Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1049

“Reducing our own pain is also reducing empathy for pain in others”

    Wow.  Without intending to do it, of course, this article actually provokes some theological reflections in me:   https://medienportal.univie.ac.at/pre...   I need to learn more about the study upon which it’s based, but it seems to me to have some potential bearing upon the purpose of our entire learning experience here in mortality. [Read More...]

Too old to turn your life around?

    “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”  (George Eliot)   Posted from New York City    

The Three New Apostles

    It seems that the Lord doesn’t take dictation from newspaper commentators, bloggers, and academics, nor even from political correctness and ethnic quotas.   I’m especially delighted with the appointment of Elder Stevenson, whom I knew slightly before his call as a General Authority and even as a mission president in Nagoya, Japan — where [Read More...]

Real-World Tragedy, Excellent Food, and Musical Theater

    We spent the bulk of yesterday (Friday) at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at “Ground Zero,” where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center once stood.  (The Pope was there at the Memorial and Museum about a week ago.)   At first, I found it interesting, and, of course, more [Read More...]

A 23 August 1967 letter from Hugh Nibley to Sterling McMurrin

    Kevin Taylor reminds me of this wonderful letter from Hugh Nibley to Sterling McMurrin, a philosophy professor at the University of Utah and an old sparring partner of Professor Nibley’s whose religious views could be described as, at most, non-orthodox Mormon — or, perhaps more accurately, as agnostic:   https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S...   Posted from New [Read More...]

Russia enters the vacuum in Syria and takes on the Islamic State

    The Islamic State is now being hammered by both Iran and Russia, as the realities of power in the Middle East shift dramatically:   http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/10/...   Posted from New York City  

More on the price paid by Joseph Smith’s family for their support of him

    Opposition to the Smith family, well beyond opposition to Joseph Smith himself, began early, as friends turned against them. Lucy Mack Smith, with her two sons Hyrum and Samuel, had joined the Presbyterian Church. Some time later, during the printing of the Book of Mormon, a delegation came from their church, intending to persuade [Read More...]

“The Folly of Big Science Awards”

    This is a really stimulating (and brief) article.  It’s not often that one sees criticism of the very idea of such things as the Nobel Prize.  But the author’s case is intriguing and worthy of consideration, though I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for such exalted awards to be abolished:   http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/opi...   And [Read More...]

“The casting of lots in ancient Israel”

    It’s likely that one or more new apostles will be announced this weekend (probably today) at the October general conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.   A look at one ancient method used to fill an apostolic vacancy seemed appropriate, in that light, for this weekend’s Hamblin/Peterson column in [Read More...]

Our desires aren’t too strong, but too weak.

    “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what [Read More...]