Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1160

On taking the status quo for granted

    “When will we realize that the fact that we can become accustomed to anything, however disgusting at first, makes it necessary to examine carefully everything we have become accustomed to?” George Bernard Shaw    

New Testament 80

    Luke 6:27-36 Compare Matthew 5:38-48   The differences between the Matthean text (the Sermon on the Mount) and the Lukan text (the Sermon on the Plain) are considerable at this point; each includes material that the other doesn’t.   I’ll concentrate on just one comparison here, though:   Whereas Matthew 5:48, much beloved of [Read More...]

“Protestant and Catholic Mormons”

    I’ve often made similar points, so, of course, I admire and approve of this little article by Jim Faulconer:   http://www.patheos.com//Mormon/Protes...    

“Episcopagans”

    A fascinating case, albeit a really sad one:   http://spectator.org/articles/61791/e...      

Support marriage, fight poverty?

    Here’s an interesting little article on the American retreat from marriage and the effect of that retreat on poverty and childhood problems:   http://www.heritage.org/research/comm...   As an addendum, I note that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is often derided for its emphasis on strengthening marriage and families, as well as [Read More...]

“Five Middle East Blunders”

    The inimitable Victor Davis Hanson, on the sadly inimitable administration of Barack Obama:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article...    

Mistakes and science

    An anonymous comment about science caught my interest a few minutes ago:   Science: If you don’t make mistakes, you’re doing it wrong. If you don’t correct those mistakes, you’re doing it really wrong. If you can’t accept that you are mistaken, you are not doing it at all.    

“An honest religious thinker”

    An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker. It almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value (1948), 73

“Reasons to Believe”

    I’m interested in people and organizations who examine the intersections and collisions between religious belief and contemporary science.   Here’s one such group, this one Evangelical Protestant in orientation:   http://www.reasons.org   I don’t always agree with them, but I generally find them interesting and often helpful.    

New Testament 77

      Luke 6:17-20 Compare Matthew 4:24-5:2; Mark 3:7-13   There is an obvious version of the Sermon on the Mount given in Luke.  It’s often called “The Sermon on the Plain.”   Is Luke giving a variant account of the incident in Matthew?   Maybe.   I think it entirely plausible, though, and not [Read More...]