1 month 1 week ago
A new article has just been posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “Premortal Life and Mortal Life: A Fearful Symmetry,” written by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw Abstract: Bodily weakness, along with the varied circumstances into which we were born, provide the essential initial and ongoing conditions that shape the challenges and opportunities of […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 1 week ago
Last night, I was among a group of people who had been invited to a meeting with Elder Clark G. Gilbert, a member of the Seventy, who currently serves as Commissioner of Education for the Church Educational System; Elder Alvin F. Meredith III, who is also a member of the Seventy and who was […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 1 week ago
I occasionally use the expression objective public proof. I’ve recently been asked what I mean by it. Let me take the phrase apart just a bit. “Proof,” as the word is typically used and as I am using it here, is a fact or a piece of information that demonstrates the existence of something […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 1 week ago
The following is basically a close paraphrase or a gloss (for my note-taking purposes) of “A Beginner’s Guide to the ‘Fine-Tuning’ Argument” by Max Baker-Hytch of the University of Oxford. As always with such notes, I make no claim of originality for what follows but share them because, while I’m taking notes for my […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 1 week ago
I think that apologetics, as such, is inevitable. Stripped of specifically religious elements, it’s merely the defense of a position. Scholars defend positions all the time, as they should. So do all the rest of us. Whenever there is disagreement — e.g., over religion, politics, political candidates, even favorite restaurants or best vacation destinations […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 2 weeks ago
For many years now, my most devoted atheist commenter here (never a Latter-day Saint) has repeatedly (and repetitiously) asserted that religious claims can neither be examined, tested, nor investigated. (Which, I’m guessing, is intended to show — in what might perhaps be a kind of folk echo or pop version of once-fashionable logical positivism […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 2 weeks ago
I agree with this article, which was written by a Roman Catholic: “Does Jesus Have a Sense of Humor? Jesus is fully God and fully man. He is like us in every way except sin. This includes having a sense of humor.” It reminds me of the review of a book from another Catholic […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Cody Quirk has kindly called to my notice an article about an interesting discovery in Central America: “Archaeologists in Panama find ancient tomb filled with gold treasure — and sacrificial victims.” Although the site and the golden artifacts that were found by the archaeologists date to a period that is somewhat after the end […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 2 weeks ago
I hope that I don’t offend or violate any confidences with the little story that I’m about to tell. I wasn’t asked to keep it confidential, and I won’t share the crucial personal name — not least because, having never known it, I’m unable to share it. Moreover, I hope that I’m accurately recalling […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Amidst the general rejoicing among Latter-day Saints at our church’s recovery of the Kirtland Temple (and other properties in Kirtland and in Nauvoo) — joy in which I enthusiastically share — we should probably not forget that the transaction has caused deep sadness among not a few members of the Community of Christ, including […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 2 weeks ago
For anybody who cares about the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, today’s news is absolutely thrilling. I have been hoping for these developments for a many decades: “Responsibility and Ownership of Sacred Sites and Historic Documents Transfer to Church of Jesus Christ: Acquisitions include Kirtland Temple, historic buildings in […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 2 weeks ago
Interpreter Radio Show — February 25, 2024 For the 25 February 2024 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, Steve Densley and John Thompson spoke with their special guest, Kerry Muhlestein. They discussed Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson 12 and Kerry’s new book The Easter Connection. Their conversation, shorn of commercial breaks and […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 3 weeks ago
My wife and I have belonged for many years to a monthly reading group — its formal name is The Gadianton Polysophical Marching and Chowder Society — that I’ve mentioned here at least once or twice before. Tonight, we were the leaders of a discussion that was centered on a book that we had […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 3 weeks ago
While going through and trying to organize some materials on my computer, I came across the following file, which was titled “Christ’s Resurrection (UCLA).” Evidently, it is a set of notes for some sort of undated presentation at or near UCLA that I can no longer recall. Their reliance upon an article by the […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 3 weeks ago
“Proper Names and Political Claims: Semitic Echoes as Foundations for Claims to the Nephite Throne,” written by Lyle H. Hamblin Abstract: The Book of Mormon contains examples of phonemes in character names that resemble Semitic root words. The possible meanings of the names and their timing in the Book of Mormon narrative provide a […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 3 weeks ago
I would like to call your attention to a few articles by Latter-day Saint social scientists whom I find consistently interesting and worth reading. One of them is Stephen Cranney: “How many churches still favor traditional marriage? Have most American churches accommodated by now the sea change in public attitudes about marriage? Not really” […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 3 weeks ago
According to accounts preserved in Hawaiian mythology, the great gods Kāne (pronounced KAH-nay), Lono, Kū, and (possibly) Kanaloa existed before the creation of the world. In the beginning, according to one tradition, nothing existed except a chaotic blackness called the “Po” (“night”). But Kāne awoke and, realizing that he was distinct from the Po, […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 3 weeks ago
Some of the polymathic scientists and littérateurs over at the Peterson Obsession Board like to picture me as a gourmand and a foodie who waddles incessantly between high-end multiple-course meals. That isn’t actually me at all — last night, we had grated cheese on tortilla chips for dinner, whereas the previous two nights had […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 3 weeks ago
This blog entry is, to a considerable extent, a continuation of the thinking that I began yesterday. Considerable merriment has been occasioned among a handful of merry madcaps over at what I call the Peterson Obsession Board by my repeated invitations to an atheist commenter on my blog (whom we shall call “gemli”) that […]
Dan Peterson
1 month 4 weeks ago
An article in The New York Times Magazine for 26 April 1981 entitled “Rosetta Stones from Space” opened as follows: The first recorded meteorite fell in Phrygia in Asia Minor about 2000 B.C. The object was carried to a local temple and then later transported to Rome, where it remained for 500 years before […]
Dan Peterson
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5 hours 46 minutes ago
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