Time passes, and so does BYU

Last updated on: April 30, 2019 at 5:58 pm by Dan Peterson

Time passes, and so does BYU 2019-04-30T17:58:18-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The Manhattan New York Temple, across the street from Lincoln Center in New York City (LDS.org)

From the official newsroom of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

“Chad Eliminates Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus: LDS Charities and partners work to eliminate the disease globally”

The late Christopher Hitchens used to like to say that “religion poisons everything.” And certainly here, in the story to which I link above, is yet another redundant illustration of the truth of his statement: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is helping to make this world very inhospitable to the bacteria that cause tetanus. And that surely can’t be right, can it?

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Some of you may not be aware of this website:

“Mormon Stories Essays: Reviewing John Dehlin’s ‘Truth Claims’ Essays”

I don’t know who is behind it, but I wish him, her, or them well.

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On our flight from Salt Lake City, there were at least two dozen obvious BYU students obviously heading over for a term of coursework and so forth at the Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies. It was fun to watch them board the plane. My wife remarked that it doesn’t seem so very long ago that we were those students: She did a study abroad program in Paris, and I did one (right after my graduation, whereby hangs a tale) in Jerusalem. And then we ourselves led a small intensive Arabic program in Jerusalem, at BYU’s Center. Good days. And we continue to think highly of the young people for whom we were responsible back then — though, to my shock, I’ve now had at least two or three of their children as students. I’m beginning to think of myself as the title character from Goodbye, Mr. Chips. (Speaking of which, I really need to see that 1969 Peter O’Toole film again. [It’s fifty years old, this year!] I found it really affecting when I first saw it as an undergraduate, several years after it first appeared, but I’m not sure that I’ve seen it since then.)

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Here, I suppose, is still another illustration of Christopher Hitchens’s dictum that “religion poisons everything”:

“BYU named best value college by Forbes“

From Forbes itself:

“America’s Best Value Colleges 2019: The Definitive Guide for Those Looking for an Excellent Return on Their College Investment”

BYU is in pretty good company with this ranking: Rounding out the top five from Forbes are (2) Princeton University, (3) the University of California at Irvine, (4) the University of California at Los Angeles, and (5) the University of California at Berkeley.

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