Christian California

Last updated on: March 1, 2024 at 10:43 am By Dan Peterson

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” Recently, Dr. Cranney has written three fascinating articles with Josh Coates, who heads up the B. H. Roberts Foundation: “We sent out 80,000 postcards to... Read more

With aroha for all

Last updated on: March 1, 2024 at 10:31 am By Dan Peterson

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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, managed to break free from it. Thereafter, when Lono and then Kū perceived that Kāne had separated himself from the Po, they too freed themselves.... Read more

“We Rejoice in Christ”

Last updated on: March 1, 2024 at 10:41 am By Dan Peterson

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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 been peanut butter and jam on fresh French bread — but they enjoy it so much that don’t want to disappoint them. In fact, I... Read more

Ignorance is No Defense

Last updated on: February 26, 2024 at 8:58 pm By Dan Peterson

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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 he read books and/or articles on the topics that he professes to address in his many comments here. He himself has steadfastly refused to look... Read more

Fact and Theory and Extraordinary Claims

Last updated on: February 25, 2024 at 7:59 pm By Dan Peterson

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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 being lost. Almost since the rise of civilization, meteorites have been regarded as objects of worship, and in Asia today a number of meteorites are... Read more

A transient paradise

Last updated on: February 24, 2024 at 10:57 pm By Dan Peterson

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Traveling around Hawai’i — we went up and around to Princeville today, and out to the overlook by Kilauea Point Lighthouse — it’s interesting to see evidences of the forces that made its islands and that are now, in most places here, very slowly unmaking them. As the tectonic plate on which the Hawaiian Islands sit, the Pacific Plate, moves to the northwest at an annual rate of about 2.75 inches or seven centimeters — they leave behind them... Read more

Jodi Hildebrandt, Ruby Franke, and Mosiah’s Dynasties

Last updated on: February 25, 2024 at 12:50 pm By Dan Peterson

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Two new items appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation today: “Prophet or Loss: Mosiah1/Zeniff, Benjamin/Noah, Mosiah2/Limhi and the Emergence of the Almas,” written by Val Larsen Abstract: Mormon’s overwhelmingly dominant rhetorical purpose is to testify of Christ, which he and his protagonists often directly do. But he also communicates his testimony more subtly through carefully crafted historical narratives. His use of frame narratives is especially artful. In the Book of Mosiah, Mormon frames the dispiriting account of... Read more

Light, Fire, Gold, and Death

Last updated on: February 23, 2024 at 2:05 am By Dan Peterson

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Two non-new articles have newly appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. I hope that you will enjoy them: Conference Talks: Adam, Eve, the Book of Moses, and the Temple: The Story of Receiving Christ’s Atonement, was delivered at the Interpreter Foundation’s 2020 “Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses Conference” by Elder Bruce C. Hafen (emeritus) and Sister Marie K. Hafen. Elder Bruce C. Hafen, an emeritus member of the Seventy and a former president of... Read more

Links between heaven and earth

Last updated on: February 22, 2024 at 5:40 am By Dan Peterson

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A friend picked us up at our hotel early this evening and took us out to the grounds of the Sydney Australia Temple in Carlingford. I presented a fireside there on the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. It was good to friends here again. We’ve just returned. I share some notes from my reading of Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), by the Dutch cardiologist and researcher Pim van Lommel: When heart... Read more

“Parting is such sweet sorrow”

Last updated on: February 21, 2024 at 6:25 am By Dan Peterson

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Well, our cruise ended this morning where it first began. We disembarked from our ship, the Ovation of the Seas, and made our way to our hotel in Sydney. Our group had said their goodbyes last night. Most of them are over the Pacific Ocean by now. The Australians who were among us are probably already home. I always find the end of such tours rather sad: You get to know new people quite well (or strengthen relationships with... Read more