Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 886

“Power of one: BYU grad hopes to help solve big problem in refugee camps”

    Have you wondered what you might do to help refugees, to rise to the challenge of the “I was a stranger” effort recently announced by the Church?   Do you live in Parowan, or in Bountiful, or even in deepest Orem, where no such refugees are to be seen?   Do you think “I’m [Read More...]

Today in Amman

    The formal tour doesn’t start until tonight, Jordan time.  But most of our people are already here, so we joined together for a relatively brief city tour.   We drove through several of the districts of the city, which has changed dramatically since I first visited it in 1978.  (For one thing, the [Read More...]

Did you ever play a game called “Marco Polo”? Here’s another one.

    I don’t deny for a moment that there are major problems in the Islamic world today, and that a great deal of evil has been and is being committed by Muslims in the name of Islam.   I don’t appreciate being told, as I routinely am in emails and elsewhere, that I’m whitewashing [Read More...]

“Evidence of Jesus Christ’s resurrection”

    Some confidently assume that the story of Jesus’s rising from the dead is simply a tall tale, a legend that grew up over generations, becoming “bigger” with each telling.   Aren’t the gospels, after all, much later compilations?   Maybe.  But very possibly not.   In any case, such views tend to ignore the [Read More...]

Four quotations from the late great King Hussein I of Jordan

    For our part, we shall continue to work for the new dawn when all the Children of Abraham and their descendants are living together in the birthplace of their three great monotheistic religions, a life free from fear, a life free from want – a life in peace.   Let me say this [Read More...]

Back in the Middle East!

    We took Delta’s inaugural flight from Salt Lake City to London, so there was a party at the Salt Lake airport gate, with a spread of refreshments and several television cameras capturing the moment.   In London, owing probably to fatigue, I adjusted my watch incorrectly and we nearly missed our next flight. [Read More...]

“Rome’s Trevi Fountain to turn red for new Christian martyrs”

    No doubt some of you have been there.  So you know what the area looks like.   This will be a very visually impressive statement.  I hope it will have some effect in the real-world, though, beyond the merely symbolic.   Rome’s Trevi fountain to turn red for new Christian martyrs   Posted [Read More...]

Max Planck, on matter and mind

    “As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings [Read More...]

“Apostles became fearless preachers”

    In this Deseret News column of a few years back, I pointed to one of several strong strands of evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/70...   These columns are very short.  I always turn them in at between 736 and 739 words in length.  So, yes, much more could [Read More...]

On Utah and a pornographic “health crisis”

    Utah has caught quite a bit of flak for declaring pornography a public health problem.  And a huge amount of mockery.  Mormons are, of course, retrograde and fanatical religious prudes, wacky loons who hate their bodies and fear fun, etc.   Here, though, is some support for the state’s position:   https://www.washingtonpost.com/postev...   [Read More...]