Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1078

“Belief in God Really Does Make You Feel Better, Study Suggests”

    It may be that some of my critics have an excuse for perpetually being so very grumpy:   http://nypost.com/2015/08/10/belief-i...   It’s almost enough to make me feel sorry for them.   Almost.   Posted from Erfurt, Germany    

“How Will the Two New Apostles Be Chosen?”

    It’s very likely that two new members will be added to the Council of the Twelve at general conference in October, if not before.   Will they be chosen by their skin color?   By their place of origin?  By their palatability to feminists and/or theological leftists?  By their capacity to represent some [Read More...]

“195 Retired Generals, Admirals Tell Congress to Reject Iran Deal”

    http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/n...#   Posted from Erfurt, Germany  

“Debate about science standards pits faithful Mormon against faithful Mormon”

    An unfortunate mess:   http://www.sltrib.com/news/2615369-15...   Just so my own position is clear:  I believe that schools ought to teach the best and most current science that they can teach.   Not to do so will be to put our students at a terrible disadvantage and to embarrass ourselves.  Among other bad things. [Read More...]

“Humankind’s existentially lucky numbers”

    You don’t have to be a theist to notice the strikingly precise numbers that make our existence possible.  This author, for example, supplies no indications that he’s a believer:   http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/23/sci...   But the numbers are indeed remarkable.   And, unless one simply wants to throw one’s hands up in resignation and remain [Read More...]

The impossible and the possible

    “Certainly all historical experience confirms the truth — that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible.” Max Weber, illustrious German social theorist (arguably the founder of sociology), born in Erfurt in 1864)   Posted from Erfurt, Germany

Two items about that thwarted attack on a French train

    The first is by Dr. Charles C. W. Cooke:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article...   It makes a very important point.   As does the second, by Mona Charen:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article...   Her ringing defense of . . . well, manliness won’t be well received in certain quarters.  Those quarters may, in the present circumstances, be [Read More...]

“What Two Religions Tell Us About the Modern Dating Crisis”

    One of those two religions is Mormonism:   http://time.com/dateonomics/   The article is a tad bit long, but it’s very thought-provoking.   What do you think?  Does this ring true to you?   Thanks to Ryan Campbell for bringing this article from Time to my notice.   Posted from Erfurt, Germany    

Medieval Christian polygamy, sanctioned by the Pope?

    All the way back in the 1990s, I wrote a few lines in the book Offenders for a Word about Christian polygamy:   The sixth century Arab Christian kings of Lakhm and Ghassan were polygamists, for instance, as were the contemporary Christians of Ethiopia. Pope Clement VII, faced with the threat of a continent-dividing [Read More...]

A report from the conference’s second full day

      One of the sessions that we attended today focused on “Authority in Islam.”   I was most interested in a paper by Johannes Rosenbaum, a young German scholar who recently finished his doctoral dissertation. He focused on contemporary Muslim “advice manuals” from South Asia (essentially India/Pakistan)—written by Islamic clerics but also, sometimes, [Read More...]