Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 3

A great American thinker on dogmatic scientific orthodoxy

  Posted today on the static, never-changing website of the Interpreter Foundation:  “Seek Ye Words of Wisdom: Paragraphs and Verses in the Scriptures,” written by Kent P. Jackson: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Seek Ye Words of Wisdom: Studies of the Book of Mormon, Bible, and Temple in […]

On dealing with “scum” who’ve entered our country illegally

  For whatever it may be worth, a video recording of my presentation at the recent 2025 FAIR Conference, which was entitled “Brigham Young and Slavery,” is now available for viewing on the FAIR website.  A transcript of the presentation is also available, here.  I haven’t read through the transcript yet, but I expect that […]

Intimations of the divine, from science and from intuition?

  I marked a number of passages during my recent reading of Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, by the New York Times writer Ross Douthat.  (See my 19 June 2025 Meridian Magazine article ““Believe”: A Thoughtful Defense of Religion in a Secular Age.”)  Here is one in which Douthat describes the intuitive sense of […]

A Note on the Miller-Urey Experiment

  This is an interesting piece — and, given that it comes from CNN, it’s a somewhat surprising one:  “An atheist began caring for the dying. What he saw changed his view of faith — and the afterlife” While in that vein:  I recently read several comments lionizing the late “James Randi” (1928-2020) — or, […]

Is Utah a safe place or an unsafe one for girls and women?

  The closing talk in our sacrament meeting today was devoted to the subject of “repentance.”  As I looked around at the congregation while the sister was speaking, I was happy that the bishopric had assigned her that subject.  Plainly, they were inspired in doing so: It was instantly obvious to me at a glance […]

Yet Again, Just One More Time, on That “Help Line”

  The information that I’ve reproduced immediately below — drawn from an official release from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — is easily accessible online at “Preventing and Responding to Abuse.”  (“This document summarizes current Church policies and guidelines on abuse. All priesthood and Church organization leaders should be familiar with and […]

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends”

  As today is Friday, a new article was published today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship.  It is “Nameless to New Name: Namelessness in the Narrative of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, or the People of Ammon,” and it was written by Nathan J. Arp Abstract: A narrator may choose to provide or withhold […]

On Child Sexual Abuse and the Church’s “Help Line”

  I want to call the attention of those who might be in the area on that night that I will be giving a fireside in Beaverton, Oregon (i.e., in the greater Portland area), on the evening of Friday, 12 September 2025.  The tentative title is “A Cloud of Witnesses.”  (I’ve been asked to speak […]

Is Our Faith Rooted in “Fear”?

  I just came across the claim online, from an obviously very angry former Latter-day Saint, that people like me obey the leaders of the Church blindly, out of fear, and that we strive to obey God, likewise, out of fear. Now, I know nothing about this guy’s psychology or his personal history.  But I […]

Don’t give up hope, and don’t give up

  The following three items went up today on the never-changing website of the Interpreter Foundation: Nibley Lectures: Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 34 “A Principle with Promise”: Doctrine and Covenants 89–92 “During 1978, 1979, and 1980, Hugh Nibley taught a Doctrine and Covenants Sunday School class. Cassette recordings were made of these […]