Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 194

Mormonism, the Trinity, Joseph Smith, Plagiarism, and Adam Clarke #GiveThanks

    An article of mine of which I’m personally quite fond (and which I hope to pursue further and to expand in the future) has just gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:   “Notes on Mormonism and the Trinity” Abstract: With “awe, humility, and circumspection,” Daniel C. Peterson provides a useful […]

“A Fortunate Universe” #GiveThanks

      We should be thankful that we live, that there exist a planet and a cosmos permitting us to think, to love, and to thank.   Here are three science-related newspaper columns that I published in the Deseret News for past American Thanksgiving holidays:   “The miracle of Earth’s atmosphere design and the […]

The Son of God? Or a poached egg? #GiveThanks

    This entry is largely drawn from Douglas Groothuis, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (Downers Grove: IVP and Nottingham: Apollos, 2011), 507-526:   One of the most famous passages in C. S. Lewis’s famous book Mere Christianity presents what has been called his “trilemma.”  It runs as follows:   A man who […]

“Count Your Many Mormons” #GiveThanks

    I have an unannounced program or schedule for my entries on this blog.  For the past few weeks, that program has called for longer posts (except on Tuesdays and Thursdays), but also less frequent ones.  I’ve made this modification for several reasons.  A principal impetus for it was an exchange with some of […]

“Count Your Many Mormons”

    I have an unannounced program or schedule for my entries on this blog.  For the past few weeks, that program has called for longer posts (except on Tuesdays and Thursdays), but also less frequent ones.  I’ve made this modification for several reasons.  A principal impetus for it was an exchange with some of […]

“Did Nero really fiddle while Rome burned?”

      The latest installment of my bi-weekly column for the Deseret News has now been published:   “Did Nero really fiddle while Rome burned? Possibly. But here’s what he did do: Taking a look back at Roman Emperor Nero and the context of history help take a different perspective”   ***   Here […]

Of moral relativism and ethical nihilism

    Many who deny an objective or divine foundation to morality nonetheless assume that evolutionary processes lead naturally, sociobiologically, to something broadly resembling a traditional Judeo-Christian ethic of mutual help, human rights, and cooperation.  Thus, the religious underpinnings that some have thought necessary to morality can be safely dispensed with, as we climb inexorably […]

Did Nietzsche get this one right?

    The year 2020 has been a long slog, and few of us will be terribly sad to see it go.  So I’m hoping that some will benefit from this:   “President Russell M. Nelson Shares a Message of Hope and Healing​” “Global faith leader Russell M. Nelson, President of The Church of Jesus […]

Forgiveness, grace, and cosmic justice

    One reason for hoping that there is a life after death, a better world to come, is the deep human desire for justice.  This can be regarded from at least two different angles.  One is the wish to make things right.  We’re naturally revolted by the thought that the murderer is permitted to write […]

Revision 8.4 A Latter-day Saint Presence in Palestine and the Near East?

    The earliest Latter-day Saint missionaries to the Near East dreamed of a Church presence in the Holy Land, something more than a few scattered elders and something larger than the graves of a few faithful Saints. They envisioned a Latter-day Saint colony in Pales­tine. Ferdinand F. Hintze, the first president of the Turkish […]