Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 924

Three reflections on the other night’s Republican debate

    “Donald Trump: The Post-Truth Candidate”   “Donald Trump is Melting Down”   “Culture Rot: Donald Trump is the Effect, Not the Cause”   And, as a bonus, Ann Palmieri called my attention to this important documentary analysis of the recent debates:   https://www.facebook.com/CarolRosenth...   The level of discourse and discussion has been appalling, [Read More...]

“Teaching our kids about Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon translation”

    Taylor Halverson offers a helpful little piece in the Deseret News:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...   Posted from Monterey, California    

BOM Omni

    Today’s reading, the (again very short) book of Omni, briefly mentions a number of extraordinarily important historical items.   We learn for the first time, for example, about Zarahemla and its people, the Mulekites.  Mosiah becomes the king of a unified Nephite/Mulekite state.  And we hear of the Jaredites, and of their last king, [Read More...]

On depression

    Here is the tragedy: when you are the victim of depression, not only do you feel utterly helpless and abandoned by the world, you also know that very few people can understand, or even begin to believe, that life can be this painful. There is nothing I can think of that is quite [Read More...]

“Ye Shall Be Called the Children of Christ”

    Cassandra Hedelius, Bruce Webster, Martin Tanner, and Craig Foster gathered for this conversation about Mosiah 4-6.  It’s the 160th scripture roundtable posted by the Interpreter Foundation:   Scripture Roundtable 160: Book of Mormon Gospel Doctrine Lesson 16, Ye Shall Be Called the Children of Christ   Posted from Monterey, California    

Mark W. Cannon on “Mormon Scholars Testify”

    I’m pleased to announce a new entry on the Mormon Scholars Testify website, for Dr. Mark W. Cannon:   http://mormonscholarstestify.org/3319...   Posted from Monterey, California  

“Stanford fellow delves into archival materials that shed new light on the early days of Islam”

    Fred Donner is a very well-regarded scholar, and this is interesting:   http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/ma...   Posted from Monterey, California    

“What the media got wrong about Elder Bednar’s comments”

    You’ve probably heard, by now, of the controversy surrounding Elder David A. Bednar’s recent remark, during a question-and-answer session with young people in Chile, that “There are no homosexual members of the Church.”   It was, I think, a response deliberately formulated in order to arrest the attention of his audience and to [Read More...]

Contemplating NGC 4258

    It seems to me that it’s appropriate, on the Sabbath, to consider the sheer grandeur of the cosmos.   O Lord, our Lord,     how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2     Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes,     to [Read More...]

BOM Jarom

    It’s amusing to see Jarom, whose single-chapter book provides today’s reading, indicate that he won’t have much to say because, really, everything that needed to be said has already been said.  (See verse two.)   It seems, though, that a few things did remain to be written, since not only most of the Book of [Read More...]