Embedded Files
( - previous issue - )
Apologia Report 15:34 (1,039)
September 22, 2010
Subject: Political Left, "incapable of accurate moral judgment"?
In this issue:
EVIL - the American political Left's historic "inability to identify and confront evil"
HINDUISM - Stephen Prothero finds caste system operational in the US
ISLAM - the international debate regarding governmental bans on Muslim headcovering
MORMONISM - Dialogue journal responds to Book of Abraham defense
------
EVIL
"ABC, NPR and PBS Hosts Equate Christian and Muslim Violence" by Dennis Prager -- a brief, clear discussion of the American political Left's "inability to identify and confront evil." Prager begins with a brief review of how global armed conflict has influenced the thinking of modern liberalism, concluding that it led liberals into the arms of the morally confused left.
Praeger illustrates his thesis with examples from ABC, NPR and PBS. Specifically, he is concerned with those who see no contradiction in equating Muslims who murder in the name of Islam with Americans who commit murder - even when it is not done in the name of Christianity.
Prager describes leftism as a worldview that permeates our high schools, universities, and news and entertainment media, and which has become largely incapable of accurate moral judgments. Its existence explains "how bright and decent people become moral relativists and thereby undermine the battles against the greatest evils....
"The only solution is to keep exposing leftist moral confusion. One problem, however, is that in countries without talk radio, an equivalent to the Wall Street Journal editorial page, conservative columnists and a vigorous anti-left political party, this is largely impossible.
"The other major problem is that the media that dominate American life have little problem, indeed largely concur, with the foolish and dangerous comments made by their mainstream media colleagues. That is why these comments, worthy of universal moral condemnation, [are] ignored by the mainstream (i.e., leftwing) media. Instead, they directed mind-numbing attention and waves of opprobrium toward Dr. Laura [Schlessinger].
"Those who don't fight real evils fight imaginary ones." The Jewish World Review, Aug 31 '10, <www.tinyurl.com/2bpcmwm>.
---
HINDUISM
"Hinduism's caste problem, out in the open" by Stephen Prothero, a Boston University religion scholar, author of God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World [1], and a regular CNN Belief Blog contributor. In a Jul 16 ‘10 blog post, Prothero argues that a "finely grained system of caste is used in the United States to persuade my Hindu students not to marry below their station, and in India to justify so-called honor killings." Betraying his own moral confusion, in his attempt to show that all religions have their "dark sides," Prothero explains that "I made my students read Nazi theology because I wanted to challenge them to see how the Christian legacy of anti-Semitism, which goes back to claims in the Gospel of John that the Jews killed Jesus, had been used to justify the murder of Jews.
...
"After 9/11, many Muslims made a similar move. The men who chanted 'Allahu Akbar' as they flew their jets into the Twin Towers were not Muslims, they said, because Muslims are good people, and good people do not murder innocent women and children. They, too, absolved themselves of the responsibility of reckoning with their tradition's dark side.
"Most Hindus are good people. The ones I know certainly are. But it does no good for them or for anyone else to pretend that 'there is no caste in Hinduism.' There is caste in Hinduism. That question is settled, in blood. The real question is what Hindus are going to do about it." <www.tinyurl.com/2dw36mg>
---
HOMOSEXUALITY
"The Role of Religion in America's Laws" by Daniel Burke -- summarizes conservative responses to the decision of U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to strike down California's Proposition 8. "Howard Friedman, an emeritus law professor at Ohio's University of Toledo, said Walker is not attacking religion per se; he is just not giving religious expression any special consideration. 'He's basically saying that a private moral view isn't a rational basis for legislation,' said Friedman, who writes the popular 'Religion Clause' blog [religionclause.blogspot.com]. 'Case law goes both ways on that. There are certainly some cases that say a merely moral view isn't enough to support legislation; on the other hand, there are some cases that talk about laws being a moral view on society.'" Hindu Press International, Aug 14 '10. (Based on the RNS story here: <www.tinyurl.com/27kt7k9>)
---
ISLAM
Martha Nussbaum offers a comprehensive review of the issues liberal democratic governments face regarding proposed bans on Muslim head coverings in a forum named "The Stone," a New York Times blog discussion "for contemporary philosophers." On July 11, Nussbaum introduced the discussion <www.tinyurl.com/3ygldln> by summarizing the difficulties in treating people with "equal respect in areas touching on religious belief and observance." After reviewing the background of "the accommodationist position [that] has been dominant in U.S. law and public culture," Nussbaum presents five arguments that are commonly made in favor of proposed Muslim headcovering bans.
"First, it is argued that security requires people to show their
faces when appearing in public places. A second, closely related, argument says that the kind of transparency and reciprocity proper to relations between citizens is impeded by covering part of the face.
...
"A third argument, very prominent today, is that the burqa is a symbol of male domination that symbolizes the objectification of women (that they are being seen as mere objects). ...
"A fourth argument holds that women wear the burqa only because they are coerced. ...
"Finally, I've heard the argument that the burqa is per se unhealthy, because it is hot and uncomfortable."
On July 15, Nussbaum responded to comments about her introduction <www.tinyurl.com/2cs7nsq>. Her response is divided into six areas: 1. The position of the Catholic Church; 2. The special case of France; 3. Terrorism and safety; 4. Depersonalization and respect for persons; 5. Social Pressure and government intervention; and, 6. How much choice is enough?
Also see "Professor Prothero, Meet the Burqa Bandits" by David J. Rusin, an August 27 opinion piece on the Islamist Watch web site. <www.tinyurl.com/29lsvob>
---
MORMONISM
"The Original Length of the Scroll of Hor" by Andrew W. Cook and Christopher C. Smith -- further damage to the claims of founder Joseph Smith and the origin of the LDS Book of Abraham. The authors explain that "Smith claimed that one of the rolls in his possession contained a record of the biblical patriarch Abraham, which he began to translate by the gift and power of God."
The authors respond to "A few Mormon historians [who] maintain that the source from which Joseph Smith derived the Book of Abraham ... was probably destroyed" and that the existing text (known as the Scroll of Hor) is not the actual document used by Smith, thus avoiding all criticism. "The question then becomes whether the undamaged Scroll of Hor was ever long enough to accommodate a hieratic Book of Abraham source text. ...
"The purpose of this paper is to introduce a robust methodology that eliminates the guesswork in determining ... whether the missing interior section of the Hor scroll could have been long enough to accommodate the Book of Abraham. Fortunately, this is a question that can be definitively answered by examining the physical characteristics of the extant portions of the scroll." Dauntingly technical at times, but nevertheless quite interesting. Dialogue, Winter - 2010, <www.tinyurl.com/27kxtx4>
For a thorough analysis of Latter-Day Saint problems regarding the Book of Abraham, see <www.tinyurl.com/22kcbon>.
-------
SOURCES: Monographs
1 - God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World - and Why Their Differences Matter, by Stephen Prothero (HarperOne, 2010, hardcover, 400 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/yjfppww>
---
( - next issue - )
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse