Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 199

Revision 6.14 “Denial”

    But, sadly, this understandable desire to get the attention of the West is frequently joined with an unwillingness on the part of some Near Eastern­ers to take responsibility for the flaws of their own native area. The fact of Western dominance is exaggerated to the point of hallucina­tion. It overwhelms them, much as […]

“Tocqueville on New Prophets and the Tyranny of Public Opinion”

    A new article has appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship.  This one is by Professor Louis C. Midgley:   “Tocqueville on New Prophets and the Tyranny of Public Opinion” Abstract: Louis Midgley discusses the rise and fall in popularity of Alexis de Toqueville’s unrivaled volumes entitled Democracy in America and the […]

“I cheerfully certify”

    Below are two passages that I’ve extracted from Ronald E. Romig, Eighth Witness: The Biography of John Whitmer (Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books, 2014):   In 1870 when Elizabeth Ann [Whitmer, who had married Oliver Cowdery] was fifty-five and had been widowed for two decades, William McLellin, one of Joseph’s original apostles, asked […]

“A more beautiful message cannot be conceived. “

    From Thomas Dubay, The Evidential Power of Beauty: Science and Theology Meet (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999):   I have the impression from reading popular literature dealing with the early alleged “cosmic soup”, from which life is supposed to have developed, that the writers and their readers feel that the soup was a random […]

Revision 6.10a “The West achieves dominance” (addendum)

    It’s commonly believed among Muslims that the Qur’an cannot be translated.  Not that there exists some legal prohibition against such translation; renderings of the Qur’an abound in virtually all of the world’s languages, many of them by Muslims and distributed by Muslim publishers.  Rather, the thought is that the task is simply impossible.  […]

“Yes, as material as anything can be.”

    New on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:   “Book of Moses Essays #25: Enoch’s Grand Vision: A Chorus of Weeping (Moses 7:18–49)”   ***   Appendix E of Ronald E. Romig, Eighth Witness: The Biography of John Whitmer (Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books, 2014), 526-527, features the text of an interview conducted in […]

“The Church supports the use of vaccinations”

    This is pleasant news, of course:   “Elder and Sister Gong Successfully Complete Quarantine: The First Presidency and all other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have tested negative for the virus”   I was struck, though, by this line from Elder Gong’s social media comment:  “With continued precautions, for example, […]

Revision 6.13 “Occidentosis”

    Needless to say, Marxism could not deliver on its promises, nor give dissatisfied and humiliated residents of the Near East the dig­nity that they craved.  But what other answer was available? Well, the Islamic answer was there. It had always been there, but now its rivals were discredited. “Why,” devout Muslim thinkers asked, […]

“Anthropic balances should not be dismissed”

    “Can supplements really help fight COVID-19? Here’s what we know and don’t know: There’s little evidence yet, except maybe in people who are deficient in vitamins and minerals”   “Remdesivir doesn’t reduce COVID-19 deaths, a large WHO trial finds: An international study of more than 11,000 people finds that remdesivir doesn’t prevent deaths […]

Revision 6.12 “A quack-medicine cure appears”

    The refusal of the British and of the French to leave their colo­nies in a timely fashion badly discredited the liberal political par­ties that had promised their departure. People lost patience with those parties and with the notions of parliamentary democracy and republicanism that were associated with them and with Western models. After […]