Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 966

Traces of the earliest stars in the universe may have been found.

    Peering twelve billion years into the past:   http://www.space.com/31597-universe-f...   Even I wasn’t around then.   This is really quite interesting.  It took the universe quite a while to become ready for the appearance of life.  Among other things, the stars had to create the heavy elements first.  The European Southern Observatory may [Read More...]

“Church of England attendance plunges to record low”

    The sad, slow decline of the Church of England continues:   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/relig...    

“The Corruption of Scripture in the Second Century”

    John Gee presented this paper to the first-ever annual FAIR (now FairMormon) conference, back in 1999:   http://www.fairmormon.org/perspective...    

“How to Find Honest Stories about Muslims”

    I’m more pleased than I can say about this effort, which (even better!) comes out of BYU-Idaho:   http://lds.net/blog/life/latter-day-s...   (As I was writing this up, I received a note from Rodney Ross alerting me to it.  Thanks to all those who bring interesting items to my attention.)    

Eat locally? Sure. If you don’t mind starving to death.

    Sustainable, local, small-scale agriculture (e.g., in urban gardens) is a big fashionable deal in restaurants and organic markets and conversations in certain places (e.g., in the Pacific Northwest, certain coastal areas of California, and so forth).   But is it feasible as a way of feeding large numbers of people?   No.   [Read More...]

A wonderful and inspiring funeral

    We had the privilege of attending a very good funeral today — yes, a funeral can be “good,” in a way — for our dear friend Robert Cundick.   A grandson read the family-written obituary, which I commend to anybody who might be interested:   http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dese...   The music, as you might have [Read More...]

BOM 1 Nephi 19

    Two important principles of scriptural interpretation are clearly stated or implied in today’s reading, 1 Nephi 19:   1.   As plainly shown in 1 Nephi 19:6, Nephi claims no infallibility for himself and no inerrancy for his writing.  Nor does the Book of Mormon claim inerrancy for itself.  Indeed, quite the contrary:  “And [Read More...]

Proof in religion?

    Proof is only applicable to very rarefied areas of philosophy and mathematics. . . .  For the most part we are driven to acting on good evidence, without the luxury of proof.  There is good evidence of the link between cause and effect.  There is good evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow. [Read More...]

“‘A Fountain of Pure Water’: Lake Atitlán”

    I’ve only been there once — and that was a fairly long time ago now — but it is, indeed, a wonderful place:   http://www.studioetquoquefide.com/201...

“Faking Data for a Good Cause”

    And here, based on my image among certain critics, I thought this article was going to be about me.   Disappointing.   Still, even though it’s actually not about me, what it describes is pretty impressive.   http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/...