Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 285

“Rethinking Alma 36,” and remembering Clayton Christensen

    I’m saddened to learn of the passing of Clayton Christensen:   “Clayton Christensen, guru of disruptive innovation and Latter-day Saint leader, dies at 67: Apple’s Steve Jobs, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Netflix’s Reed Hastings and Intel’s Andy Grove looked to influential management thinker”   “Clark Gilbert: How will you measure your life? A tribute to […]

How I stopped being addicted to political news

    For almost all of my life, I’ve been a news addict.  Whenever I was putting on a shirt or tying my shoes, the television was on, tuned to an all-news channel.  First, when it was essentially the only game in town, to CNN.  Later, to Fox.   One of the things that I […]

Ice Cream, Babies, and the Pre-Mortal World

    I came across this item earlier this morning, from CNN:   “Baby eats ice cream for first time. See reaction that went viral.”   It immediately reminded me of an experience from many years ago with my firstborn son.  And when I showed it to my wife, she instantly thought of exactly the […]

“An account of real people and real events”

    On Tuesday (21 January 2020), I posted a blog entry entitled “Moving with Royal Skousen toward a fictional Book of Mormon?”  The following day, I received a response from Dr. Skousen that read, in relevant part, as follows.  I post it here with his permission:   Your write-up does represent my view. The […]

Life may have started earlier on Earth than previously thought.

    Notes from Erik Klemetti, “Early Start for Our First Continents,” Discover 41/1 (January/February 2020): 82-83:   We may well be alive because of the existence, on our planet, of continents.  Among our solar system’s rocky planets (that is to say, not on gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn) only Earth has masses of less-dense […]

“Journey of Faith: The Old World” — Lehi and Nephi in Arabia

    Many of you, I suspect, will have never seen it.  Perhaps you’ve never even heard of it.  Some of you will have seen it long ago but forgotten about it.   However, as we move into this Church adult curriculum year that’s focused on the Book of Mormon, and particularly as more of […]

“The morning breaks, the shadows flee”

    Newly posted today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:   Teachings and Testimony of the First Vision In the Sacred Grove with Prophets Part Four of a Series Compiled by Dennis B. Horne Following are accounts by General Authorities of choice experiences they have had in the grove of trees where Joseph Smith […]

Racism and East Jerusalem’s Vienna Hotel

    A few days ago, I posted a rather lighthearted reminiscence of my first stay in the Middle East, way back in the first half of 1978.  (See “A couple of songs from my first residence in the Middle East.”)   For approximately the first half of that BYU Study Abroad program, we lodged […]

Moving with Royal Skousen toward a fictional Book of Mormon?

    I have a message board that I watch in order to keep my finger on the pulse of a certain curious variety of critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — most of them (from what I can see) disaffected, atheistic former believers.  Periodically, they emit outbursts of joy and […]

Understanding Evolution, and Earthquakes

    Science & Mormonism Series 1: Cosmos, Earth, and Man Understanding Evolution: An LDS Scientific Perspective Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article by Steven L. Peck originally appeared in Science & Mormonism Series 1: Cosmos, Earth, and Man (2016). Abstract: Steven Peck, a BYU Professor of Biology, takes it as “axiomatic that evolution in its […]