Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1125

Real freedom and real slavery

    My, my, my.  Applications for this quotation (in talks on morality, in responses to triumphant apostates, and so forth) are far from difficult to think of.  But, obviously, we shouldn’t only (or even primarily) apply to others.  It can and should also be used for self-examination:   None are more hopelessly enslaved than [Read More...]

Deeply sad about Elder Perry

    It’s public knowledge now that Elder L. Tom Perry of the Council of the Twelve is terminally ill:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article...   I won’t pretend to have been closer to Elder Perry and his wife than I really am.  We weren’t regular companions or close friends.   But my wife and I have come [Read More...]

“The best conference in the world”?

    I’ve never participated in one of these, nor even attended one.  But it does sound very, very good:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article...   In the meantime, of course, I’m quite partial to this conference, closer to home:   http://freedomfest.com   I’ve spoken at it twice before, I think — maybe three times, but don’t think [Read More...]

A nice Berlin graffito

    Somebody has gone about town putting highly literate graffiti on the stones of Berlin — at least along one branch of the River Spree near the Museumsinsel.  There are quotes from Brecht, Yeats, Goethe, and many others.   I like the one above, by an author that I didn’t recognize:  “The people who [Read More...]

Rampant sexism in Berlin? Coupled with a condemnatory look at Amerika

    I learned yesterday that Berliners refer to the Bundeskanzleramt, the office of the chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, as “Angela’s Waschmaschine.”   This is plainly a demeaning and sexist allusion to the gender of the current occupant of that office, Angela Merkel.   And that’s not all.  They call the headquarters [Read More...]

A Thursday in and around Berlin

    We spent some of today simply riding around Berlin on a bus, having a look at the city as a whole.  We passed by such places as “Checkpoint Charlie,” the former headquarters of Hermann Göring’s Luftwaffe, the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, the enormous “Tiergarten,” and so forth.   We paid a visit to the [Read More...]

Do atoms “know” whether or not they’re being observed?

    “My own suspicion,” wrote the British geneticist and evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane (d. 1964), “is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”   “If you think you understand quantum mechanics,” the late Nobel Physics laureate Richard Feynman is said to have quipped, “you don’t [Read More...]

What is most terrible?

    “Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.”  (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)   Posted from Berlin, Germany    

NPR: Brandon Flowers’s Killer Mormon Faith

    An interesting interview on National Public Radio:   http://www.npr.org/2015/05/26/4096719...   Posted from Berlin, Germany    

“Sons of Nones”

    What lesson should we learn from the fact that a record number of Americans, especially among the youth, declare themselves “nones” when asked to what religion they belong?   How should those of us react who don’t feel like celebrating this trend, if it’s real?   Here are some brief reflections on the [Read More...]