Sunstone has announced all the pertinent details on the upcoming 2005 Northwest Sunstone Symposium, which will be held in Seattle on October 15.

As is typical of regional Sunstone symposia, there are a smaller number of papers and the event lasts only a day. But lunch is available (hint: go with the American hero).

Here are two sessions that caught my eye: (more…)

A few weeks ago I was at the North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC) in Seattle. While there, I met author Eldon J. Thompson when he moderated a panel I was on. The panel was called “Dragon Big, Knights Crunchy,” and it was about how to make it believable that your heroes will succeed against terrible odds. After the panel, I found out Eldon was LDS. Through sheer coincidence, three of the four panelists were LDS — Brandon Sanderson was also there. (Another coincidence was that Brandon and Eldon both had their first novels released the same month.)

Later during the convention, I had the chance to hear Eldon read the first chapter of his novel, The Crimson Sword, and found it very intriguing. So I bought the novel and read it, and it lived up to its opening. (You can read chapter one online on Eldon’s website. You can also purchase an autographed copy of The Crimson Sword here.)

Eldon kindly consented to allow me to interview him, and here are the results:

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There’s an interesting new study out suggesting that Societies are worse off ‘when they have God on their side’. Why might that be? I suspect that the study will be controversial. And it may be refined. (i.e. what other things are going on that may correlate stronger) However it often does seem that religious communities want to pretend that problems aren’t present that are. Or worse hide problems rather than dealing with them so as to make it appear they are outwardly religious. It was a problem oft mentioned in the New Testament and I suspect is a problem all peoples face.

Yesterday, Doug Fabrizio had Werner Fornos, President of the Population Institute, as a guest on his show on Radio West to talk about the “problem” of overpopulation in lesser developed countries (LDCs). The new euphemism of “responsible family planning” was a main focus of the show, which lamented, among other things, the fact that the Pope won’t “take responsibility” any time soon to teach people in LDCs that they should be using birth control to limit their number. Brazil, however, was praised in the show because it has the highest rate of birth control for any “Catholic” country. (more…)

Journalists are so enamoured of the Scopes trial that they just keep rewriting the story everytime evolution and religion show up in court. The latest reenactment is just getting underway in a Pennsylvania courtroom. Biologists just don’t seem to get any respect outside the classroom; the adversarial drama of the courtroom is their fight for vindication. Likewise, the ID proponents, who just can’t get mainstream biologists to take them seriously, see the courtroom as their chance to squeeze some legitimacy from one of the few public institutions that is forced to consider the merits of their position. Anyone’s guess whether the gospel of biology will defeat the gospel of creationism in this round of the ongoing struggle for the hearts and minds of young biology students.