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6DIA is streaming, physicalism is depressing, and I’m right

6DIA is streaming, physicalism is depressing, and I’m right

Last updated on: February 1, 2025 at 7:55 pm by Dan Peterson

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6DIA is streaming, physicalism is depressing, and I’m right 2025-02-01T19:55:18-07:00 Dan Peterson

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Two of the attendees chat amicably with an unidentified homeless man just outside the theater prior to the premiere of “Six Days in August” a few months ago

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to announce that the 2024 Interpreter Foundation theatrical film Six Days in August is now available for streaming. I haven’t yet checked any of these, so if there are people out there who successfully view the movie at one or more of these sites, I would welcome confirming reports:

Six Days in August Streaming

Most of the above are listed together at JUST WATCH: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/six-days-in-august-2024

I’m not sure why this is the case, but LIVING SCRIPTURES is not yet streaming Six Days in August. However, that will come.

I need to point out that the streaming of Six Days in August is not free. On the other hand, the Interpreter Foundation’s 2022 docudrama, Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, is now available for streaming at no charge via a link at The Witnesses Initiative.

In other media news: Here’s an item that will make all faithful Latter-day Saints everywhere practically burst with pride: “Salt Lake City Is Rapidly Emerging As Reality TV’s Hidden Gem” I’m intrigued by the article’s recurring suggestion that it is the standards of the Church that create the, umm, interesting lives of the stars in these hit television shows, rather than — potentially, hypothetically, maybe just conceivably, perhaps — the flagrantly conspicuous failure of those stars to adhere to the standards advocated by the Church.

The still relatively new official logo of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

And here’s a weird one that I hope you can access. It appeared in the 18 December 2024 issue of the Wall Street Journal, but I somehow missed it when it was published: “It Pays to Have Long Hair and a Beard in Utah—Jesus Models Are in Demand: Look-alikes are being hired for family portraits and wedding announcements but expectations can be high; ‘You know I’m not the real Jesus, right?’” Have you ever heard of this? I haven’t.

Somehow, too, the notion that the long-haired and bearded look is held in particularly high esteem in Utah doesn’t quite match other stereotypes of the state’s population. Consider, for example, the way Utahns are portrayed at this link: “I Asked AI What Europeans Think Americans From Every Single State Look Like, And The Results Are Just Plain Mean: I guess this is what Europeans really think of us.” Or, alternatively, consider the way in which the appearance of Latter-day Saints is depicted in Broadway’s musical The Book of Mormon. Take a look at your bishopric. Take a look at your stake presidency. Read through the dress and grooming standards at the Church’s college and universities. Take a glance at the missionary photo board at the chapel where you attend. Take a good look at the ordinance workers next time you attend the temple. Long hair and beards seem to be in short supply. At least, anyway, on the men.

Will Mr. Huntsman appeal to a still-higher court? The verdict on that question is not yet clear. But the Founders may not have intended that controversial theological questions be settled in this building. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I continue to be pleased at the unanimous decision that was just handed down by the Ninth Circuit. As, evidently, are others: “Evangelicals, Jews, Adventists, others grateful judges supported church autonomy in Latter-day Saint tithing case: 9th Circuit Court dismisses the James Huntsman tithing lawsuit against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”

In other potential court action: “Church says Texas town not standing by settlement reached for the McKinney Texas Temple: The town of Fairview and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints negotiated a smaller temple in November. The agreement may be unraveling and the church may seek legal remedy”

An artist’s conception of the view of one exoplanet from another (Wikimedia Commons public domain image). Is this as friendly, caring, and hospitable as the universe gets?

For about fifteen to twenty minutes each year, I work on a massive multi-volume project that is intended (should it ever actually come to pass) to create doubts about the common assumption of what I’ve commonly referred to as atheistic naturalism or materialism. Here’s a definition of physicalism — another possible term — that might fit the bill. Can you see anything problematic with it? According to physicalism, so the definition or description goes,

in the end all facts are determined by physical fact alone, and we human beings are thus nothing more than extremely complicated biological machines. Everything we are and do is explainable, at least in principle, in terms of our physics, chemistry, and biology — ultimately, that is, in terms of local interactions among self-existent bits of matter moving in accordance with mathematical laws under the influence of fields of force. Some of what we know, and the substrate of our general capacities to learn more, are built in generically as complex resultants of biological evolution. Everything else comes to us directly or indirectly by way of our sensory surfaces, through energetic exchanges with the environment of types already largely understood. All aspects of mind and consciousness are generated by, or supervenient upon, or in some mysterious way identical with, neurophysiological processes occurring in the brain . . . Mental causation, free will, and the self are mere illusions, by-products of the grinding of our neural machinery. And of course since mind and personality are entirely products of our bodily machinery, they are necessarily extinguished, totally and finally, by the demise and dissolution of the body. (E. F. Kelly, “Introduction: Science and Spirituality at a Crossroads.” In E. F. Kelly, A. Crabtree, and P. Marshall, eds., Beyond Physicalism: Toward Reconciliation of Science and Spirituality [Rowman and Littlefield, 2015], xii)

That constitutes a worthy target, I think.

And I can scarcely be faulted by a physicalist for opposing physicalism. After all, if mind and personality are merely epiphenomenal appearances that are entirely dependent upon purposeless physics and chemistry and the biology that evolved from them, if mental causation (e.g., seemingly logical processes), free will, and the self are nothing more than illusory by-products of bits of matter in motion, I have no real choice and argumentation is irrelevant.

A view across the River Thames to Westminster Bridge and, behind it, the Houses of Parliament (Wikimedia Commons public domain image). It may be that the London of Charles Dickens is not entirely in the past.

You know that things are getting way out of hand when competing brands of theism conspire together to commit their crimes against humanity. Here is a frightening example of precisely that which I’ve just recovered from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™: “Interfaith Collaboration to Help Address Food Insecurity in London: The Church of Jesus Christ and Muslim Aid UK help The Felix Project provide millions of meals in West London”

As one incisive observer of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is fond of pointing out, such actions have nothing to do with God. Rather, they’re all about the Church’s desire for money.

And here is another revealing example of Latter-day Saint greed: “Members in Lima, Peru, demonstrate that ‘selfless service can transform lives’: Church members in Peru organize service activities, youth programs and volunteer opportunities to serve their communities.”

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