By Dennis V. Dahle, John P. Livingstone and M. Gawain Wells

Published: February 25, 2011 07:38AM

In his recent guest column (“Anti-science views of faith leaders cause concerns,” Opinion, Feb. 8), R. Dennis Hansen correctly points out that religion and science need not be at odds, but in our view draws the wrong conclusion that they are at odds to begin with, or that religion is the problem.

Alert! Alert! There is so much drivel in this ‘thesis’ that it isn’t worthy of point-by-point rebuttal. These three authors are involved with what they call the Foundation for Attraction Research. It is a transparent fraud. Go to its web page and it is readily seen that it is a very small and tight knit group of pseudo scientists who begin with a predetermined belief and set out to prove their hunches right. The problem with their hunches is that they are all based on religious fables.

They are not seeking riches or gold or the praise of the world. They are seeking the adoration of their church apostles and their devout neighbors and friends. They are looking to get praised in church every Sunday morning. They particularly want to come to the defense of one of The Twelve, Boyd K. Packer, to try (more…)

Tribune Public Forum letter by Mike Coronella, Moab

Re “Utah not a colony of Washington, D.C., Herbert says ” (Tribune, Jan. 27):

Gov. Gary Herbert is crying (again) about our federal government. Does he have a clue what he’s talking about? Consider this from Article I of the Utah State Constitution: “The State of Utah is an inseparable part of the Federal Union and the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land.”

How is it that extreme Utah partisans believe such a radically different interpretation of our founding Constitution? Herbert seems (more…)

Mitchell Bard

Writer and Filmmaker

Posted: January 23, 2011 01:59 PM BIO Become a Fan Get Email AlertsBloggers’ Index

A Tribute to Olbermann: Why He Is Different From the Pundits at Fox News

Read More: Bill O’Reilly , Countdown , Countdown With Keith Olbermann , Daily Beast , Fair And Balanced , Fox News , George W. Bush , Glenn Beck , Jeffery Smith , Keith Olbermann , Msnbc , Olbermann Special Comment , Rush Limbaugh , Sarah Palin , Sean Hannity , Media News

Black and white is easy; nuance is hard. Which is why it’s much easier to just lump media outlets and personalities into simple boxes: left v. right, or partisan v. objective, for example.

So if you want to play that game, it’s easy to dismiss Keith Olbermann, who broadcast his final episode of Countdown on MSNBC Friday. It’s simple to dash off a hack piece (like this one in the Daily Beast, which revealed its simple-minded bona fides by invoking the right’s favorite jab at Olbermann: he used to work in — gasp! — sports) that lumps Olbermann in with Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, as if they all do the same thing just because they are all loud and aggressive.

I know nuance is less popular, but I feel compelled to try and give Olbermann his due.

This is very good commentary on the difference between Keith Olberman and the creepy crawlies on Faux News. That there needs to be an explanation of the difference is only because those listening to Faux are unwilling to ferret out the truth. Lies, distortions and manipulations serve their purposes better.

The right hates Olberman because of the truth. The left hates Fox News because of the lies. Therein is the difference.

An analysis of how MSNBC (which uses a traditional journalistic approach to report facts, but then, ditching objectivity, critically assesses how the facts compare with the progressive take on issues) differs from Fox News (essentially a right-wing propaganda operation pretending to practice journalism, with no allegiance to facts) is a book-length endeavor (more…)

Tribune Forum Letter

By Larry LaCroix, Lehi

Published: January 2, 2011 12:38AM

Every time I read a letter like Kerry Myers’ “Voluntary tax increase” (Forum, Dec. 25), which suggests that those who want higher taxes should simply send their checks to the Internal Revenue Service because “what we already pay is adequate (or too high), and we have no desire to pay more,” I want to scream!

We are at war! People are being killed, and people are dying in the name of the United States of America. And for the first time, we had a president (George W. Bush) who convinced the country that we could fight two wars (more…)

(Tribune Forum Letter)

By Richard Burt

Published: December 31, 2010 11:11PM

Our extreme national debt that commenced under President Ronald Reagan has progressively gotten worse with each successive tax cut.

President George W. Bush’s tax cuts increased the debt by $4.1 trillion, and their continuation adds another $4.1 trillion over the next 10 years.

The public has been deceived into believing (more…)

Published: January 10, 2011 12:20AM

A recent University of Maryland study confirms that those who watch Fox News daily are significantly more likely than those who never watch it to believe that:

• Most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses. (It has created millions of jobs.)

• Most economists estimate that the health care bill will worsen the deficit. (Most estimate it will reduce the deficit.)

• The economy is getting worse. (It is improving.)

• Most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring. (Scientists are at near consensus that it is.)

• The stimulus did not include tax cuts. (Forty percent (more…)

(Eric Johnson’s op-ed piece that appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune generated another op-ed piece by Professor Clark from the University of Utah. It appears elsewhere on this blog. They both appear under the Science/Religion category))

A Reason for the Season (referring to Christmas)

By Eric R. Johnson

Updated: January 6, 2011 12:55PM
(Eric R. Johnson lives in Sandy and has taught high school and college classes in English and journalism for 18 years.)

In a Dec. 29 column titled “What if I just can’t believe the ‘Christmas story’?,” Robert Hammer claims that he is “99.9 repetend percent convinced that [God] does not exist.” While I won’t take any particular side with the Mormons, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims or any other religious group that acknowledges a Supreme Being, just because it is impossible to empirically prove God’s existence does not mean faith in a Higher Being is a losing proposition.

As Norman Geisler and Frank Turek write in their aptly-titled I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist: “It’s virtually impossible to know everything about a particular topic, and it’s certainly impossible when that topic is an infinite God. So there has to come a point where you realize you have enough information to come to a conclusion, even if unanswered questions remain.”

I believe there are good reasons why God’s existence makes more sense than no God at all. For one, Hammer admits that he might be wrong, “but I strongly doubt that, too.” By not being so skeptical of his own skepticism, perhaps this mindset deceives him.

He also complains that if he’s wrong he will confidently question God in the end with, “O Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?” Yet how did the Almighty forsake him? Psalm 19 proclaims, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” “General revelation” makes God’s existence abundantly clear.

Imagine if someone made a claim that a particular ballpoint pen had no designer. Do the insides of the pen — including the spring, the reservoir, and the clicker — just magically appear in exact order to form a functional instrument?

Obviously, somebody designed each intricate piece. In the same way, the universe’s cosmological design screams for a Designer.

Another reason for the existence of God is time. Those who claim that time is infinite must consider the “Kalam Cosmological argument,” a complex tool constructed by Muslim philosophers in the Middle Ages. How, they asked, could we ever have arrived at “today” if time consists of an infinite past?

If the universe did begin 12 billion years ago from nothing, then how did “something” (the first cell) get created if “out of nothing, nothing comes”? And the idea that things progress rather than digress when left in their natural state defeats the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

I believe the very existence of moral values is one more dilemma for nontheists. After all, from where do morals come?

Do they emanate from Mother Nature (the conscience)? What right does something lesser than I have to bind me absolutely?

Some would argue that others can determine morals through governmental laws, but is society always right? I think not, especially in light of Nazi Germany, the slavery and “back-of-the-bus” South, and Kim Jong-il’s North Korea. Maybe I can determine morals. But what if my name is Jeffrey Dahmer or Brian David Mitchell? If moral relativism is correct, then who really has the right to tell these men that they were immoral? Only something above us — a Moral Lawgiver — can determine right from wrong.

Notice that I’m not arguing for a particular God or saying that all theists (representing any number of religions) necessarily know or practice what is moral. I’m merely stating that there must be some set of objective moral laws that exist.

Finally, while Hammer says he has tried but apparently never experienced the Almighty, I have. By itself, I agree that this is not a good reason for him or anyone else to become a believer. Yet this very fact, which is real to me, is just as strong as Hammer’s perspective that God doesn’t exist because he never experienced Him. One of us is wrong. The consequences could be immense.

Skeptics need to refrain from throwing the baby out with the bath water. You may not have had a good experience with your church, with others who called themselves theistic believers, or with major tragedies that have occurred in your life. Yet God’s existence doesn’t hinge on your knowledge or experience.

You do not “lack capacity for this kind of faith.” It’s atheism that requires so much more faith. Therefore, go where the evidence leads.

Eric R. Johnson lives in Sandy and has taught high school and college classes in English and journalism for 18 years.

Science and the empirical evidence against a divine being

By Gregory A. Clark

Published: January 8, 2011 01:01AM
(Gregory A. Clark is an associate professor in bioengineering at the University of Utah. He has been teaching and conducting empirical scientific research for over 30 years.)

It is curious but telling that theists who so stoutly proclaim evidence for the existence of an Almighty God then fail to provide any. Of course, this depends on the definition of the word “evidence,” as it does on the definition of “God.”

Eric R. Johnson (“A reason for the season,” Opinion, Dec. 31) and Brian David Mitchell are among those who claim that they have personally experienced the Almighty.

We initially failed to post the opinion piece by Eric Johnson, but since we are posting this eloquent response by Dr. Clark we felt we should also post the opinion piece by Eric Johnson.

Of course, Brian David Mitchell’s testimony of the existence of God is a matter of public record. For those who don’t make the connection he is the visionary who kidnapped a 14-year old girl and married her on instructions from ‘God.’

Their statements could be entered as “evidence” in a court of law. But such claims do not constitute “evidence” for God in the objective, scientific meaning of the word.

As soon as considerations move from God as a metaphor into real-world specifics, scientific evidence becomes directly relevant. In reality, compelling empirical evidence indicates that the interventionist God of “Mormons, Catholics, Protestants, [and] Jews” (among others) does not exist — at least if the Bible is the literal word of God, as one-third of Americans believe.

Scientifically, the Bible is wrong from the very first sentence, and goes downhill from there. The earth was not formed “in the beginning” of the universe; fruit trees did not grow on earth before the sun and stars; birds and sea mammals did not precede land insects and reptiles.

The empirical evidence indicates a fundamentally different order. Likewise, there is no physical evidence that Yahweh (or Zeus, or Thor) hurls lightning bolts from the sky, causes rain via divine intervention, or stops the sun (more…)

(Published in the Salt Lake Tribune Public Forum on December 29, 2010 01:01AM) (Also appeared in the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, Dec. 21, 2010)

Congratulations to Rep. Jim Matheson and the 111th Congress, which just voted to lower the standards of our military (80 percent favorable rating) to that of Congress (13 percent favorable). It’s no coincidence that most of the politicians voting never served in combat. Congress’ vote legitimized sodomy as normal and acceptable, elevating and celebrating it!

When at the crossroads, this “District of Criminals” (as some of us in the Pentagon called Congress) took the wrong fork. Working backward from preconceived conclusions, and unmoved by reason, evidence, timeless standards and history, they pandered for votes. Now the military is forced to reflect their shameful, upside-down, politically correct values.

Pentagon reports repeatedly voice concern that allowing gays to serve openly would lead to widespread and overt displays of effeminacy and disruptive, unhealthy conduct. As a combat officer with 30 years of experience, I know that commingling of out-of-the-closet gays and straights is a disaster in the making.

The only moral and practical solution to the impeached former President Bill Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is to reinstate the total ban on gays in the military.

This Congress is unwanted, unclean and a disaster! Have they no shame?

Retired Col. Gary R. Stephens

Layton

There is one thing to his credit. He signed his name. He thought ‘Retired Colonel’ would give him some credibility on the issue and a reason to express his strongly held view. What he didn’t say was that he is also a ‘ recently retired LDS Mission President.’

Since its very difficult to discern a grain of charity or kindness in his letter the church leaders are probably pleased that he used ‘Retired Colonel’ instead of ‘former mission president.’ His letter was certainly absent any portion of the Spirit of the Lord.

In fact, in all liklihood the brethern are squirming (more…)

By Ed Firmage Jr.

Published: December 18, 2010 01:01AM
(Ed Firmage Jr. is a fine-art photographer in Salt Lake City.)

From the beginning, America has been a land of opportunity. And because of this, Americans dreamed big.

Our optimism comes from the unique experience of starting our national adventure with a continent of pristine land at our feet. America before Europeans was of course not uninhabited or untouched by people. But the native inhabitants practiced a mode of living that left the land intact. They, therefore, as much as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, are our founding fathers and mothers.

And so, unlike any people since the Stone Age, settlers in America enjoyed the benefit of a continent of unspoiled resources. For as long as the frontier remained, Americans could look West and see a future that was theirs to make and enjoy. As historian Frederick Jackson Turner observed, our character stems from our relationship with a frontier that seemed to be never-ending.

In the years following the “closing” of the frontier in 1890, Americans found themselves enmeshed in global problems (more…)

Published: November 13, 2010 01:01AM

Re “LDS half-measure” (Forum, Nov. 10):

The idiom “beating a dead horse” comes to mind each time I read a letter about non-acceptance of homosexuality by churches, religions, government leaders and the public in general.

Using examples of early American slavery or mistreatment of Jews throughout history to apply to non-acceptance of a lifestyle is ludicrous and an injustice to the memory of those events.

Religions have centuries-old doctrines and creeds that provide lifestyle guidelines to their adherents. Many religions — Christian, Eastern, Asian and others — do not view homosexuality as an acceptable practice.

Accusing individuals of intolerance or political incorrectness for not changing the beliefs that define their faith is the mirror image of homosexuals crying non-acceptance of their beliefs.

We all have the choice to accept or not accept lifestyles of others, while still maintaining kindness, compassion and civility. As we learned in junior high and high school, acceptance by one group or another should not define who we believe we are.

Bonnie Stone

Eden

Bonnie, gays aren’t trying to change church doctrines, just their behavior toward them, like perhaps trying The Golden Rule!! Gays are not mistreating religions. Religions are mistreating gays by restricting

Published: November 14, 2010 03:55PM

I just finished Ron Chernow’s acclaimed Washington: A Life. I was struck how George Washington was consistently for a strong national government to solve national problems.

Washington was for a national debt when needed, and he definitely believed in national intervention to solve economic problems.

He had no sympathy for those who wanted to put states’ rights before the federal government.

Those who claim that the Founding Fathers didn’t intend to create a strong, pre-eminent federal government (more…)

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: November 17, 2010 01:01AM

You didn’t get mad:

• when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a president;

• when Vice President Dick Cheney let energy companies dictate energy policy;

• when a CIA operative got outed;

• when we illegally invaded a country that (more…)

Published: November 19, 2010 05:40PM

“Don’t legalize dope” (Forum, Nov. 14) delivered a real shocker. The author, who owns a hammer (a drug treatment business), views all recreational use of mind-altering substances as nails (addiction). She seems truly shocked at the concept of addictive substances being legally available, but she makes no attempt to intellectually rationalize our treatment of the big three: alcohol, caffeine and tobacco.

Instead, she wants to talk about “drugs,” as though a plant that has a history of beneficial interaction with the human race for the entirety of our existence is in nowise different from something cooked up in the labs of Big Pharma at the cost of billions of dollars.

People, apples and cannabis have traveled the road of life forever, and the only reason we leave apples alone, legally, is because we don’t experience whatever good they deliver nearly instantly, as we do for marijuana. This fight against legalizing cannabis is completely about the right-wing nanny state: that people in a free country simply can’t be trusted to adopt all of the “right” values.

Darrell Prows

Murray

We generally post letters to the editor on the left side of our front page, but this letter was deemed worthy of front page headline. Way to go Mr. Keith Charles of Oakley.

This letter appeared in The Public Forum of the Salt Lake Tribune, a newspaper we greatly admire and appreciate for its wonderful editorial page section and its staff of news reporters who actually dig and discover and inform.

Published: November 19, 2010 01:01AM

Re “Ezra Taft Benson: Tea party pioneer” (Tribune, Nov. 14):

So, arch-conservative and eventual LDS Church President Ezra Taft Benson suspected while he was U.S. secretary of agriculture that his boss, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, was a communist. That makes sense.

After all, the World War II general-turned-president scrupulously and impressively kept America out of war during eight hot years of the Cold War and created the world’s largest public works project, the Interstate Highway System.

So it’s sort of logical for Benson to see Eisenhower as a pacifist wimp in defending America, and as a big-time violator of states’ rights to build roads — in short, as un-American.

In contrast, members of today’s tea party movement, of which Benson was a “confounding father,” patriotically supported the past decade’s rash rush into needless wars of choice.

And if President Barack Obama proposed a public works infrastructure project as massive as the Interstate system to help our economy, he would be demeaned by today’s evil label: socialist.

Obama is in the Eisenhower mold; the tea partiers are in Benson’s.

Regardless of camouflaging patriotic rhetoric and labels, I’m with the calm problem-solvers Obama and Eisenhower.

Keith Charles

Oakley

Tribune Forum

Published: November 13, 2010 01:01AM

Re “Same-sex attractions can change, 44% say” (Tribune, Nov. 5):

So 55 percent of Mormons persist in believing that gays can change (but only 20 percent of non-LDS). No surprise there, considering Mormons’ proclivity for believing myths over facts.

From a people among whom many don’t believe in evolution, what do you expect? If Mormons lived in Galileo’s day, they would be one of the last people to agree that Jupiter has moons and the Earth revolves around the sun.

Science: the other form of revelation.

Mike Waters

Salt Lake City

Funding for CUP must be continued

By Sen. Orrin G. Hatch

Published: Monday, Oct. 18, 2010 12:00 a.m. MDT

In a political move devoid of any policy rationale, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has recommended that the Office of Management and Budget cut the construction budget for the Central Utah Project (CUP).

This recommendation would cut CUP funding just as the decades-long project is nearly ready to deliver water to Utahns. Thus, Salazar would turn hundreds of millions of dollars worth of water infrastructure into a giant white elephant — one that sits in our mountains but does not actually deliver critical water.

The CUP is a federal–local partnership created years ago to build a system of reservoirs and pipelines to store Utah’s annual share of the Colorado River. Projects like the CUP keep the peace among the seven Colorado River Basin states by ensuring each state receives its share of the river.

Fully authorized by law, the CUP has been included in every president’s budget request to Congress since Jimmy Carter. There was an effort to give CUP funding a one-time boost in President Obama’s Stimulus bill, but I did not support it in that form. Otherwise, the project has never been a partisan issue, an earmark or pork. In fact, participating communities in Utah have already paid 35 percent of the cost of construction for the project, and the state’s water users would repay the remaining federal share with interest once the water is delivered. So there is no savings to the overall budget by cutting CUP funding.

So Senator Hatch opposed it for political reasons and now he wants to change his mind. Perhaps Obama listened to him the first time.

We happen to agree that here is another government project that needs to be funded, but what is Obama to do? Hatch wants to stop government spending—but not in his back yard.

Yes, fund the project, but please Senator Hatch, be consistent.

This begs the question of why the secretary would try to cut funding for this vital project. If he succeeds, he would stop the final delivery of CUP water to Utahns. He also would remove the requirement for Utahns to reimburse the federal government for its costs in constructing the project. Utah would be left with reservoirs and pipelines that supply no water (more…)

Published: October 16, 2010, Salt Lake Tribune Forum

Wayne Steffner is correct when he cites the biblical references that denounce homosexuality, adultery, and bestiality (“It’s in the Old Testament,” Forum, Oct. 13). He shouldn’t just admonish us with his lurid interest in sexual behavior; he needs to follow all of his Bible’s “moral” teachings:

• Don’t work on the Sabbath; kill anyone who does (Exodus 31:12).

• Never wear clothing made of mixed fibers (Leviticus 19:19).

• Don’t eat pork, rabbits and shellfish (Leviticus 11:6).

• Men, do not cut your hair and don’t shave (Leviticus 19:27).

• Shun menstruating women; they and everything they touch are unclean (Leviticus. 15:19).

• Kill new brides who are not virgins (Deuteronomy 21:18).

• Force rapists to marry the women they rape (Deuteronomy 22:28). (more…)

Letter to The Deseret News and to Watts Cookin’ Blog

by Gary Watts, M.D., Provo, Utah

Most knowledgeable Mormons and ecclesiastical leaders know that homosexuality is experienced honestly and involuntarily and is not amenable to significant change.   I’m confident they were uncomfortable with Elder Boyd K. Packer’s most recent conference talk.  It is disappointing, however, to see them remain silent.

I’m reminded of Elie Weisel’s quote during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

I look forward to the day when LDS church leaders will reach out to our gay children, friends and neighbors, and figure out a way to enfranchise, rather than disenfranchise them.

Gary Watts

801 374-1447

Published Sep 25, 2010 12:16AM
Letter Published in Tribune Forum

by Boyer Jarvis

Many retired people in the United States of America depend upon Social Security as their major, or only, source of income. Since the program was established in the 1930s, both employees and employers have paid equally into the Social Security Trust Fund, from which, after retiring, the former employees are paid monthly benefits.

In 1983, Congress raised the retirement age from 65 to 67 and cut benefits for the average retiree by 13 percent. That action was intended to avoid a future deficit in the Social Security fund. As the baby-boomer generation retires, Congress (more…)