“DCP” wrote: I hate to see anti-Semitism and even Holocaust denial apparently on the rise. My father told me on more than one occasion that, someday, people would deny the reality of the Nazi camps. He had already experienced it, in Minnesota back in 1945. He wanted me to know that they had been real, that he had seen that reality. Honestly, I didn’t take his warning very seriously. How could such a thing be denied? I know better, now.
I don’t think DCP meant it in this way, but I agree he does know better now. He has pushed historical misinformation like this himself, personally. He has profited and continues to profit from it. He runs an entire website and faux academic journal which pushes an alternative view of history. One where the native Americans (or at least some of them) were actually ancient Jews. This denigrates the real history of not only Native Americans, but also Jews.
Are the consequences of this as negative as holocaust denialism? Perhaps not. But I see these as two peas in a very deeply shameful pod.
And, here as elsewhere, I find it oddly difficult to believe that human personalities are simply the accidental result of essentially random collocations of atoms, the product of pointless electrochemical processes — no different, fundamentally, than erosion or oxidation — and that they simply vanish when the synapses cease to fire.
Where does he get the idea that living things are a collection of random atoms and formed by accident?There are laws of physics and chemistry that provide the fundamental blueprints and operation of a living organism. Evolutionary pathways are not totally random. Where does he suppose the picture on a computer monitor goes when it is turned off? Where does the flame on a candle go when it is blown out?
And, here as elsewhere, I find it oddly difficult to believe that human personalities are simply the accidental result of essentially random collocations of atoms, the product of pointless electrochemical processes — no different, fundamentally, than erosion or oxidation — and that they simply vanish when the synapses cease to fire.
Where does he get the idea that living things are a collection of random atoms and formed by accident?There are laws of physics and chemistry that provide the fundamental blueprints and operation of a living organism. Evolutionary pathways are not totally random. Where does he suppose the picture on a computer monitor goes when it is turned off? Where does the flame on a candle go when it is blown out?
Indeed. Where does the wave go after it crashes on the shore? Where did 5 year old little Danny Peterson go after he turned 6? It’s a rather childish question, and it avoids confronting the reality that we are constantly changing. Even Mormon doctrine doesn’t teach that our 5 year old selves are immortal.
DCP wants to hold desperately on to the idea that there is some unchanging immortal essence to every person. But the universe works completely fine without that assumption. Not only that, but there’s no place to put it unless Mormonism starts subscribing to a much less physical interpretation of the afterlife.
Where does he get the idea that living things are a collection of random atoms and formed by accident?There are laws of physics and chemistry that provide the fundamental blueprints and operation of a living organism. Evolutionary pathways are not totally random. Where does he suppose the picture on a computer monitor goes when it is turned off? Where does the flame on a candle go when it is blown out?
Indeed. Where does the wave go after it crashes on the shore? Where did 5 year old little Danny Peterson go after he turned 6? It’s a rather childish question, and it avoids confronting the reality that we are constantly changing. Even Mormon doctrine doesn’t teach that our 5 year old selves are immortal.
DCP wants to hold desperately on to the idea that there is some unchanging immortal essence to every person. But the universe works completely fine without that assumption. Not only that, but there’s no place to put it unless Mormonism starts subscribing to a much less physical interpretation of the afterlife.
Dan is firmly planted in Dan Dennet's sky hook description. Where life and other processes are guided by unseen forces from a divine hand. He needs to educate himself on sky cranes which build increasingly complex structures without discarding previous structures. I think he knows this but can't resist the temptation to mock.
Suppose an advanced alien designed and built a human from the ground up for whatever reasons, slave labor, entertainment; would that make the created person any less likely to "disappear" once the parts wore down -- the synapses quit firing?
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as for the OP, William F. Buckley did a great deal to prevent the older generation from falling into Republican Jewish conspiracy orthodoxy. The blog commentators, many of them older, seem to resist the forces of their party, probably for this single reason. The younger ones are an open question. There will be very few holdouts on his side from the draw of Tucker Carlson.
"if you can't admire Joe Biden as a person then it's probably, you got a problem." -- Lindsey Graham
Imagine you are an incredible swimmer. In fact you are so good at swimming that you feel more comfortable in water than on land. Now imagine you've trained your whole life to compete at the Olympics. You've worked and trained incessantly, and when you finally get to the Olympics, you soon realize the sport you devoted your entire life to isn’t an Olympic event; it isn’t even a sport and worse, people laugh and mock you for spending your entire life devoted to an imaginary sport.
Now imagine that you never realized you were spending your entire life training for an imaginary sport, because you've been counseled by your leaders that "research is not the answer" and "to never take advice from a non-believer." Would you be embarrassed? Hurt? Angry?
Last edited by Everybody Wang Chung on Sun Aug 03, 2025 1:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"I'm on paid sabbatical from BYU in exchange for my promise to use this time to finish two books."
At the end of the Second World War, he found himself waiting in Paris — specifically, as I recall, in the suburban area of Le Vesinet, which I’ve visited in his honor — to be demobilized and sent home. He shared quarters there with at least three other non-commissioned officers.
On the evening that the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt was announced, two of the other sergeants drank themselves into a merry state. A third resident of their lodging, still sober, was a photographer for the Army newspaper The Stars and Stripes. The two were mugging for the camera, holding drunkenly on to each other and suggesting that the photographer label the photographs that he was taking with the caption “American Soldiers Mourn the Death of President Roosevelt.” He was snapping busily away as they struck various melodramatic poses.
It seems odd that a staff sergeant assigned to the Eleventh Armored Division would be in a Paris suburb waiting for demobilization around April 12, 1945 (the date of Roosevelt’s death). The Eleventh Armored Division was fighting in Bavaria at that time. It entered Linz in early May. VE Day came a few days later.
At the end of the Second World War, he found himself waiting in Paris — specifically, as I recall, in the suburban area of Le Vesinet, which I’ve visited in his honor — to be demobilized and sent home. He shared quarters there with at least three other non-commissioned officers.
On the evening that the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt was announced, two of the other sergeants drank themselves into a merry state. A third resident of their lodging, still sober, was a photographer for the Army newspaper The Stars and Stripes. The two were mugging for the camera, holding drunkenly on to each other and suggesting that the photographer label the photographs that he was taking with the caption “American Soldiers Mourn the Death of President Roosevelt.” He was snapping busily away as they struck various melodramatic poses.
It seems odd that a staff sergeant assigned to the Eleventh Armored Division would be in a Paris suburb waiting for demobilization around April 12, 1945 (the date of Roosevelt’s death). The Eleventh Armored Division was fighting in Bavaria at that time. It entered Linz in early May. VE Day came a few days later.
It’s a puzzle Tom as, in the same article he published a photo with the caption
A formation of SS troops at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. My father participated in the liberation of this camp as part of the 11th Armored Division of Patton’s Third Army. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)
The liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Mauthausen, near Linz, Austria, on 6 May 1945, by elements of the Eleventh Armored Division of General George Patton’s Third Army. My father was there that day, though I don’t believe that he’s in this photograph. He raised me with the moral obligation that he himself felt, that the crimes committed at Mauthausen and other such camps must never be forgotten. And I HAVEN’T forgotten.
(Photo from Wikimedia Commons public domain)
It appears that Peterson’s father possessed the ability to be in two places at once…
Premise 1. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.
Premise 2. The best evidence for the Book of Mormon is eyewitness testimony.
Conclusion. Therefore, the best evidence for the Book of Mormon is notoriously unreliable.
It seems odd that a staff sergeant assigned to the Eleventh Armored Division would be in a Paris suburb waiting for demobilization around April 12, 1945 (the date of Roosevelt’s death). The Eleventh Armored Division was fighting in Bavaria at that time. It entered Linz in early May. VE Day came a few days later.
It’s a puzzle Tom as, in the same article he published a photo with the caption
A formation of SS troops at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. My father participated in the liberation of this camp as part of the 11th Armored Division of Patton’s Third Army. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)
The liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Mauthausen, near Linz, Austria, on 6 May 1945, by elements of the Eleventh Armored Division of General George Patton’s Third Army. My father was there that day, though I don’t believe that he’s in this photograph. He raised me with the moral obligation that he himself felt, that the crimes committed at Mauthausen and other such camps must never be forgotten. And I HAVEN’T forgotten.
(Photo from Wikimedia Commons public domain)
It appears that Peterson’s father possessed the ability to be in two places at once…
I hope DCP was simply mistaken on the dates and that this isn't a case of stolen valor. Unfortunately, stolen valor (claiming false military service, awards, and heroism) was not all that uncommon in WWII for soldiers and even their families back home who sometimes exaggerated and fabricated heroism.
Claiming stolen valor is very troubling, but psychologically fascinating for a variety of reasons. I'm sure we'll get some clarification soon from DCP on this.
"I'm on paid sabbatical from BYU in exchange for my promise to use this time to finish two books."
