{"id":94131,"date":"2022-02-08T02:12:49","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T09:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=94131"},"modified":"2022-02-09T13:18:46","modified_gmt":"2022-02-09T20:18:46","slug":"evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html","title":{"rendered":"Evil and Death Amid Beauty on the Road to the Temple"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
An aerial photograph of Kahana Bay, from Beach-on-Map.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

After a morning swim, we drove into Honolulu to take a look at a couple of historical sites \u2014 Iolani Palace and Washington Place \u2014 that were connected with the last queen of Hawaii, Liliuokalani, who was deposed in 1893 by a conspiracy of white businessmen and who died in 1917.\u00a0 She\u2019s one of the foci of a column that I\u2019ve just completed for Meridian Magazine<\/em> and that I will submit shortly.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thereupon, we drove via the Likelike Highway over to the Kamehameha Highway, heading northward on the Kam Highway (as the locals call it) for the predominantly Latter-day Saint town of Laie.\u00a0 And we very nearly got to our intended destination.\u00a0 We were within seven or eight miles (and much less, as the crow flies.). However, when we reached Kahana Bay, we couldn\u2019t go any further.\u00a0 The road was closed in both directions, owing to what one person told us was a hostage situation.\u00a0 While we were in the area, we counted forty-nine police vehicles headed to the scene, including several large trucks (one perhaps a mobile command center of some sort) and an armored SWAT vehicle from which we saw at least eight heavily armed men emerge.\u00a0 There may have been other vehicles that we missed, of course, and we don\u2019t know how many may have arrived at the scene from the other direction.\u00a0 We reached Kahana Bay at about 1:45, and that is apparently when the standoff began.\u00a0 We were curious all day as to what had finally happened, and here\u2019s something that I\u2019ve just found:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMan found dead after Windward barricade situation that closed Kamehameha Highway for hours\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We turned around, headed back over to the general vicinity of Pearl Harbor, and then managed to get to Laie from the other side of the island.\u00a0 We had planned to take Matt Bowen<\/a> out to lunch.\u00a0 Instead, we ended up taking him out to dinner.\u00a0 Again, there are very few things in this world that are as gratifying as good conversation with good friends over good food.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, notwithstanding the delay in our getting there, we had a few minutes to reacquaint ourselves with the idyllic (and historic) town of Laie \u2014 and specifically with its campus of Brigham Young University<\/a>, its famous Polynesian Cultural Center<\/a> (owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and the glorious Laie Hawaii Temple.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Heber<\/a>
The temple in Laie, Oahu, Hawaii , adjacent to the Hawaii campus of Brigham Young University, where Matthew Bowen teaches (LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Hawaii\u2019s<\/a>
The Laie Hawaii Temple was first dedicated in 1919. The Hawaii campus of Brigham Young University was founded three and a half decades later.\u00a0 (LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Hawaii's<\/a>
The popular Polynesian Cultural Center is adjacent to Brigham Young University \u2013 Hawaii, which, in turn, is within walking distance of the Laie Hawaii Temple.\u00a0 (LDS.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Hawaii's<\/a>
I\u2019m simply trying to give you some sense of the wonderful beauty of this area.\u00a0 (LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Approaching<\/a>
The main entrance to BYU-Hawaii, in Laie (BYU-Hawaii website)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been to Laie numerous times.\u00a0 I even spoke, quite a number of years ago now, in a campus-wide devotional or some such thing.\u00a0 (Maybe it was the annual Joseph Smith Lecture.\u00a0 I can\u2019t quite recall offhand.)\u00a0 But I fall in love with BYU-Hawaii anew each time that I visit.\u00a0 And, each time, I\u2019m surprised by the impact that it has on me.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The desperate, sad, fatal ugliness that happened just a few miles away earlier this afternoon stands in stark contrast to the serenity, holiness, and beauty of Laie\u2019s temple.\u00a0 I\u2019m so very deeply grateful for such outposts of divine light in this too often dark and difficult world.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some of you might want to mark your calendars this year for the annual meeting of the International Association for Near-Death Studies<\/a>, which will be held from 1-4 September 2022 in Salt Lake City, Utah.\u00a0 I myself hope to be able to participate.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHow Arizona\u2019s new anti-discrimination bill aims to protect gay rights and religion: The \u201cEquality and Fairness for All Arizonans\u201d bill builds upon a Utah law passed in 2015\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cLatter-day Saint leaders support Arizona\u2019s new gay rights bill. Here\u2019s what they\u2019ve said on the issue in the past\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve long loved this passage from the great Harvard philosopher and psychologist William James (1842-1910), who was, by the way, a brother of the novelist Henry James:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Religions differ so much in their accidents [i.e., in their specific attributes] that in discussing the religious question we must make it very generic and broad. \u00a0What then do we now mean by the religious hypothesis? \u00a0Science says things are; morality says some things are better than other things; and religion says essentially two things.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

First, she says that the best things are the more eternal things, the overlapping things, the things in the universe that throw the last stone, so to speak, and say the final word. . . .<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The second affirmation of religion is that we are better off even now if we believe her first affirmation to be true.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finally, I want to share a trio of moral outrages that I recently found in the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u00a9:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFood Donations for Local Charities Received by Missouri Governor: More than 100,000 pounds of food donated through Latter-day Saint Charities\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBYU researchers sequenced the quinoa genome. Now they\u2019re introducing hybrids of the crop to developing nations\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cNearly 300,000 people visited the Giving Machines in 2021. Here\u2019s how much was donated\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t they just make your blood run cold?\u00a0 And I discovered this<\/em> terrifying piece just outside<\/em> the Hitchens File<\/em>\u00a9, from which it might perhaps have fallen \u2014 though I\u2019m not absolutely sure that it ever quite belonged properly inside<\/em>.\u00a0 But it\u2019s definitely connected with the residents of what the cognoscenti<\/em> know as the benighted Western American state of Utard, most of whom are said by such folks to be Mor(m)ons, who are otherwise known as brain-dead Morgbots:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

National Review<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cUtah, Low Taxes, and the Rewards of Economic Freedom: In all 14 editions of ALEC\u2019s \u2018Rich States, Poor States\u2019 report, Utah has earned the top economic outlook ranking.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

What a horrible place it must be!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Ko Olina, Oahu, Hawaii<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 *** \u00a0 After a morning swim, we drove into Honolulu to take a look at a couple of historical sites \u2014 Iolani Palace and Washington Place \u2014 that were connected with the last queen of Hawaii, Liliuokalani, who was deposed in 1893 by a conspiracy of white businessmen and who died in 1917.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1152,27915,1149,24584,813,20206,2652,20511,27918,27921,9433,27897,27900,27909,27903,614,27912,27906,27894,18592,12548],"class_list":["post-94131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brigham-young-university","tag-brigham-young-university-hawaii","tag-byu","tag-byu-hawaii","tag-christopher-hitchens","tag-christopher-hitchens-memorial-how-religion-poisons-everything-file","tag-hitchens","tag-hitchens-file","tag-iands","tag-international-association-for-near-death-studies","tag-james","tag-kahana","tag-kahana-bay","tag-kamehameha","tag-kamehameha-highway","tag-laie","tag-likelike","tag-likelike-highway","tag-oahu-hawaii","tag-polynesian-cultural-center","tag-william-james"],"yoast_head":"\nEvil and Death Amid Beauty on the Road to the Temple<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    ***   After a morning swim, we drove into Honolulu to take a look at a couple of historical sites -- Iolani Palace and Washington Place\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Evil and Death Amid Beauty on the Road to the Temple\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"    ***   After a morning swim, we drove into Honolulu to take a look at a couple of historical sites -- Iolani Palace and Washington Place\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sic et Non\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-02-08T09:12:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-02-09T20:18:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2022\/02\/hawaii-oahu-island-fly-over-kahana-bay-beach-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html\",\"name\":\"Evil and Death Amid Beauty on the Road to the Temple\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-02-08T09:12:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-02-09T20:18:46+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\"},\"description\":\"    ***   After a morning swim, we drove into Honolulu to take a look at a couple of historical sites -- Iolani Palace and Washington Place\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Evil and Death Amid Beauty on the Road to the Temple\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/\",\"name\":\"Sic et Non\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\",\"name\":\"Dan Peterson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dan Peterson\"},\"description\":\"\\\"Life was very unsatisfying until I discovered Dan's blog, which gave me a reason to live.\\\" (gemli, 7 November 2019)\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/author\/danpeterson\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Evil and Death Amid Beauty on the Road to the Temple","description":"    ***   After a morning swim, we drove into Honolulu to take a look at a couple of historical sites -- Iolani Palace and Washington Place","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Evil and Death Amid Beauty on the Road to the Temple","og_description":"    ***   After a morning swim, we drove into Honolulu to take a look at a couple of historical sites -- Iolani Palace and Washington Place","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html","og_site_name":"Sic et Non","article_published_time":"2022-02-08T09:12:49+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-02-09T20:18:46+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2022\/02\/hawaii-oahu-island-fly-over-kahana-bay-beach-scaled.jpg"}],"author":"Dan Peterson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dan Peterson","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html","name":"Evil and Death Amid Beauty on the Road to the Temple","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website"},"datePublished":"2022-02-08T09:12:49+00:00","dateModified":"2022-02-09T20:18:46+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045"},"description":"    ***   After a morning swim, we drove into Honolulu to take a look at a couple of historical sites -- Iolani Palace and Washington Place","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/02\/evil-and-death-amid-beauty-on-the-road-to-the-temple.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Evil and Death Amid Beauty on the Road to the Temple"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/","name":"Sic et Non","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045","name":"Dan Peterson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Dan Peterson"},"description":"\"Life was very unsatisfying until I discovered Dan's blog, which gave me a reason to live.\" (gemli, 7 November 2019)","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/author\/danpeterson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}