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AR 26:42 - Joining "ersatz race science with wild speculation"
In this issue:
ORIGINS - "fine-tuning arguments can succeed even if the crucial probability is low"
WOKENESS - "a more fruitful and biblical way forward"
+ Antiracism compared with anti-Semitism
Apologia Report 26:42 (1,547)
November 3, 2021
ORIGINS
"Fine-tuning arguments and biological design arguments: can the theist have both?" by Joel Ballivian -- the abstract for this paper in Religion, State and Society (49:3 - 2021, pp484-490) explains: "There are at least two kinds of design arguments for theism: fine-tuning arguments and biological design arguments. Dougherty and Poston (2008) have argued that the success of one requires the failure of the other, and vice versa. The reason is that the success of these arguments hinges on the following crucial probability: the probability that biological life exists somewhere in the universe given that (a) our universe is finely tuned and that (b) biological development is unguided by intelligence. According to Dougherty and Poston, fine-tuning arguments require that the crucial probability is high while biological design arguments require that the crucial probability is low. As a result, at most one of these design arguments can factor into a cumulative case argument for theism. I argue that this is mistaken. Specifically, I show that fine-tuning arguments can succeed even if the crucial probability is low." <www.bit.ly/2YDfNNc> (paywalled)
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WOKENESS
"All Black Lives Are Sacred: A Christian Response to 'Structural Racism'" by Regis Nicoll (former nuclear engineer, physicist, and Colson Center fellow) -- while not a review, Nicoll interacts significantly with Jemar Tisby's book The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church's Complicity in Racism [1]. Nicoll reports that "Tisby tries to distance himself from criticisms of Critical Theory...." Yet, he opts for a definition "straight from the CT lexicon. 'Racism,' he insists, is 'prejudice plus power.' The subliminal message is that minorities cannot be racist because they do not hold power; only those in the majority (read, whites) can be racist and, indeed, are such by their actions or inaction ('complicity')."
It seems anything can be racist: "nearly every week, some new thing, even the transcendent (math, logic, biblical exegesis) or sublime (classical music, poetry, National Parks), is so branded. ...
"Tisby's account, capped with the admonition of St. James ('If anyone, then, knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for him'), seems aimed at generating 'guilt leading to repentance' in people for sins they never committed. ...
"The irony is that, while Tisby argues that you and I bear individual responsibility for the decisions and actions of others decades and even centuries removed from us, he disdains the suggestion that (minority) people bear individual responsibility for the decisions they make in the here and now to, say, drop out of school, engage in non-marital sex, or join a gang. ...
"Throughout The Color of Compromise, Tisby informs us that 'racism never goes away; it just adapts.' ... The notion of a 'racialized society' is another CT construct, which, along with 'systemic' and 'structural' racism, has mobilized an army of virtue-signalers whose new life mission, it seems, is to scour the corners of every public and private space to 'out' the 'guilty.'
"Then there's Tisby's introduction of Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors, two of the founders of Black Lives Matter, who are on record saying they are 'trained Marxists' and suggesting that their movement is built around that ideological frame. This is a troubling fact that Tisby fails to mention.
"Instead, he urges Christians who object to certain aspects of the BLM movement to support the slogan. Problem is, the movement and the slogan are inextricably linked. ...
"A more fruitful and biblical way forward, patterned after the 'teaching a person to fish' principle, is the ministry of Robert L. Woodson. Woodson is a black leader who, among numerous others like Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, and civil rights attorney Leo Terrell, understands that the biggest problems facing the black community do not come from the outside. ...
"Woodson, through the Woodson Center, has been transforming communities from within by raising up 'modern-day Josephs' - indigenous leaders who mentor and direct individuals in virtue formation and life skills to become productive members of society. ...
"To date, the Woodson Center has trained 2,600 'Josephs,' who have made positive impacts on thousands of young people in dozens of states around the country. This is a ministry that churches, aiming to address the issues attributed to structural racism, could partner with, along with leaders in the business community, to effect positive changes in their cities and beyond." Salvo, 56 - 2020 <www.bit.ly/3aTGIXZ>
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"Antiracist Hysteria," by R. R. Reno (First Things, Dec '2020), begins with an historical overview of anti-Semitism in 1800s Europe and discusses parallels with our present culture.
"The New York Times's 1619 Project ... is propaganda, created by what a critical race theorist might call the 'white syndicate,' which conspires to mask and consolidate its power. ...
"[P]ortions of Robin DiAngelo's book read like turn-of-the-century anti-Semitic tracts, which combined ersatz race science with wild speculation. ...
"In his foreword to White Fragility, Michael Eric Dyson adapts anti-Semitic tropes to the antiracist agenda."
For anti-Semites "'Jewishness' mattered above all. For Dyson, DiAngelo, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ibram X. Kendi, and others, 'whiteness' is of transcendent significance. It is the all-explaining source of inequality, injustice, oppression, and suffering. ...
Anti-semites "were often strong supporters of politicians who opposed Catholic influence over education and civic life. ... Today's critical race theorists operate in much the same way. ...
"One is reminded of Jussie Smollett. He, too, concocted false evidence by paying Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo to stage an assault, which he reported to the police as a hate crime during which his assailants put a noose around his neck and shouted racist and anti-gay epithets. Public figures expressed their support for Smollett, warning about the ever-present peril faced by black and gay men. As evidence mounted that the assault had been faked, a few condemned Smollett's lies, others retracted their statements, and still others went silent. Some, though, maintained their support. Jeffrey Wright, a fellow actor, defended Smollett.... The Los Angeles LGBT Center allowed that the circumstances were 'confusing' and 'deeply unfortunate.' But it admonished us to keep our eyes on the larger truth: 'Hate crimes, particularly against people of color and the LGBT community, are real and on the rise.' ... Yes, Smollett lied, but he did so in the service of a higher and more important truth.
"This logic has played out countless times in recent years. Protestors still say, 'Hands up, don't shoot,' a chant that gained currency in 2014 after Michael Brown was shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. The subsequent and definitive evidence that Brown had been assaulting the police officer, not surrendering to him, is of no moment. The same may hold true for George Floyd. There is evidence that his death may have been caused by a drug overdose, not police restraint. But few wish to consider this possibility. We are told we must honor the 'larger truth' of police violence against black men. Social-scientific evidence suggests that there is no disproportionate use of lethal force against black men. This, too, is of no moment. ...
"The racial achievement gap in education narrowed in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet our mood in recent years has soured. ...
"'Systemic racism' is the hidden power that can explain our frustrations. The concept of 'intersectionality' allows us to apply antiracist analysis widely. ...
"By this way of thinking - so widespread today - we are caught in a spiderweb of cisgendered white maleness that is all the more powerful for being invisible. ... The fact that one finds no discrete instances of discrimination or even conscious racial sentiment is of no moment. A 'system' is at work. As with the hysterical anti-Semitism of fin-de-siècle France, this conspiratorial way of thinking allows us to focus our frustrations on an evil enemy. It reassures us in the same way a medical diagnosis of a mysterious illness brings relief. That's one reason why so many white people thrill to the anti-white rhetoric of DiAngelo, Kendi, and others. ...
"Conservative leaders in fin-de-siècle France faced an impossible situation. ... Is it any surprise, therefore, that they were captivated by an all-explaining anti-Semitic hysteria?
"The same holds for Hillary Clinton and the liberal establishment (as well as the center-right establishment that is implicated in the status quo). Our leaders are unsettled by the scale and scope of our present distempers. ... [T]here is a great deal of ruin in America. It's a daunting time to be in a position of responsibility. I have no ready answer to these and other questions. Which is why I, too, feel the lure of antiracist fixations. ...
"Historical analogies break down. French anti-Semitism is different from our consensus about 'systemic racism' and worries about the dire threat of 'whiteness.' ...
"BLM activists and their fellow travelers police speech and topple statues, and although they are not yet burning books, they cancel careers, censor publications, and terrorize those they deem agents of 'white privilege.' Worse still, as foundations shovel money to antiracist organizations, universities launch antiracist initiatives, and corporations intensify 'diversity training' and establish hiring quotas, the people running our country are able to compliment themselves on their commitment to defeating the chimera of 'systemic racism' while ignoring our very real, evident, and pressing problems. ...
"Pope Francis draws attention to a variety of challenges.... He emphasizes our common humanity, asking us to move 'beyond ourselves' so that we can 'dream' together and 'create a community of belonging and solidarity worthy of our time.'
"The main thrust is welcome." Yet, "he calls just war a concept 'that we no longer uphold in our own day.' Just as he emphasizes a de facto abolitionism concerning the death penalty, he seems to wish to institute an all-things-considered pacifism for Catholics. ...
"Francis implies that ... Catholics must be in favor of open borders. ...
"Francis and his advisers do not seem to grasp the divisive role this rhetoric plays in civic life. ... The implication is that dissenters from progressivism do not disagree about policies. They are moral monsters - haters. ...
"'Earlier Jewish traditions,' he observes, understood the commandment of neighborly love to apply only to fellow Jews. On his account, later Jewish thinkers understood the universal scope of love, which is made explicit in the New Testament.
"This is a commonplace of modern biblical scholarship, and it is bad theology." Explanation follows.
Francis' "secular rhetoric of an 'open society' in a magisterial document is careless. ...
"Openness, encounter, and other concepts favored in the encyclical can play a role. They can help us discern our shared loves. But they cannot be love's objects; they cannot be the basis for social friendship. That [the encyclical] suggests they can marks its failure." <www.bit.ly/3nkk6FI>
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church's Complicity in Racism, by Jemar Tisby (Zondervan, 2020, paperback, 256 pages) <www.bit.ly/3ABNRqZ>
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