Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 58

Christian California

  I would like to call your attention to a few articles by Latter-day Saint social scientists whom I find consistently interesting and worth reading.  One of them is Stephen Cranney: “How many churches still favor traditional marriage?  Have most American churches accommodated by now the sea change in public attitudes about marriage? Not really” […]

With aroha for all

  According to accounts preserved in Hawaiian mythology, the great gods Kāne (pronounced KAH-nay), Lono, Kū, and (possibly) Kanaloa existed before the creation of the world. In the beginning, according to one tradition, nothing existed except a chaotic blackness called the “Po” (“night”). But Kāne awoke and, realizing that he was distinct from the Po, […]

“We Rejoice in Christ”

  Some of the polymathic scientists and  littérateurs over at the Peterson Obsession Board like to picture me as a gourmand and a foodie who waddles incessantly between high-end multiple-course meals.  That isn’t actually me at all — last night, we had grated cheese on tortilla chips for dinner, whereas the previous two nights had […]

Ignorance is No Defense

  This blog entry is, to a considerable extent, a continuation of the thinking that I began yesterday. Considerable merriment has been occasioned among a handful of merry madcaps over at what I call the Peterson Obsession Board by my repeated invitations to an atheist commenter on my blog (whom we shall call “gemli”) that […]

Fact and Theory and Extraordinary Claims

  An article in The New York Times Magazine for 26 April 1981 entitled “Rosetta Stones from Space” opened as follows: The first recorded meteorite fell in Phrygia in Asia Minor about 2000 B.C. The object was carried to a local temple and then later transported to Rome, where it remained for 500 years before […]

A transient paradise

  Traveling around Hawai’i — we went up and around to Princeville today, and out to the overlook by Kilauea Point Lighthouse — it’s interesting to see evidences of the forces that made its islands and that are now, in most places here, very slowly unmaking them.  As the tectonic plate on which the Hawaiian […]

Jodi Hildebrandt, Ruby Franke, and Mosiah’s Dynasties

  Two new items appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation today: “Prophet or Loss: Mosiah1/Zeniff, Benjamin/Noah, Mosiah2/Limhi and the Emergence of the Almas,” written by Val Larsen Abstract: Mormon’s overwhelmingly dominant rhetorical purpose is to testify of Christ, which he and his protagonists often directly do. But he also communicates his testimony more […]

Light, Fire, Gold, and Death

  Two non-new articles have newly appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation.  I hope that you will enjoy them: Conference Talks:  Adam, Eve, the Book of Moses, and the Temple: The Story of Receiving Christ’s Atonement, was delivered at the Interpreter Foundation’s 2020 “Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses Conference” by […]

Links between heaven and earth

  A friend picked us up at our hotel early this evening and took us out to the grounds of the Sydney Australia Temple in Carlingford.  I presented a fireside there on the witnesses to the Book of Mormon.  It was good to friends here again.  We’ve just returned. I share some notes from my […]

“Parting is such sweet sorrow”

  Well, our cruise ended this morning where it first began.  We disembarked from our ship, the Ovation of the Seas, and made our way to our hotel in Sydney.  Our group had said their goodbyes last night.  Most of them are over the Pacific Ocean by now.  The Australians who were among us are […]