Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 970

“The Ancient Temple: An LDS Perspective”

    I would like to call people’s attention to a Facebook group called The Ancient Temple: An LDS Perspective:   https://www.facebook.com/groups/55205...   More than a few folks out there, I think, might find it of interest.    

“Never Enough Abortions in California”

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/...   It’s a matter of priorities, I suppose.  The free speech of anti-abortionist activists is less important than the holy sacrament of abortion.    

“BYU-Utah cancellation is about more than a punch”

    You might have gotten the impression from my blog that I don’t really care all that much about sports.  After all, I seldom write anything on the topic.   You wouldn’t be far wrong, actually.  I don’t care much.   Oh, I like certain teams to win.  I’m happy, for instance, when I [Read More...]

“Early Christian and Jewish Rituals Related to Temple Practices”

    In 1999, my friend and long-time colleague at the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), John A. Tvedtnes, presented this interesting paper at the first annual conference of what was then called the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR), which was held in northern California:   http://www.fairmormon.org/perspective...    

“When should we be afraid of the future?”

    Taylor Halverson offers some calming and reassuring words in the Deseret News:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...    

Hillary Clinton will speak for downtrodden women!

    One of Hillary Clinton’s principal if implicit appeals to voters is that, because she’ll be the first female president, she’ll be a representative and a voice for women.   The trouble is, she’s a terrible representative for American women.   Does anybody seriously believe, for one thing, that she would have been a [Read More...]

A note on the “horses” in the Book of Mormon

    The proposal offered by some LDS scholars that the Book of Mormon’s “horses” might have been some other animal — perhaps Baird’s tapir — that the Nephites called “horses” because, although unfamiliar, they saw them as, in some salient way, “horse-like” can be counted upon to draw raucous derision from a certain species [Read More...]

“How you manage your emails may be bad for your health”

    This certainly strikes a chord with me:   http://www.bps.org.uk/news/how-you-ma...   Necessarily, given what I do, I spend a large part of my typical day on the computer, and it often seems that the priorities — or even the whims — of others take precedence over my urgent priorities.   In olden days, there was the [Read More...]

“A musical, religious, and historical treasure”

    The latest installment of the biweekly Saturday Hamblin/Peterson columns for the Deseret News is up:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...    

Starvation in a Syrian Town

    I frequently see and hear statements to the effect, “Let’s just leave the Middle East to itself.”  “Let the Arabs deal with their own problems.”   And I get it.  I understand the frustration, the exasperation at a region that seems lethally self-destructive, that often seems not even to want peace.  The anger [Read More...]