Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 4

More or less how I got here on this topic

  Last night, my wife and I watched an anime film version of Swan Lake with a very young third-generation unit.  (The name and gender of the third-generation unit have been redacted so as to obscure a potential target, at least partially, from attacks by some of my anonymous detractors.)   I’m not a real […]

Taking Note of Polygamy Denialism

  The Interpreter Foundation held its annual birthday party last night, for the invited volunteers, authors, and donors who were able to attend.  My best estimate is that about 105 people were in attendance.  This is our very modest yearly thank-you, to the extent that we can thank those who make Interpreter work. We began […]

“An Assessment of the Evidence for Psychic Functioning”

  Here’s another Deseret News report from the 2025 FAIR Conference:  “‘This is a woman’s church’: Panel discusses lived experience of Latter-day Saint women: FAIR conference discussion explores how service, ministry and worship lift women” At the conclusion of my blog entry from yesterday, I passed on an invitation from Dr. Paul Smith to the pseudonymous […]

An Invitation to “Physics Guy”

  New in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:  Review of Edward K. Watson, Verifiable Evidence for the Book of Mormon: Proof of a Deliberate Design Within a Dictated-from-Imagination Book (Springville, UT: Brainy Press, 2022). 252 pp.; $32.95 (hardcover). Abstract: Edward K. Watson provides a new twist in the textual evidence for […]

A report from the floor

  The Interpreter Foundation’s Thursday chapter reprint has appeared:  Seek Ye Words of Wisdom: “All Kindreds Shall Be Blessed: Nephite, Jewish, and Christian Interpretations of the Abrahamic Covenant,” written by Noel B. Reynolds: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Seek Ye Words of Wisdom: Studies of the Book of […]

My day began in Logan, Utah

  I spoke this morning to a gathering of Seminary and Institute teachers in Logan, Utah, adjacent to the campus of Utah State University.  My basic subject — it was a somewhat informal presentation — was the Qur’an’s view of the patriarch Abraham, who is the common father of all of the “Abrahamic faiths” (or […]

A Practical Guide to Extrasensory Perception?

  I recently read an interesting book by Paul H. Smith, entitled The Essential Guide to Remote Viewing:The Secret Military Remote Perception Skill Anyone Can Learn (Intentional Press, 2015).  It’s a basic tutorial on, well, remote viewing — which is the alleged ability to perceive information about a distant or unseen target without relying on […]

The Church, Immigration, and Civil Rights

  One of the book-discussion groups to which my wife and I belong is the venerable Gadianton Polysophical Marching and Chowder Society — that’s the authentic official name, although it’s rarely used — which has been meeting monthly since its founding by a group of junior faculty and graduate students adjacent to the University of […]

Hot meals for starving Palestinian children in northern Gaza

  I have worried a great deal about the destruction of Gaza and the great loss of life — of men, women, and children, of both the horrifically guilty and the completely innocent — that is occurring there.  But I have also been disturbed to watch some people ignore or excuse (or even, in some […]

Eighty Years Ago

  I recall my father expressing mild regret on one or two occasions for having failed to accept an invitation to attend officer candidate school in the Army.  He hadn’t intended a military career, and he didn’t want to commit to officer training because he didn’t plan to be in the service for very long. […]