Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1222

Thursday in Laie

      My wife and I attended a session in the Laie Hawaii Temple Thursday morning, where we had a wonderful time.  As residents of Utah Valley, which is still fairly monochrome, we enjoyed being surrounded very largely by people of Polynesian and Asian background in the Temple; it was a visible reminder of the [Read More...]

Is there “an atheistic literary style”?

    A provocative thought from a provocative thinker:   “An interesting essay might be written on the possession of an atheistic literary style. There is such a thing. The mark of it is that wherever anything is named or described, such words are chosen as suggest that the thing has not got a soul [Read More...]

“They were dead — but they were all . . . so happy!”

    Today’s weekly column in the Deseret News:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...   Posted from Ko Olina, Oahu, Hawaii    

2 Nephi 16

    Today’s reading, 2 Nephi 16 (= Isaiah 6), recounts the prophetic call of Isaiah.   His awestruck, even terrified, reaction to his vision is noteworthy.  He fears that he’s going to die, but, having undergone a supernatural purification, he survives.   However, what’s really remarkable about the chapter is the simple but plain fact [Read More...]

“Which Way Do You Face?”

    A dispatch from Samoa:   http://samoamission.blogspot.com/2014...   Posted from Ko Olina, Oahu, Hawaii    

A familiar story, told in Hawaiian?

    Continuing my look at old Hawaiian stories — which began here and has since gone here and here — I cite a fascinating sentence from the same essay by C. M. Hyde:   The Hawaiian legend states that the oldest son of Kumuhonua, the first man, was called Laka, and that the next was called Ahu, and [Read More...]

“The Diversity of Islam”

    Nicholas Kristof makes a vitally important point in this column, which was kindly brought to my attention by Jabra Ghneim:   http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/opi...   And I would add — because I don’t think (though I may be wrong) that Kristof mentioned this — that, yes, the Islamic State is Islamic.  But so are the [Read More...]

Is Christianity evil?

    “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” – G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong With the World (1910)

Even Jimmy Carter is now criticizing Barack Obama’s foreign policy.

      Oh man.  You know it’s getting bad when you’re a Democratic president and Jimmy Carter is publicly slamming you:   http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decod...   Posted from Ko Olina, Oahu, Hawaii    

A Hawaiian “war in heaven”?

    Continuing my little series of brief entries on Hawaiian myths — see here and here for earlier posts — it is said in the story of the origin of the primordial human couple, Kumuhonua and Wela-ahi-lani, that, at the same time the gods created the stars, they also created a multitude of angels or spirits [Read More...]