Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 964

Jordan and Israel at the end of April

    You can be saved without going to the Holy Land.  But you’ll learn a lot if you go.  And you can read the scriptures without visiting Israel.  But you’ll read them differently if you’ve been there.   I’m going.  At the end of April.   Would you like to come along?   http://www.cruiselady.com/tours/?snam... [Read More...]

“The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph Smith: Defending the Faith”

    The prominent Mormon philosopher David Paulsen delivered these remarks at the 2004 FairMormon conference.  (The organization was called “FAIR” in those days.)   http://www.fairmormon.org/perspective...    

“The Long Road to Harvard”

    It’s marred a bit by several small mechanical errors, and there are a few points where I disagree, but this brief article by the prominent Austro-American sociologist of religion Peter Berger offers an interesting, useful, and very clear survey of the intellectual/cultural history of American Evangelicalism over the past century or so:   http://www.the-american-interest.com/... [Read More...]

A principal cause of the loss of religious faith

    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)  

A dramatic step toward schism in the Anglican communion

    Or, at least, that’s how it seems to me from developments such as this:   http://www.anglican.ink/article/prima...   The “Anglican communion” includes a number of national churches — Henry VIII, of blessed memory, pioneered the idea of autonomous national churches for well-known reasons of his own — under the leadership, more or less, of [Read More...]

“What If History’s Brightest Supernova Exploded in Earth’s Backyard?”

    A thought experiment:   http://www.theatlantic.com/science/ar...    

Pleasant conversation about a very important topic

    In company with at least two journalists, a group of LDS-focused bloggers from various points along the Mormon ideological spectrum met this morning up at the corporate headquarters of Deseret Book Company to talk about Patrick Q. Mason’s new book, Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt.   I was at a [Read More...]

BOM 1 Nephi 21

    It’s been a long and busy day, and it’s not over yet.  But I’m determined not to miss an entry.  Not yet, anyway.  (There will eventually be some travel days where it just won’t be possible to post.)  So I’m going to content myself with a very brief note on today’s reading, 1 Nephi 21. [Read More...]

Of intellectuals and “the people”

    “Nothing appeals to intellectuals more than the feeling that they represent ‘the people’.  Nothing, as a rule, is further from the truth.” Paul Johnson    

“Recommended Reading List for Students of the LDS (Mormon) Religion”

    Jeff Lindsay has produced a good list of suggested readings that some of you might find interesting:   http://www.jefflindsay.com/lds/lds-re...