Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 849

BOM Alma 31

      Today’s reading, Alma 31, introduces us to the (in)famous Rameumptom, the elevated platform from which the apostate Zoramites would offer up their complacently self-righteous weekly prayer.   Here are some interesting thoughts, from the Book of Mormon Onomasticon Project that was once associated with FARMS or the Maxwell Institute, on the etymology [Read More...]

“Nephi’s Change of Heart”

    It being Friday, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture has published a new article today:   Nephi’s Change of Heart   We hope that you’ll find it interesting and enjoyable!   Posted from Göteborg, Sweden    

“Joseph Smith apparently was not Josephine Lyons’ father, Mormon History Association speaker says”

    I don’t think that I’ve mentioned this item before:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...   I think it significant, given the image that some have come to believe (and to advocate) of Joseph Smith as a debauched sex-addict, that it’s been so very hard, to this point, to find many descendants from him.   Surely there [Read More...]

Mormons as hate-filled accomplices to mass murder?

      Yesterday, I mentioned the anger that some are expressing at the “fact” that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has issued no statement regretting the massacre in Orlando or expressing its condolences:     “I guess that righteous indignation is a lot more satisfying than using Google is”     [Read More...]

Thinking of Dag Hammarskjöld

    Probably few people today remember or think about Dag Hammarskjöld.  In his time, though, and for some years after his death in a mysterious plane crash in what is now Zambia, on 18 September 1961 — while he was engaged in a mission to end a conflict there — he was a major [Read More...]

The value of knowledge

    “The stubborn critic would say: ‘What is the benefit of these sciences?’ He does not know the virtue that distinguishes mankind from all the animals: it is knowledge, in general, which is pursued solely by man, and which is pursued for the sake of knowledge itself, because its acquisition is truly delightful, and [Read More...]

“‘Joseph Smith or the Sword’?”

    My Deseret News column for today is up.  I’m just slow to acknowledge the fact:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...   Posted from Uppsala, Sweden    

I guess that righteous indignation is a lot more satisfying than using Google is.

    I check in fairly regularly on a couple of ex-Mormon hate sites in order to be aware of what’s agitating the hive.   A popular new topic on one of them is angry disgust at the failure of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to issue any kind of statement of regret or comfort [Read More...]

On the second anniversary of her death

    As I’ve explained, I maintain a blog for many reasons.   One of them is purely personal:  It’s a kind of journal for me, and, even more particularly, it’s a way of remembering things, and especially of remembering people, whose memory I refuse to allow to be wholly lost.   So, for instance, [Read More...]

Our Swedish apostle

    Although he was born in Salt Lake City, where he received both his bachelor’s and medical degrees (before doing further work in cardiology at Johns Hopkins), Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Council of the Twelve is, in important ways, Swedish.  (His full name, by the way, is Dale Gunnar Renlund.)   His [Read More...]