Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 810

“Professor says he ‘can’t manage to disbelieve’ in the Book of Mormon”

    http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...   That professor, who eagerly embraces fear (for others) and who positively delights in exclusion (the more mean-spirited the better), was presumably apoplectic during this presentation, which was given a bit earlier at the same FairMormon conference, and he probably refuses to speak with the person who gave it:   “LDS scholar [Read More...]

“Islam in Western Cinema, Part 1”

    An interesting survey that promises more to come:   http://www.rogerebert.com/far-flung-c...   I have to admit that I find his very brief summary of Casablanca rather odd.    

“The Pay Gap Myth and Other Lies That Won’t Die”

      http://www.nationalreview.com/article...    

Interesting coverage of the new temple in Philadelphia

    I love the photograph that accompanies this article:   “Amish Visitors Take a Tour of LDS Philadelphia Temple”   An interesting article from the Washington Post:   “A new Mormon temple opens in Philadelphia, offering a glimpse into a secret shrine”   And, finally, a good video including the best images that I’ve seen [Read More...]

Atheism as a religion

    Absolute atheism starts in an act of faith in reverse gear and is a full-blown religious commitment. Here we have the first internal inconsistency of contemporary atheism: it proclaims that all religion must necessarily vanish away, and it is itself a religious phenomenon. Jacques Maritain    

“Five myths about sharia”

    This is a helpful perspective from Professor Asifa Quraishi-Landes of the University of Wisconsin School of Law:   https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...    

If you want to see a truly great presidential campaign ad

    This is it.    

“Plant and animal DNA suggests first Americans took the coastal route”

    Fascinating.  A part of the standard story of the peopling of the Americas with which I grew up seems now to have been falsified:   http://www.nature.com/news/plant-and-...   By the way, I’m fine with the idea of migrations across the Bering Strait.  It doesn’t bother me at all.  And, though I read just a [Read More...]

Hillary Clinton makes a direct and obvious bid for the Utah Mormon vote

    This is fascinating to me:   http://beta.deseretnews.com/article/8...   And you can bet that she wouldn’t have spent much effort on it (or, rather, had some of her supporters do so) if Team Clinton considered a win in Utah impossible.    

Salt Lake City — Rebel Base?

    I’ve observed here previously that, for the first time in decades, an American presidential election will be interesting in Utah.   Here’s a fact that illustrates what I’m saying:   Both Evan McMullin and the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson have their headquarters in Salt Lake City!   I have reservations about Gary Johnson — [Read More...]