Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 885

“‘Allah’ is not pagan term — it means ‘God'”

    As we’ve been traveling in an overwhelmingly Muslim country — our bus driver and the armed tourist policeman assigned to us are both Muslims, as well — I’ve been discussing Islam on the bus.  And this is one of the points I’ve been stressing:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/76...   Posted from Petra, Jordan    

“The holy light of Easter in Jerusalem”

    This Deseret News column, published quite a while ago, isn’t quite appropriate to the season.  But I’ll be passing through Jerusalem tomorrow, most likely, and it’s certainly appropriate to the place:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...   Posted from Petra, Jordan    

Lawrence of Arabia, on dreaming

    All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. T. E. [Read More...]

“Why so many smart people aren’t happy”

    I’m fairly happy.  I guess maybe I shouldn’t admit that, though . . .   http://www.theatlantic.com/business/a...   Posted from Petra, Jordan    

Day Two in the Royal Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

    We were up fairly early this morning and off for a visit to the extensive and impressive ruins of Jerash, which was known anciently as Gerasa (or Γέρασα).  Although the site seems to have been inhabited from prehistoric times, the city as we know it was founded by Alexander the Great, apparently as a kind [Read More...]

“Odd baby names show Mormons are unique . . . just like everybody else”

    I’m proud to say that, this article notwithstanding, my wife and I chose perfectly normal American names for our twelve children:  LaFritz, George Quayle, Pride of Panguitch, VerDonihah, Wasatch Lon, Mahonri Moriankoomer, Bathsheba, Mitt Romney, Ponderize, Deseret Ann, Akish Lynn, and Dieter.   Odd baby names show Mormons are unique . . . just

“‘Parallels’ of prophets not parallel”

    Have you encountered the claim that Jesus is merely a more or less (or even entirely) fictional character who parallels the lives of, among others, such figures as Krishna, Osiris, and similar semi-historical or completely mythical heroes?   It’s really popular in some pop-atheist circles.  And the triumphant form in which I’ve commonly [Read More...]

A major cause of disbelief

    Half of disbelief in God in the world is caused by people who make religion look ugly due to their bad conduct and ignorance. al-Ghazali (d. AD 1111)    

“Did asteroid impacts incubate Mars’ ancient oceans?”

    Did Mars actually have oceans at one time?  If so, was its water brought by asteroids?   http://news.discovery.com/space/did-a...   Although — I’m reliably informed by atheist critics who don’t actually know me — I hate and fear science, I find much of it quite fascinating.  (My two chief interests are astronomy/cosmology and geology.)  Please [Read More...]

National Public Radio: “What it’s like to be a Muslim in Idaho”

    http://www.npr.org/2016/04/24/4754736...   I was in Idaho Falls a few weeks ago for a Mormon/Muslim dialogue.   My Muslim counterpart for that dialogue was a professor at Idaho State University, in Pocatello, Idaho.   I believe that he told me that the majority of the anti-Muslim activity in Pocatello (to the fairly limited extent [Read More...]