“A more beautiful message cannot be conceived. “

Last updated on: October 18, 2020 at 4:30 pm By Dan Peterson

From Thomas Dubay, The Evidential Power of Beauty: Science and Theology Meet (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999): I have the impression from reading popular literature dealing with the early alleged “cosmic soup”, from which life is supposed to have developed, that the writers and their readers feel that the soup was a random and rather homogeneous mixture. On the contrary, Stanley Jaki tells us that, in the succession of stages through which the expanding cosmos developed, baffling asymmetries... Read more

Revision 6.10a “The West achieves dominance” (addendum)

Last updated on: October 18, 2020 at 4:21 pm By Dan Peterson

It’s commonly believed among Muslims that the Qur’an cannot be translated. Not that there exists some legal prohibition against such translation; renderings of the Qur’an abound in virtually all of the world’s languages, many of them by Muslims and distributed by Muslim publishers. Rather, the thought is that the task is simply impossible. It can’t be done. And I would tend to agree. The Qur’an is not poetry, but it is poetic. And poetry has sometimes been wittily... Read more

“Yes, as material as anything can be.”

Last updated on: October 17, 2020 at 9:54 pm By Dan Peterson

New on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “Book of Moses Essays #25: Enoch’s Grand Vision: A Chorus of Weeping (Moses 7:18–49)” *** Appendix E of Ronald E. Romig, Eighth Witness: The Biography of John Whitmer (Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books, 2014), 526-527, features the text of an interview conducted in April 1878 by P. Wilhelm Poulson with John Whitmer, one of the Eight Witnesses: I — I am aware that your name is affixed... Read more

“The Church supports the use of vaccinations”

Last updated on: October 17, 2020 at 10:02 pm By Dan Peterson

This is pleasant news, of course: “Elder and Sister Gong Successfully Complete Quarantine: The First Presidency and all other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have tested negative for the virus” I was struck, though, by this line from Elder Gong’s social media comment: “With continued precautions, for example, wearing a mask, frequent handwashing, and social distancing, I look forward to returning to my full responsibilities next week” (emphasis mine). This is consistent... Read more

Revision 6.13 “Occidentosis”

Last updated on: October 17, 2020 at 10:29 pm By Dan Peterson

Needless to say, Marxism could not deliver on its promises, nor give dissatisfied and humiliated residents of the Near East the dignity that they craved. But what other answer was available? Well, the Islamic answer was there. It had always been there, but now its rivals were discredited. “Why,” devout Muslim thinkers asked, “should the Muslims turn to the West for clues on how to be successful?” They hadn’t needed Western assistance in the early days, when they conquered... Read more

“Anthropic balances should not be dismissed”

Last updated on: October 17, 2020 at 10:32 pm By Dan Peterson

“Can supplements really help fight COVID-19? Here’s what we know and don’t know: There’s little evidence yet, except maybe in people who are deficient in vitamins and minerals” “Remdesivir doesn’t reduce COVID-19 deaths, a large WHO trial finds: An international study of more than 11,000 people finds that remdesivir doesn’t prevent deaths from COVID-19, but the drug may still be useful.” “The FDA has approved the first treatment for Ebola: Lab-made antibodies marshal an immune response... Read more

Revision 6.12 “A quack-medicine cure appears”

Last updated on: October 17, 2020 at 10:26 pm By Dan Peterson

The refusal of the British and of the French to leave their colonies in a timely fashion badly discredited the liberal political parties that had promised their departure. People lost patience with those parties and with the notions of parliamentary democracy and republicanism that were associated with them and with Western models. After all, they reasoned, those ideas certainly did not make the Western nations treat them any better. They had made a conscientious effort to adopt such... Read more

“Textual Criticism and the Book of Moses”

Last updated on: October 17, 2020 at 10:23 pm By Dan Peterson

A new article — this one by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and Ryan Dahle — has appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship.. I commend it to your attention: “Textual Criticism and the Book of Moses: A Response to Colby Townsend’s “Returning to the Sources,” Part 1 of 2” Review of Colby Townsend, “Returning to the Sources: Integrating Textual Criticism in the Study of Early Mormon Texts and History.” Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies 10,... Read more

“Altogether universal”

Last updated on: October 17, 2020 at 10:16 pm By Dan Peterson

A passage that I extracted from Douglas Groothuis, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith [Downers Grove: IVP and Nottingham: Apollos, 2011], 335-336. One society may stigmatize homosexuality while another condones it. And so on. Therefore, if different societies have made differing moral judgments (and if moral judgments depend inextricably on contingent cultures), then there can be no crosscultural and objective moral truths that apply to all cultures. What is moral is what is deemed “normal” by a... Read more

“Improbable Planet”

Last updated on: October 17, 2020 at 10:09 pm By Dan Peterson

First, I share a few links that I’ve been accumulating in my files, to things that caught my interest: “Will Natural Herd Immunity End the Pandemic? Is natural herd immunity a viable path to controlling the pandemic? Here is why that is a terrible idea.” “There is no ‘scientific divide’ over herd immunity: There’s a lot of talk of scientists divided over Covid-19, but when you look at the evidence any so-called divide starts to evaporate”... Read more