Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 22

Never to Be Forgotten

  I continue my incessant whining about the hit Netflix miniseries American Primeval by calling attention to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune that you may be able to access.  It was published on Sunday, and it’s titled “Commentary: To learn the real lessons of history in ‘American Primeval,’ we need the real story: Reducing […]

“Earth’s crammed with heaven”

  It’s a cold and dreary day today in central Utah, but, for some reason, I’ve been thinking about what many religious believers take to be God’s self-disclosure in the beauties of nature.  So, of course, two favorite poems from Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) come to mind.  The first is “God’s Grandeur”: The world is […]

Just a little more than two years to go!

  You’re probably aware of this:  “The Prophet Announces Salt Lake Temple Open House Celebration Dates: This landmark house of the Lord will reopen for tours from April 2027 to October 2027” Wonderful news.  The open house is still more than two years away, of course, and the rededication will follow it.  But it’s nice to […]

Should Good Friday be a legal holiday in Utah?

  “Utah may join 12 states that recognize Good Friday as a legal holiday: ‘In my personal opinion, the more we reflect on the love of Jesus, the better people we are. Regardless of what the state does, it’s a sacred day for us,’ Father Stephen Tilley said” I’m not absolutely committed to the idea of […]

Bidding Adieu to My Native State

  Important:  The form on the Witnesses Initiative website was inadvertently created in such a way that it prevented people who live outside of the United States from accessing Witnesses and Undaunted.  (They are currently available there for free streaming.)  I’ve received inquiries from Australia and Switzerland seeking such access, and I think that we’ve […]

Hell’s Bells

  Controversy about the proposed McKinney Texas Temple (actually to be located in adjacent Fairview, north northeast of Dallas), appears to be bubbling up again, and critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are, once again, accusing the Church of trying to bully and intimidate a humbly idyllic little community into rolling […]

Believe!

  There’s a new book to which I’m looking forward.  Here are a couple of articles about it: Mariya Manzhos, Deseret News:  “Why everyone should be religious, according to Ross Douthat: In his new book, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat offers a roadmap for thinking your way into religious belief” ““Believe,” which is Douthat’s […]

Finding a Lost Harp

  Several years ago, as I’ve mentioned here before, I read (and was very impressed by) Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer, Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind (2008).  Here’s how the blurb on Amazon.com describes the book: In 1991, when her daughter’s rare, hand-carved harp was stolen, Lisby Mayer’s familiar world […]

Divine Light (with an aside concerning Hollywood darkness)

  Are you aware that you can watch Witnesses and Undaunted, right now, at no charge?  Do you realize that you could do that tonight?  In fact, tonight would be a really good night to watch one or both of them.  Maybe an especially good night, if your team loses the Super Bowl.  Or, alternatively, […]

“Brigham Young and violence”

  Some critics that I observe — most of them specimens of the type of detractor who finds fault, day in and day out, with virtually everything that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does — have derived a great deal of hostile mirth from President Russell M. Nelson’s admonition that we try […]