President Biden … Read more

Is the world really growing “more wicked?”

As long as I can remember, I have been hearing in church about how we know we are living in the “last days” because the world is getting “increasingly wicked.” Obviously, we thought, the end times were imminent because there were so many “bad” people in the world doing such “bad” things. And, of course, … Read more