“Look down from Thy holy habitation”

Last updated on: March 31, 2020 at 10:51 pm By Dan Peterson

My friend and former FARMS colleague Matt Roper has shared this prescient passage from a prayer that was given roughly 127 years ago by President Wilford Woodruff of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. With the temples all closed during the coronavirus contagion and with the Salt Lake Temple specifically closed for seismic retrofitting, President Woodruff’s prayer seems almost eerily appropriate: “Heavenly Father, when Thy people shall not have the opportunity of entering this holy... Read more

Something to do right away, if you haven’t done it already

Last updated on: April 7, 2020 at 11:07 pm By Dan Peterson

In this genuinely weird time of lock-downs and social distancing, rising unemployment and wildly fluctuating markets, we’re rightly most concerned about the lives that the coronavirus contagion threatens. But there are other victims, including those whose social and mental health have been put at risk by the countermeasures that we’re all taking. And charities, too, are suffering. As donors see their wealth shrinking, they are understandably less inclined to contribute to charitable causes — and especially to... Read more

The Ark and the Extent of the Flood, Plus Some Quotations from NDE Accounts

Last updated on: April 2, 2020 at 9:49 pm By Dan Peterson

As Messala said to Ben Hur, “It goes on, Judah. It goes on.” Here are two new items that have appeared today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: In God’s Image and Likeness 2: Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel: Genesis 7: The Flood Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in In God’s Image and Likeness 2: Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel (2014) by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J.... Read more

“Spooky action” that can’t exist but does

Last updated on: April 2, 2020 at 9:33 pm By Dan Peterson

Here are a couple of additional passages that I’ve marked in Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness, 2d ed. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011): The first is about Albert Einstein: [B]ack in 1935 he had startled the developers of quantum theory by pointing out that the theory required an observation at one place to instantaneously influence what happened far away without involving any physical force. He derided this as... Read more

The Real Shangri-La?

Last updated on: April 2, 2020 at 9:54 pm By Dan Peterson

Here are two new items that are available via the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “Teachings and Testimony of the First Vision: President Hinckley Comments on Joseph Smith’s and the Church’s Critics”: Part 19 of a Series Compiled by Dennis B. Horne “Interpreter Radio Show — March 22, 2020” An archived recording of the 22 March 2020 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show — shorn of commercial and other interruptions — is available at no charge at the... Read more

On the “east wind” in the Book of Mormon

Last updated on: April 2, 2020 at 9:51 pm By Dan Peterson

Barring unforeseen mishap, I’ll be on the Interpreter Radio Show tonight (Sunday night) with Martin Tanner, between 7 PM and 9 PM. During the second hour of the program, we’ll be discussing Mosiah 7-10. One of the topics that I hope to address very briefly will be the reference in Mosiah 7:31 to a destructive “east wind.” I discussed this subject in a column for the print edition of the Deseret News and the online edition of... Read more

Intellectual schizophrenia as a symptom of a bad theory

Last updated on: April 2, 2020 at 9:47 pm By Dan Peterson

I continue to use my blog as an incentive to myself to type up notes from my reading and, therefore, as an inducement and aid to my own more formal (i.e., non-blog) writing. In fact, I plan to do so more in the future than I have in the past. (I have lots of projects in the works!) I hope that these notes will be of interest to you as I share them. In this entry, I... Read more

“Risen”

Last updated on: April 2, 2020 at 9:45 pm By Dan Peterson

Back in early 2016, I saw the then-new film Risen. My wife never did — she was traveling at the time — and she still hasn’t. But I would still like her to do so; I would like to discuss it with her. And I myself want to see it again. Those who see the film and who are familiar with the story of Christ’s death and resurrection (just about everybody here, I expect) will instantly recognize that Risen... Read more

Martin Harris, reputable witness

Last updated on: April 2, 2020 at 9:42 pm By Dan Peterson

I offer here some additional notes from Susan Easton Black and Larry C. Porter, Martin Harris: Uncompromising Witness of the Book of Mormon (Provo: BYU Studies, 2018). Martin Harris arrived in Kirtland, Ohio, on 12 March 1831 for a relatively brief visit there, bringing with him a large number of copies of the Book of Mormon as Joseph Smith had requested him to do. Reacting to that visit, Eber D. Howe, the editor of The Telegraph (whose offices were in... Read more

Amazing scientific progress and surprising scientific ignorance

Last updated on: March 31, 2020 at 10:45 pm By Dan Peterson

One online critic of the Church likes to use me in order to illustrate the nadir of Latter-day Saint scientific ignorance — rather analogously to the concept of “absolute zero” or “zero degrees Kelvin,” the minimum temperature possible, at which there is no heat and the movement of fundamental particles is at a minimum. I’m sure that he’s right to do so; surely nobody online would engage in an unfair caricature on so important a point. Still, I... Read more

What does "seek first the kingdom of God" mean?