Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1004

Should all American Muslims be expelled from the United States?

    I had a brief exchange in the comments section of my blog early this morning.  (Still jet-lagged, I woke up far, far too soon.)   It concerns a topic that’s important enough, and urgent enough, that I want my response to be very visible and clear.  I don’t think that I’m acting inappropriately [Read More...]

“Literally hard facts at the beginning of Mormonism”

    This week’s “Defending the Faith” column in the Deseret News:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...    

“I’ll take a bullet before you”

    Video footage of the police response to yesterday’s mass shooting in San Bernardino shows officers arriving within about five minutes of the first call for help, and running toward the scene of the crime.   They didn’t have, couldn’t have had, any very clear idea of what they were running toward.  Yet they [Read More...]

“ISIS adherents praise San Bernardino mass shooting, ‘America burning’”

    They’re not our friends:   http://www.vocativ.com/news/256909/is...   Incidentally, there’s a small but significant Mormon connection to San Bernardino:  The first English-speaking settlement was established by Latter-day Saints sent there by Brigham Young, presumably as part of a plan to build a chain of settlements reaching to the ocean so that Deseret could have [Read More...]

“A Criminologist’s Case Against Gun Control”

    This piece was published before the shootings in San Bernardino, but it seems especially relevant now:   http://time.com/4100408/a-criminologi...    

“A Savior is Born”

    The official Church website for its 2015 Christmas initiative can be found here:   https://www.mormon.org/christmas   Take a look!  Participate!    

“Anonymous takes down 5500 ISIS accounts 24 hours after ISIS called them ‘idiots’”

    I’m slow on linking to this, but I hope that it’s true:   http://themindunleashed.org/2015/11/a...   It’s heartening to see such often-antisocial folks turning their skills to a good purpose.  I hope that others with unique abilities will also play whatever roles they can in fighting this scourge.    

New Testament 314

    John 13:31-35   It’s impossible to improve upon this passage by commentary, but I offer an unfamiliar translation (by J. B. Phillips) of a simple and very familiar text:   “Now I am giving you a new command—love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another. This is how [Read More...]

Of reading and empathy

    “I think the act of reading imbues the reader with a sensitivity toward the outside world that people who don’t read can sometimes lack. I know it seems like a contradiction in terms; after all reading is such a solitary, internalizing act that it appears to represent a disengagement from day-to-day life. But [Read More...]

“Seal impression of King Hezekiah found near Temple Mount”

    A nice discovery, announced just yesterday in Israel:   http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,73...