Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 792

A final note on my recent visit to Norway

    I didn’t really finish my entries from Norway, because I ran into both time constraints and, out in the countryside, limited internet access.     But I did want to record what always thrills me most about my trips to Norway, when I can get to it.  (I’ve now been there five times, I think.) [Read More...]

LDS Charities

    Inevitably, critics of everything Mormon are attacking the Church’s Mormon Helping Hands projects.   “Too self-promoting,” they say.  “All those icky yellow shirts,” they cry.   Well, here’s an interesting website on some of the Church’s humanitarian undertakings:   https://www.ldscharities.org   “I’ll have nothing to do with such things,” vows one critic.   [Read More...]

“Florida bans one-piece swimsuits”

    An amusing spoof regarding an issue on which I’ve previously posted, here and here.    

“How Could You Have Forgotten Your God?”

    In the 178th scripture roundtable posted by the Interpreter Foundation, Martin Tanner and Bruce Webster discuss Helaman 6-12.   These chapters are the focus of 2016 Gospel Doctrine lesson 34.   Scripture Roundtable 178: Book of Mormon Gospel Doctrine Lesson 34, How Could You Have Forgotten Your God?      

The Atlantic: “Utah is 2016’s Strangest Swing State”

    I’ve said it before and — you knew this was coming — I’ll say it again:  I’ve been enormously proud of my people’s resistance to Caesaro-Trumpism and to Mr. Donald J. Trump himself.   Here’s a really interesting article on the topic:   http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/a...   Thanks to Tyler Moulton for bringing it to [Read More...]

“Locked In”: A Look at Life on American Indian Reservations

    Somebody has finally had the nerve to tell the truth, publicly, about the situation on American Indian reservations:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article...   I’m very far from an authority on the topic, but here are two personal notes:   1.   Soon after I joined the faculty at BYU, I delivered a paper at the [Read More...]

“The Meaning of ‘Mormon’: Responding to a Misinformed Critic”

    The indispensable (and prolific) Robert Boylan addresses an anti-Mormon argument that has been around for many, many generations:   http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.c...   Incidentally, the notion of Joseph Smith (or one of his invisible co-conspirators) consulting a Greek lexicon and finding the Greek synonym for bugbear — a kind of bogeyman or hobgoblin — in order to [Read More...]

“Physicists Go Hunting for Consciousness”

    http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/...   Wish them luck.    

On the 2016 presidential election

    Political discourse has become so rotten that it’s no longer possible to tell the stench of one presidential candidate from the stink of another. P. J. O’Rourke    

“A Sure Foundation”

    Owing to various issues (including, but not limited to, the ordinary chaos of summer), our production of scripture roundtables has been a bit irregular of late.   I apologize for that.   Here, though, is the Interpreter Foundation’s 177th roundtable:   Scripture Roundtable 177: Book of Mormon Gospel Doctrine Lesson 33, A Sure [Read More...]