Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1043

“The Book of Mormon as brilliant literature”

    A nice article by a former neighbor:   http://ldsmag.com/the-book-of-mormon-...    

“A new chapter in the world’s oldest story”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/w...   Thanks to Jabra Ghneim for bringing this interesting item to my attention.    

“A man filled with the love of God”

    A man filled with the love of God is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race. Joseph Smith, Jr.

“Joseph Smith was known as truthful”

    I published this column in the Deseret News very nearly four years ago:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/70...   I think — especially in view of a private email that I received this evening — that it remains very relevant.    

Two quotations from Muhammad

    “Kindness is a mark of faith, and whoever is not kind has no faith.”     “To overcome evil with good is good, to resist evil by evil is evil.”   It would be nice if some of his self-professed modern followers would pay attention to such statements.    

“Eternity will not suffice”

    “If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one. . . .  Faced with the enormous sum of lucky draws behind the success of the evolutionary game, one may legitimately wonder to what extent this success is [Read More...]

A note on those who denigrate the character of Joseph Smith

    Joseph Smith was controversial. There were and are voices who claim that he was dishonest and destitute of character. But John Taylor, for one, was quite certain about their motivation. “Joseph Smith,” he said, was a virtuous, high-minded, honorable man, a gentleman and a Christian. But he introduced principles which strike at the [Read More...]

“Business Insider”: “Role of blacks in Mormon faith topic of conference”

    http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-rol...    

“Why, why, O Lord, why do you reward me thus?”

    Immediately after the closing session of the 2015 conference of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology early this evening, my wife and I hurtled up to Salt Lake City for the Utah Opera’s very good production of Puccini’s Tosca.   One of the most famous pieces from that opera is the aria [Read More...]

“Corridors of the Night”

    I have a guilty little secret.   And I feel especially embarrassed by it after hearing a very productive scholar, for whose output I have great respect, share the fact that he very seldom reads fiction.   My guilty little secret is that I like murder mysteries.   Very often, my wife and [Read More...]