Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 861

NPR: “How Utah’s Compromise Could Serve as a Model for Other States”

    There are quite a number out there (in the media and in other places) who seem to enjoy portraying Latter-day Saints as bigots and hateful religious fanatics.   The evidence doesn’t support that portrayal.   Here’s an example of actual reality:   http://www.npr.org/2016/06/01/4802473...      

BOM Alma 16

    Once again, today’s reading — Alma 16 — is simple and straightforward.  And yet it’s also dramatic.   The people of Ammonihah, who boasted of their strength and claimed that their city was too powerful to be destroyed, were in fact annihilated and their city left not only a ruin but a byword. [Read More...]

“Historical-Critical Scholar Doubts Authorship of Paper He Wrote”

    I owe a debt of gratitude to the inestimable Robert Boylan for calling my attention to this groundbreaking example of rigorous, fearless, no-holds-barred critical scholarship:   Historical-Critical Scholar Doubts Authorship Of Paper He Wrote    

“Solving the Mystery of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot”

    It’s one of the odder phenomena in our solar system, and we may begin to learn much, much more about it this very month:   http://www.theatlantic.com/science/ar...    

Pluralism and Civil Society

    Two very good essays released by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:   Civil Society: The Art of Human Connection   Civil Society: Engaging the Differences Among Us   A third article — third of three in this series — is slated to appear on 8 June 2016.   I wrote [Read More...]

“The Iron Rod: Inspired by an Aqueduct in Rochester?”

    The remarkable Jeff Lindsay continues with his devastation of a newly proposed modern source for part of Lehi’s dream in the Book of Mormon:   http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2016/05...      

“To vote for Trump?”

    Ramesh Ponnuru has published a thoughtful piece on the options facing conservatives in this disheartening election year:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article...   I’ve signed the #NeverTrump pledge, and there is virtually nothing that the presumptive Republican nominee could possibly do that would make me break it.  (Nor does he seem inclined to try.)  But I [Read More...]

Two items for your calendar in September

    I had lunch yesterday in BYU’s Hinckley Center with some folks from the Wheatley Institution — which, along with the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, I regard as one of the most interesting centers or institutes currently operating on the campus of Brigham Young University.   We were discussing a conference, [Read More...]

“A practical way to remember the departed”

    My Deseret News column for this week is now up:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...   It was inspired by Memorial Day, and by thinking of the hundreds of millions of people who have gone on before.    

“Citizen Khan”

    A somewhat longish but genuinely remarkable story in the New Yorker by a winner of the Pulitzer Prize:   http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...   Wyoming, murder, vendors of tamales, anti-Muslim bigotry, successful stock market investing, ballet — it’s all there.   I found this piece really astonishing.   I could imagine a great movie coming from [Read More...]