Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 780

“BYU Humanities Professor Commended by the Foreign Minister of Japan”

    I’m really pleased to see this richly deserved recognition come to my friend, colleague, former department chair, and former dean, Van Gessel:   https://news.byu.edu/news/byu-humanit...      

“Refuge from the Storm”

    A powerful, powerful video message based upon Elder Patrick Kearon’s remarks at the April 2016 conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:   https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/s...    

“Toward a ‘Better, Richer Understanding’ — Introducing Mormonism Inside and Out”

    A potentially quite worthwhile development at Patheos, the host of my blog:   John Dehlin, a psychologist and a very visible former Latter-day Saint, and Patrick Mason, who holds the Howard W. Hunter Chair in Mormon Studies at California’s Claremont Graduate University, have launched an ongoing “dialogue” here on Patheos:   http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mormonin...   It [Read More...]

Maybe we should retire the insulting term “birdbrain”?

    I find this pretty amazing:   Pigeons Can Distinguish Real Words from Gibberish   But there’s a lot of pretty stunning material coming out about the surprising intelligence of birds.  For example:   “Crows Understand Analogies”   “Crows Have Human-Like Intelligence, Author Says”   “Crows are as intelligent as CHILDREN: Study reveals birds [Read More...]

“Catholic Professor: The Book of Mormon Is a Miraculous Text”

    I was pleased to see this new tribute to our friend Steve Webb:   http://www.ldsliving.com/Catholic-Pro...   I wrote a column about his thinking here and reflected at greater length on his views here, and I paid my own brief, shocked, and inadequate tribute to him here.  (My Interpreter Foundation colleague and friend Jeffrey Mark [Read More...]

Can Hillary Clinton, notorious founder of the “birther” movement, win Utah?

    CNN Politics:  “Clinton supporters look to drive wedge between Utah Mormons, Trump”   EconoTimes:  “Could Clinton Win Utah?”   In other news:   NPR:  “With Donald Trump’s Birther Spin, He’s Crossed A Line”   Quartz:  “‘He’s a racist and a liar’: Seth Meyers thoroughly dismantles Donald Trump and the ‘birther’ conspiracy”   The [Read More...]

“Spelling” as evidence for God

    “We have only to see a few letters of the alphabet spelling our name in the sand to recognize at once the work of an intelligent agent.  How much more likely, then is the existence of an intelligent Creator behind human DNA, the colossal biological database that contains no fewer than 3.5 billion [Read More...]

“Citizens or Subjects”

    A valuable and important distinction between free and unfree societies:   http://www.weeklystandard.com/citizen...   And, of course, among the volunteers in Louisiana were many thousands of Latter-day Saints, who went willingly, of their own volition.    

“Child Killing Center Soon in the Netherlands”

    This is wonderful news!   http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/...   If you’re so minded, while you’re contemplating this glorious development you can listen to Händel’s “Hallelujah Chorus”:      

“Delete It!”

    Somebody alerted me to this a few days ago on Facebook (I think).  To my embarrassment, I can’t recall who it was.  These aren’t exactly the best Hillary and Bill lookalikes that I’ve ever seen, but the music’s not bad:     Just think:   She’s our only realistic hope of denying the [Read More...]