Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 243

The “Acme Universe Making Machine”

    David Wilkinson, God, Time and Stephen Hawking: An Exploration into Origins (London and Grand Rapids: Monarch Books, 2001), is discussing the question of what we mean by cosmic fine tuning:   Second, why is it that the universe is so near the critical rate of expansion?  To see what this means imagine you […]

If there is fine-tuning, does that imply a fine-tuner?

    According to David Wilkinson, God, Time and Stephen Hawking: An Exploration into Origins (London and Grand Rapids: Monarch Books, 2001), a “major unanswered question for the Big Bang model is how does the universe come to be so finely tuned in so many respects.  What do we mean by this?” (89).  Wilkinson is both […]

“Answering the Critics in 44 Rebuttal Points”

    It’s Friday noon, Utah time!  So, as has happened hundreds of times before, a new article has gone up in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship.   This one is by Brian D. Stubbs:   “Answering the Critics in 44 Rebuttal Points” Abstract: After publishing several articles in peer-reviewed journals, […]

“What do you pray for when you’re at war?”

    I was away from my computer much of yesterday (Thursday) and, anyway, I seldom think about what day of the week it is during these undifferentiated weeks of pandemic-induced social distancing.  So I failed to note that a new installment of my bi-weekly Deseret News column went up yesterday morning:   “What do […]

A note on race and ethnicity in the scriptures

    Back on 23 June 2011, nearly a decade ago now, I published the following article in the Deseret News.  I share it here again because I think it may have some relevance to our nation’s current woes:   For many years, I regarded Helaman 13:5-6 as an example of bad, repetitious prose in […]

The value of “wonder”

    The resident atheist commenter on my blog sometimes likes to point out that many of my science-related entries fall into the “gee whiz!” mode.  I think he overstates his claim considerably, but some of my blog entries are definitely intended either to express wonder or to evoke or inspire it.  And I don’t […]

About this coming 3 November

    For the first time, I’m leaning strongly to the view that Mr. Donald J. Trump will likely lose the presidency in November.   Does this please me?   Yes.  I’ve always thought that he is morally, temperamentally, and intellectually unfit for the job.   And no.  I’m not at all happy about the […]

Uto-Aztecan languages and a very eccentric Interpreter donor

    Brian Stubbs is a Latter-day Saint who specializes in the linguistics and particularly the vocabulary of the Uto-Aztecan family of Amerindian languages — a family that, as I understand it, includes such tongues as Shoshoni, Comanche, Hopi, Paiute, Nahuatl, and Tarahumara.  He also has advanced graduate training in Semitic languages.  Notably, he is […]

The Latest from the Interpreter Foundation (Part Two)

    Here are four more items that have recently appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:   Interpreter Radio Show — May 31, 2020 The 31 May 2020 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show featured Martin Tanner and Daniel C. Peterson. In the first hour of the episode, they interviewed Dr. Stanford Carmack by […]

The Latest from the Interpreter Foundation (Part One)

    The Interpreter Foundation continues to make useful and interesting materials available in a variety of formats and media for students of the scriptures and doctrines of the Restoration — usually for free, sometimes at cost.  Here are three of the latest examples:   “Standing in the Holy Place: Ancient and Modern Reverberations of […]