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Apologia Report 12:18
May 10, 2007
Subject: Will militants become the leading voice of Islam?
In this issue:
ARCHAEOLOGY - secular denunciations of The Jesus Family Tomb
ETHICS - new arguments for the animal origins of human morality
ISLAM - determining who will speak for the Muslim majority
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ARCHAEOLOGY
"Hype in the Holy Land" by Eric A. Powell -- "Just in time for Lent, the Discovery Channel went into overdrive promoting [The Jesus Family Tomb] a documentary film and accompanying book [1] that contend a first-century A.D. tomb excavated in the Jerusalem suburb of Talpiyot once held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family, as well as Mary Magdalene. The news was greeted with a collective groan from biblical scholars, who in recent years have become accustomed to fielding reporters' calls about the latest archaeological bombshell from the Holy Land."
Filmmaker Simcha "Jacobovici's last high-profile project was a documentary on the so-called James Ossuary, which bears an inscription reading 'James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.' The Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) subsequently declared that the latter part of the inscription was a modern addition; its owner, antiquities collector Oded Golan, is now on trial in Jerusalem, charged with leading a forgery ring that may have faked a number of artifacts and inscriptions related to the Bible. ...
"'These are common names,' says archaeologist Eric Meyers of Duke University, who has a number of problems with Jacobovici's research. 'The investigation was conducted in secret over the past three years and all the parties involved signed non-disclosure agreements. That's not how you do archaeology. That's how you do show business, and it's a disservice to biblical archaeology.' ...
"A number of discoveries linked to the Bible that have made the news in recent years have been shown to be fakes, and, like the James Ossuary, many of them are included in the indictment of Oded Golan." Archaeology, May/Jun '07, pp10-11.
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ETHICS
"Are We Born Moral?" by John Gray -- a joint review of Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong, by Marc D. Hauser [2] and Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved, by Frans de Waal [3]. Gray opens with the postulate: "If Darwinian theory is sound, morality in humans results at least in some part from evolutionary processes, and when they act as moral beings humans are displaying capacities they have in common with some other animals. Rather than suppressing their instincts, they are behaving naturally.
"To view morality as a fetter on animal instincts is to think of it in pre-Darwinian terms, but curiously some of the most ardent Darwinians have also seen it in this way." The examples of T.H. Huxley and Richard Dawkins are given.
Gray explains that "It is difficult to resist the suspicion that this assumption [that human moral behavior has no roots in traits we share with nonhumans] is an inheritance from religion, and it is notable that much of the debate surrounding evolution and ethics assumes a view of morality derived from Western traditions of monotheism.... In these traditions the core of morality is a set of rules, laying down duties, imposing prohibitions and specifying what is permissible....
"In Moral Minds, Marc Hauser, a psychologist at Harvard who has studied social behavior and altruism among monkeys, accepts the prevailing view that moral behavior is fundamentally about conforming to principles, but argues that this view attaches too much importance to conscious processes of reasoning. ...
"Viewing human moral psychology with reference to an instinct or faculty we share with some other animals, Hauser rejects the idea that we must be able to articulate the reasons for our actions in order to be moral agents. ...
"Throughout Moral Minds ... Hauser is emphatic that he does not accept a single set of rules about morality and that his is 'a pluralistic position, one that recognizes different moral systems, and sees adherence to a single system as oppressive.' Even so he is insistent that human moral capacities embody universal principles. ...
"The problem with this agrument," says Gray, "is not its suggestion that the human moral faculty has unique features, which can hardly be doubted. It is that it takes for granted that these have to do with creating and following rational rules or principles."
Hauser "accepts an understanding of what it is to be moral that is culture-specific, and one that has not always been accepted, even in Western traditions. ...
"De Waal is one of the world's foremost authorities on nonhuman primates, and his thoughtful contribution to Primates and Philosophers is enriched by decades of close observation of their behavior. Using this evidence and research conducted by other primate scientists, he criticizes the understanding of morality predominant among contemporary moral philosophers.... He argues that humans are like their closest evolutionary kin in being moral by nature."
Gray asks: "What justification can there be - apart from a religious faith in human uniqueness - for rejecting evidence that points to the animal origins of human morality?"
Gray's conclusion observes that "Hauser's and de Waal's research suggests something more like the Greek standpoint, of a more practical, virtue-based morality, which accepted that humans are moral by nature. ...
"Darwinian theories have no place for teleological explanations - that is to say, explanations that rely on ascribing purposes to evolutionary processes.
"These processes have no overall purpose or direction. If they have produced an innate moral faculty in humans it is likely sometimes to conflict with other instincts and to leave many moral dilemmas unresolved. The hardest of these dilemmas will not resemble difficulties in grammar, when there is doubt about the right application of a rule. They will be cases where universal human virtues or values point in different directions - as when justice clashes with mercy, or the promotion of general welfare collides with some conception of justice. Evolutionary theories may do much to illuminate the origins of morality, but they are unlikely to help us solve these dilemmas." New York Review of Books, May 10 '07, pp26-28.
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ISLAM
Wrestling Islam from the Extremists, by Khaled M. Abou El Fadl [4] -- the reviewer, Warren Larson, heads the Zwemer Center of Muslim Studies <ciu.edu/muslimstudies>. Consequently, his positive opinion of this book is encouraging given the fact that Larson reports it is "Hailed as the 'first attempt' to explain moderate and extremist Muslim views."
As others have found, El Fadl believes that "one reason for the conflicted, dysfunctional state of current Islam is that the religion lacks a final authority. Consequently, the self-proclaimed [extremist] experts say anything they want and get away with it."
Larson's findings confirm the impression that a long conflict over authority looms ahead, the outcome of which is far from certain. El Fadl's remedy is for "the 'silent majority' [of 'pluralistic, tolerant, and non-violent Islam' to] wage a counter-jihad to rescue the soul of Islam from a 'militant and fanatic minority.'" (Consider also the irony of exclusivists - e.g., CT's readership - applauding pluralistic goals in this case.) Brief. Christianity Today, Apr '07, p87.
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Sources, Monographs:
1 - The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History , by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino (HarperSanFrancisco, 2007, hardcover, 240 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061192023/apologiareport>
2 - Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong, by Marc D. Hauser (Ecco, 2006, hardcover, 512 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060780703/apologiareport>
3 - Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved, by Frans de Waal (Princeton Univ Prs, 2006, hardcover, 230 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691124477/apologiareport>
4 - Wrestling Islam from the Extremists, by Khaled M. Abou El Fadl (apparently re-named since the review was written, now named The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists, HarperSanFrancisco, 2007, paperback, 336 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061189030/apologiareport>
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