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It just never ends.

It just never ends.

Last updated on: February 7, 2025 at 5:51 pm by Dan Peterson

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It just never ends. 2025-02-07T17:51:02-07:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

George and Ewan Mitton

Newly posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: *Joseph Smith and Our Preparation for the Lord’s Final Judgment: Essays by George L. Mitton, “*Foreword: Eschewing the Ephemeral,” written by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw:

“In every conversation I’ve had with George, what impresses me most is his earnestness about the important, enduring matters of life. I didn’t know him when he was younger, but I imagine that he was always that way. In this, he has been a personal model for me, providing tangible reassurance that it is a proper tendency for people of faith to consider mortal life as ‘a serious thing.’”

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Joseph Smith and Our Preparation for the Lord’s Final Judgment: Essays by George L. Mitton. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/joseph-smith-and-our-preparation-for-the-lords-final-judgment/.

The Golden Rule Mosaic at Thanks-Giving Square in Dallas, Texas (based upon a painting by Norman Rockwell)

Besides diagnosing certain self-inflicted problems in our response to continuing criticisms of the Restoration, this is an interesting little essay in what might properly be called the recent “intellectual history” of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Michael Peterson [no relation to yours truly] and Brian Hales, “How a Perfect Storm of Random Forces Inflated the CES Letter beyond Its Merits”

And here’s another news item that some might find of interest: “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”

From left to right, in a still photograph by James Jordan from the set of the Interpreter Foundation’s 2021 film “Witnesses”: Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Joseph Smith (who has the plates in a box)

Here is yet another episode in the Interpreter Foundation’s series of short videos, which are available at no charge for your viewing pleasure: “Episode 21: Who Felt or Saw the Plates?”

Witnesses of the Book of Mormon—Insights Episode 21: Critics have long claimed that the various witnesses—both official and unofficial—never interacted with the plates in a physical way. First hand accounts indicate otherwise. What are we to make of such criticism? This is Episode 21 of a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project. . . . These additional resources are hosted by Camrey Bagley Fox, who played Emma Smith in Witnesses, as she introduces and visits with a variety of experts. These individuals answer questions or address accusations against the witnesses, also helping viewers understand the context of the times in which the witnesses lived. This particular installment features Daniel C. Peterson, President of the Interpreter Foundation and Executive Producer of Witnesses. For more information, go to https://witnessesofthebookofmormon.org/. Learn about the documentary movie Undaunted—Witnesses of the Book of Mormon at https://witnessesundaunted.com/.

By the way, you can stream Witnesses (for the remainder of February), and you can stream Undaunted at no charge forever, via The Witnesses Initiative. And Six Days in August is now also available for streaming, although, alas, not for free. Find out where to stream Six Days in August at JustWatch.

Rembrandt, “Return of the Prodigal Son” (ca. 1668); Wikimedia Commons public domain

I met this morning with some folks who are starting a new production company. They have already completed a 45-minute film on the parable of the Good Samaritan. They are now looking at creating similar films on the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins and the parable of the Prodigal Son. So, with my good friend S. Kent Brown, we discussed the cultural background and the meaning of the two famous parables in considerable detail. I wish that all Sunday school classes could be so good as the discussion this morning. I’m certainly looking forward to these two videos.

My wife and I, two of our sons, and a grandchild then had lunch with one of my nephews and his family at the Brick Oven Pizzeria. They’re up from Southern California for a dance event on the campus of BYU. It was good to see them.

Then my wife and I met with John Donovan Wilson, Camrey Bagley Fox, and our core filmmaking team (Mark Goodman, James Jordan, and Russell Richins) to plan the next steps in the docudrama portion of our overall Six Days in August film project, which we’re calling Becoming Brigham. No rest for the wicked, right?

A NASA Hubble image of the Tarantula Nebula (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

The other day here, I mentioned having just read Janice Miner Holden, “Should IANDS Endorse a Post-Physicalist Worldview?” Journal of Near-Death Studies 41/21 (Summer 2023); 81-90. At one point in her essay, Holden offers a sampling of authors and their works that question the “physicalist” worldview. It seems to me that it might be useful for me to list her sample here, for my own future reference and for those who might want to pursue the topic a bit further themselves:

Mario Beauregard, Expanding Reality: The Emergence of Postmaterialist Science (Iff Books, 2021)

E. F. Kelly, E. W. Kelly, A. Crabtree, A. Gauld, M. Grosso, and B. Greyson, Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006)

E. F. Kelly, “Introduction: Science and Spirituality at a Crossroads,” in Beyond Physicalism: Toward Reconciliation of Science and Spirituality (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015)

Edward F. Kelly and Paul Marshall, Consciousness Unbound: Liberating Mind from the Tyranny of Materialism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021)

Dean Radin, The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena (HarperOne, 2007)

Stephan A. Schwartz, “Six Protocols, Neuroscience and Near Death: An Emerging Paradigm Incorporating Nonlocal Consciousness,” in I. Fredricksson, ed., The Mysteries of Consciousness: Essays on Spacetime, Evolution and Well-Being (McFarland, 2015), 5-20

Stephan A. Schwartz, “Physicalist Materialism: The Dying Throes of an Inadequate Paradigm,” Australian Journal of Parapsychology 23/2 (2023), 139-167.

Charles Tart, The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal is Bringing Science and Spirit Together (New Harbinger, 2009)

Charles Tart, The Secret Science of the Soul: How Evidence of the Paranormal is Bringing Science and Spirit Together (Fearless Books, 2017)

Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (HarperCollins, 2010)

Harald Walach, on behalf of the Scientific and Medical Network, Galileo Commission Report: Beyond a Materialist Worldview: Towards an Expanded Science (Scientific and Medical Network, n.d.) https://galileocommission.org/report/

I’m unfamiliar with most of these (though not with all of them), but am interested.

Reading the Qur’an in an Indonesian mosque after prayer
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo by Gunawan Kartapranata)

This is a true story that I myself have told and of which I’m very fond: “The time The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donated 7,000 Qurans to Muslims: Here’s what mattered when an Irish American Muslim and a Black American Christian with a Muslim name met on a stage in Washington, D.C.” Plainly, it comes from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™.

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