“Everyone is Lying to You” (Except Me, of Course)

Last updated on: September 16, 2025 at 3:27 pm by Dan Peterson

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“Everyone is Lying to You” (Except Me, of Course) 2025-09-16T15:27:43-06:00 Dan Peterson

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“Wendy and I were vaccinated today against COVID-19. We are thankful for the countless individuals who performed the work required to make this possible. We have prayed for this literal godsend. Receiving the vaccine is part of our personal efforts to be good global citizens.” (President Russell M. Nelson, M.D., Ph.D., sustained as the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, shown here on 19 January 2021). I hope that this counts as fair use.

My attention has been called to a Latter-day Saint blog — located, like mine, here on Patheos — that is entitled Ye Shall Prosper in the Land. The entry that I first read on it was this one: “Who Is Behind the Murder of Charlie Kirk and What Happened?” It turns out that former Senator Mitt Romney, Senators John Curtis and Mike Lee, and especially Governor Spencer Cox may well be involved in Charlie Kirk’s assassination; that the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, was very likely staged; and, for that matter, that Charlie Kirk may actually still be alive.

Intrigued by these insights, I decided to browse further on Ye Shall Prosper in the Land. I haven’t yet had time to read more than three or four entries, but I can certainly recommend “Should Latter-Day Saints Eat Cheetos?” as well as “Has The Lord’s Church Lost Its Way?” And “Everyone Is Lying To You” is definitely worth careful contemplation:

“One of the biggest surprises for me and lots of fellow Latter-day Saints I’ve talked to about this unfortunate situation is that our own church leaders were at best willfully ignorant about the lies involved with COVID-19, and at worst were complicit with them. There followed a massive loss of trust by some of the most faithful Latter-day Saints towards those who they previously had seen as the Lord’s watchmen on the tower. I have personally seen many individuals and families who have either left the Church or who are now feeling marginalized and wondering what the future holds for them as they can no longer sustain a group of men who knowingly lied to them about something so critical. . . .

“The entire premise of vaccines is a lie. God created each of his children with an immune system that was sufficient for keeping us healthy unless we treat our bodies poorly.

“Contrary to government’s and Rockefeller healthcare’s death grip on the information and perspective we’re “allowed” towards vaccines (i.e. that they’re necessary for survival), vaccines do nothing to improve health, and they do a lot to destroy it.”

Two scriptural passages come to my mind:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. (Matthew 23:29-31)

And the arm of the Lord shall be revealed; and the day cometh that they who will not hear the voice of the Lord, neither the voice of his servants, neither give heed to the words of the prophets and apostles, shall be cut off from among the people . . . [E]very man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol, which waxeth old and shall perish in Babylon, even Babylon the great, which shall fall. (Doctrine and Covenants 1:14, 16)

And I think of this story, recounted by the late President Marion G. Romney:

“One day when President Grant was living, I sat in my office across the street following a general conference. A man came over to see me, an elderly man. He was very upset about what had been said in this conference by some of the Brethren, including myself. I could tell from his speech that he came from a foreign land. After I had quieted him enough so he would listen, I said, ‘Why did you come to America?’ ‘I am here because a prophet of God told me to come.’ ‘Who was the prophet,’ I continued. ‘Wilford Woodruff.’ ‘Do you believe Wilford Woodruff was a prophet of God?’ ‘Yes, I do.’ ‘Do you believe that President Joseph F. Smith was a prophet of God?’ ‘Yes, sir.’

“Then came the sixty-four dollar question. ‘Do you believe that Heber J. Grant is a prophet of God?’ His answer, ‘I think he ought to keep his mouth shut about old age assistance.’

“Now I tell you that a man in his position is on the way to apostasy. He is forfeiting his chances for eternal life. So is everyone who cannot follow the living Prophet of God.” [In Conference Report, April 1953, 125]

As an example of the deceptive propaganda being fed to us by evil and designing “experts,” I offer this, from an infectious disease physician named Jake Scott, who is based at Stanford University’s School of Medicine: “I’ve worked with infectious diseases for years — vaccines are safe and effective: The evidence for vaccine safety and efficacy exists in overwhelming abundance, accessible to anyone willing to examine it.”

Although it comes from MSNBC, a left-leaning news source that I don’t much like and that I look at perhaps once annually, I found the article interesting. It is the text of testimony that Dr. Scott presented to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on 9 September 2025, about a week ago.

In view of the position for which Dr. Scott argues, I presume that he’s a Communist, a Marxist, and a Muslim, as well as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Skull and Bones, the Jesuits, Antifa, and the Bohemian Club, and that what he says can be dismissed without further attention as a conspiratorial tissue of lies.

This is the logo of the Interpreter Foundation. Look for it on cars, cans of tuna fish, bars of soap, and imported Swiss chocolate. I’m not saying that you’ll find it, of course. I’m merely suggesting that you look for it. There’s no harm in looking, after all.

Two new items went up yesterday on the static and unchanging website of the Interpreter Foundation:

The Interpreter Foundation Podcast — September 3: The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and Evolution

For the 3 September 2025 episode of the Interpreter Foundation Podcast, Terry Hutchinson and Martin Tanner discussed with special guest Ben Spackman the newly published The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and Evolution, edited by Jamie L. Jensen, Steven L. Peck, Ugo A. Perego, and T. Benjamin Spackman.

“The Angel: A Review,” written by Stephen O. Smoot

“For many Latter-day Saints, the word horror may sound like the opposite of anything uplifting or edifying. In cinema, the genre often conjures images of gratuitous violence, demonic spectacle, or nihilistic despair.”

At the astonishing British Library in London. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I was saddened to read, a few days ago, of the passing of a man whom I first met in London many years ago, before he had been called to serve as a General Authority:

“Scottish emeritus General Authority Seventy, Elder David S. Baxter, dies at age 70: Elder Baxter, who served as a General Authority Seventy since 2006, received emeritus status last month”

It was in connection with an event at the British Library for BYU’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative. Brother Baxter, was a high-ranking British Church leader and a senior executive with British Telecom at the time, and he had taken a leading role in organizing the event. I was deeply impressed with him, and I was impressed by what other members of the Church told me about him in conversation. They were dazzled by his competence. If something needed to be done, they told me, no matter how difficult it might be, you just had to ask David Baxter to handle it and it would get done.

He was also remarkably gracious. Unassuming. Kind. Not at all smitten with his already high status in the Church and his lofty position in British industry. But it is a very slight story from years after that event in the British Library that sticks in my mind as an illustration: Quite a few years back, I gave a presentation that Elder Baxter attended. I didn’t see him in the audience until afterwards, when he came up to speak with me. We talked for a while, and then he made a comment that surprised me very much: “My wife will be so jealous,” he said, “that I got a chance to visit with you tonight.” I was amazed that a man of such accomplishment, a General Authority, considered it a remarkable thing to talk with me.

I have no doubt that, although his life was too short by our standards and although it was too limited by a lengthy and grave illness — David Baxter has been joyfully welcomed home from his mortal sojourn of service, faithfulness, and discipleship. “Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”

Park City, Utah, where the late Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival has been held every year (and will be held one more time before it moves to Colorado). It’s hard to imagine that he has just died, pretty much of old age. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

I close with two additional horrors that I’ve retrieved for you from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™: