“The Worth of Souls is Great”

Last updated on: February 18, 2025 at 4:31 pm By Dan Peterson

From the Interpreter Foundation: Nibley Lectures: Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 9: “The Worth of Souls Is Great”: D&C 18 During 1978, 1979, and 1980, Hugh Nibley taught a Doctrine and Covenants Sunday School class. Cassette recordings were made of these classes and some have survived and were recently digitized by Steve Whitlock. Most of the tapes were in pretty bad condition. The original recordings usually don’t stop or start at the beginning of the class and there... Read more

Never to Be Forgotten

Last updated on: February 18, 2025 at 12:46 pm By Dan Peterson

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I continue my incessant whining about the hit Netflix miniseries American Primeval by calling attention to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune that you may be able to access. It was published on Sunday, and it’s titled “Commentary: To learn the real lessons of history in ‘American Primeval,’ we need the real story: Reducing peoples from the past to simple caricatures won’t help us answer the hard questions.” The article was written by Janiece L. Johnson, who is also... Read more

“Earth’s crammed with heaven”

Last updated on: February 16, 2025 at 10:45 pm By Dan Peterson

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It’s a cold and dreary day today in central Utah, but, for some reason, I’ve been thinking about what many religious believers take to be God’s self-disclosure in the beauties of nature. So, of course, two favorite poems from Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) come to mind. The first is “God’s Grandeur”: The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil... Read more

Just a little more than two years to go!

Last updated on: February 15, 2025 at 4:30 pm By Dan Peterson

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You’re probably aware of this: “The Prophet Announces Salt Lake Temple Open House Celebration Dates: This landmark house of the Lord will reopen for tours from April 2027 to October 2027” Wonderful news. The open house is still more than two years away, of course, and the rededication will follow it. But it’s nice to have a definite date, to see light at the end of the tunnel. More than a few people — myself among them — are hoping... Read more

Should Good Friday be a legal holiday in Utah?

Last updated on: February 14, 2025 at 9:59 pm By Dan Peterson

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“Utah may join 12 states that recognize Good Friday as a legal holiday: ‘In my personal opinion, the more we reflect on the love of Jesus, the better people we are. Regardless of what the state does, it’s a sacred day for us,’ Father Stephen Tilley said” I’m not absolutely committed to the idea of making Good Friday a legal holiday, but I’m certainly not opposed to it. And making a three-day holiday of Easter weekend seems to me not... Read more

Bidding Adieu to My Native State

Last updated on: February 13, 2025 at 9:18 pm By Dan Peterson

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Important: The form on the Witnesses Initiative website was inadvertently created in such a way that it prevented people who live outside of the United States from accessing Witnesses and Undaunted. (They are currently available there for free streaming.) I’ve received inquiries from Australia and Switzerland seeking such access, and I think that we’ve now fixed the problem. But I’m in the United States and can’t quite verify that on my own. Can anybody from Canada report whether the... Read more

Hell’s Bells

Last updated on: February 12, 2025 at 4:29 pm By Dan Peterson

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Controversy about the proposed McKinney Texas Temple (actually to be located in adjacent Fairview, north northeast of Dallas), appears to be bubbling up again, and critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are, once again, accusing the Church of trying to bully and intimidate a humbly idyllic little community into rolling over and playing dead while the Mormons callously impose an enormous, triumphalist temple on innocent rural people. (For aerial views of the neighborhood immediately surrounding... Read more

Believe!

Last updated on: February 11, 2025 at 6:10 pm By Dan Peterson

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There’s a new book to which I’m looking forward. Here are a couple of articles about it: Mariya Manzhos, Deseret News: “Why everyone should be religious, according to Ross Douthat: In his new book, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat offers a roadmap for thinking your way into religious belief” ““Believe,” which is Douthat’s eighth nonfiction book, offers a roadmap for navigating the stumbling blocks along the way to belief. “The universe is not a trick” is a recurring... Read more

Finding a Lost Harp

Last updated on: February 10, 2025 at 10:26 pm By Dan Peterson

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Several years ago, as I’ve mentioned here before, I read (and was very impressed by) Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer, Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind (2008). Here’s how the blurb on Amazon.com describes the book: In 1991, when her daughter’s rare, hand-carved harp was stolen, Lisby Mayer’s familiar world of science and rational thinking turned upside down. After the police failed to turn up any leads, a friend suggested she call a dowser—a man... Read more

Divine Light (with an aside concerning Hollywood darkness)

Last updated on: February 9, 2025 at 11:16 pm By Dan Peterson

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Are you aware that you can watch Witnesses and Undaunted, right now, at no charge? Do you realize that you could do that tonight? In fact, tonight would be a really good night to watch one or both of them. Maybe an especially good night, if your team loses the Super Bowl. Or, alternatively, if your team wins the Super Bowl. After all, you’ve already got the chips and dips and salsa and root beer. At one point, in... Read more