Big News

Interpreter Radio Show — July 21, 2024

For the 21 July 2024 installment of the Interpreter Radio Show, Bruce Webster, Robert Boylan, and Kris Frederickson discussed Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson 33 and a variety of topics including upcoming events and concerns about the ownership of farmland by the Church.

Their conversation was recorded.  It was also freed from commercial interruptions, and it has now been archived and made available for your enjoyment and edification.  The “Book of Mormon in Context” portion of this show, for the Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson 33, will also be posted separately on Tuesday, 6 August 2024.

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard every week on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640.  And if, for some reason, that doesn’t work for you — perhaps, say, because of your location in the mountains of Nepal or in the Amazon rainforest — you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.

I’m very pleased at this Very Big News:  “First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ Announces New Medical School for Brigham Young University: Medical School will draw students from U.S. and around the world and seek collaborative relationships with various institutions in Utah”  And I’m intrigued with this passage from the announcement issued by the First Presidency:

A major focus will be on international health issues affecting members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Church’s worldwide humanitarian efforts. . . .

It is envisioned that unlike many medical schools, the BYU medical school will be focused on teaching with research in areas of strategic importance to the Church. In time the school will draw students from within and outside the United States.

It seems that the Church and the University are, quite openly and shamelessly, determined to create more horrors for inclusion in the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™.

“A man filled with the love of God,” Joseph Smith once threatened, “is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.”

I expect, by the way, that the new Brigham Young University medical campus will be built on the site of the former Provo High School.  For a number of reasons — although it hasn’t been announced and although I have somewhat less than zero insider information — that would seem to me to make perfect sense.

And, while we’re talking about the Hitchens File, here’s another chilling abomination:  “JustServe Volunteers Help Make Food Drives Successful: Food drives care for those in need in Utah, Texas and Arizona.”

This article in the Deseret News caught my attention a couple of days ago:  “Meet ‘the pope’s astronomer’ — an MIT-educated American who believes science needs religion: ‘Astronomy is a great way of getting to know God the creator,’ says Guy Consolmagno, the Jesuit brother who leads the Vatican Observatory.”

Back in 2016, Brother Guy was the keynote speaker at an Interpreter Foundation symposium on religion and science (and enjoyed dinner the night before with a number of us at the home of two generous neighbors of ours).  He was a very charming guest, and I loved his remarks at the symposium.  A video of his speech is available online:  “Conference Talks: Astronomy, God, and the Search for Elegance“  I heartily commend it to your attention.

I want to pick up one more passage for you from Alex A. Álvarez, Rodrigo Arriolo-Godoy, and Ramsés D’León, “Near-Death Experiences, Post-Traumatic Stress, and Supernormal Abilities in a Latin American Sample,” Journal for Near-Death Studies 41/1 (Spring 2023): 40-66.  I think it vitally important.

Some who reject accounts of near-death experiences — or who, at the very least, want to foreclose the possibility that they might reveal anything about a life beyond death — have insisted they are merely subjective phenomena in a dying or at least highly stressed brain, and that they reflect nothing more than the cultural features of the person experiencing them.  Here is some of what Álvarez, Arriolo-Godoy, and D’León have to say on that subject:

As far as we know, this retrospective study is one of a few to include an exclusively Spanish-speaking sample and the first to comprise mostly Mexicans.  Though most studies like this one have been carried out with people belonging to English-speaking Western countries, we still managed to find quite similar results . . .   Several authors have pointed out that, given the universality of many features and aftereffects of NDEs worldwide, the most logical conclusion is that NDEs are not culture dependent.  Although we will reserve judgment regarding NDE features pending analysis in a later study of our participants’ NDE narratives, we did detect certain aftereffects that are common to people from countries and cultures other than English-speaking, Western ones — particularly with regard to changes in beliefs and attitudes.  For example, researchers who studied NDErs from Aotearoa New Zealand — which includes a mixture of people from indigenous, Asian, Pacific, and European descent — and from Iran — which includes Shi‘ite Muslims — reported a decrease in fear of death, an increase in belief in an afterlife, more positive feelings and emotions, and better communications with other people and greater desire to help them.  Thus, our findings contribute to the notion that NDEs are a universal phenomenon with aftereffects that are similar in people all over the world, are mainly positive, and affect not only the NDErs themselves but also the people with whom they interact. (58; omitting references embedded in the text)

I note with interest, too, that “an increase in belief in an afterlife” — which would, I think it fair to say, generally be regarded as associated with, if not altogether identical to, an increase in religiosity — is here correlated with “more positive feelings and emotions” and “better communications with other people and greater desire to help them.”  In that light, although I haven’t looked for it there, I would not be at all surprised to find this article among the many illustrations of theistic abomination that are contained in the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™.

Posted from Depoe Bay, Oregon