Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1012

“Nearer, My God, to Thee,” from the Mormon Channel

    A brief little vehicle for reflection on a Sabbath day:   http://www.ldsliving.com/Mormon-Chann...   Posted from Marbella, Spain    

The “Satanic Temple”: “Group creates ‘opt out’ website for LDS practice of baptism for the dead”

    This is mere grandstanding silliness:   http://kutv.com/news/offbeat/do-not-p...   From the Latter-day Saint point of view, the ultimate “opt out” power remains with each individual even beyond death:  Nobody will be compelled to accept vicarious baptism performed on his or her behalf.  The dead, in LDS belief, remain conscious individuals with volition and agency. [Read More...]

“Imagine,” in Paris after the attacks

    The outpouring of grief in Paris has been moving.  Among the memorials has been the playing of piano music near the nightclub where so many innocent people were massacred.   I wasn’t so thrilled, though, about the selection of John Lennon’s “Imagine” for one of the memorial performances.   I wrote this column [Read More...]

“The Pumpkin”

    We’re past Halloween, of course, but this piece (“The Pumpkin”) by the American Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) is directly relevant to Thanksgiving and to the time of harvest.  Please enjoy it:   Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun, The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run, [Read More...]

Thoughts for Thanksgiving (1)

    Here’s the text of a column that I published in the Deseret News on Thanksgiving Day 2011:   Autumn harvest festivals were and are common across Europe, and, as every American schoolchild once learned, our modern Thanksgiving celebrations descend from a meal shared between Massachusetts Pilgrims and Native Americans in 1621.   It was not [Read More...]

“Who lost the American culture war?”

    An eminent Austrian-American sociologist of religion responds to the question:   http://www.the-american-interest.com/...   Posted from Marbella, Spain    

“The existential crisis behind today’s Islamic violence”

    Joel J. Miller is mounting an interesting theological challenge to Islam.  I’ve already posted a link to his article “Islam is a religion of violence: Or, why abstract theology actually matters,” indicating that I disagreed with him at some crucial points.   Now he’s published “The existential crisis behind today’s Islamic violence”:   [Read More...]

LDS former presidential candidate in Mali narrowly avoids raid by Islamic extremists

    For some reason, I immediately thought of him when I first heard the news.  And now it turns out that he was almost caught in the attack:   http://www.ldsliving.com/LDS-Presiden...   Posted from Marbella, Spain    

“Dark matter dominates in nearby dwarf galaxy”

    Most of the universe is dark matter, which we know only indirectly, by inference.  A small nearby galaxy may rank among the highest of extraterrestrial bodies in its proportion of dark matter:   http://www.caltech.edu/news/dark-matt...   Posted from Marbella, Spain    

“Evangelicals Lag Behind Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses on Church Involvement”

    If, as I do, you spend a lot of time reading comments from apostates, cynics, and bitter enemies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you might be inclined to believe their enthusiastic and hopeful declarations that the Church is in steep decline — indeed, virtually on its death bed.   [Read More...]