Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1038

Faith and its reward

    “Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” St. Augustine (d. AD 430)    

“First lesbian bishop orders church crosses replaced with Islamic symbols”

    And no, just to be clear, she’s not a Mormon bishop:   http://www.truthandaction.org/first-l...   Incidentally, let me state for the record that I don’t think that Muslims should hide their symbols or disguise their places of worship, either.  Someone wrote to me a couple of days ago, protesting my supposedly long history of [Read More...]

New Testament 265

    Luke 19:1-10 Compare Matthew 18:11   There are at least two major points to draw from this brief passage:   (1)  The Lord has no hesitation about working with people who are perceived as bad, and neither should we.   (2)  Those who are perceived as bad sometimes aren’t.  Zacchaeus was thought to be [Read More...]

This would be a really, really fun and interesting tour to join

    http://liahonaguidedtours.com/gt15u15...   On Dr. Mark Wright, see here.   Anybody wanna pay my way?    

New Testament 264

    Matthew 20:29-34 Mark 10:46-52 Luke 18:35-43 Compare Matthew 9:27-31; Luke 18:31-34   Left to itself, humanity is blind.  So, no matter how much the crowd mocks and derides us (see 1 Nephi 8:26-28 and 1 Nephi 11:35-36), we should all implore the Lord to touch our eyes, so that we can see.  And then, [Read More...]

“Church participates in global interfaith gathering in Salt Lake City”

    http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article...   I participated on a panel there yesterday afternoon.  I think it went pretty well.  At least, nobody threw anything and the questions weren’t insulting.    

“What Did the Sky Look Like When the Earth First Formed?”

    An interesting question and an interesting answer:   https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang...    

New Testament 263

    Matthew 20:20-28 Mark 10:35-45 Compare Matthew 23:11; Mark 9:35; Luke 9:48; 12:50; 22:24-27; John 13:4-5, 12-17   It’s oddly comforting to learn that even the apostles James and John were very human, flawed like the rest of us.  That offers hope that we, too, can be saved.   What’s also significant here, though, [Read More...]

Pretty predictably, “ABC’s ‘Quantico’ gets the Mormons all wrong”

    Quite by chance, I actually caught a few minutes of the first episode of Quantico, in re-run.  I saw what happened to the Mormon character, though I wasn’t quite as irritated by it as advance notice had suggested that I, as a Mormon, might be.  (I mean, I don’t think it’s altogether impossible that a [Read More...]

There may be a scientific cure for your appalling religious and political beliefs!

    Do you worry about illegal immigration and porous borders?  Do you believe in God?   For centuries, people have had to suffer under such ghastly burdens.  But there’s good news!  A medical cure may be on the horizon!   “Scientists claim zapping brains with magnets can treat belief in God”   This article, [Read More...]