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AR 29:33 - High school teacher's million-view short video on … logic
In this issue:
HOMOSEXUALITY - "public support of LGBTQ causes shows signs of weakening"
PHILOSOPHY - "God and the universe are the same thing"
PERSUASION - teacher's short video also results in getting fired and being featured by Piers Morgan, Candace Owens, and The Rubin Report
Apologia Report 29:33 (1,674)
September 4, 2024
HOMOSEXUALITY
"The Fall of Pride" by Matthew Schmitz (First Things, Aug '24) -- "On June 2, 2024, protestors temporarily halted the Philly Pride Parade. They were not congregants of the Westboro Baptist Church or representatives of the Proud Boys, but members of a group called Queers 4 Palestine. ...
"The interruption was the latest sign of the challenges facing Pride, a month long holiday that has united corporations and activist groups, political leaders and self-styled dissidents in celebration not only of gay liberation but of queerness generally. After decades of increasing buy-in, Pride appears to be losing public legitimacy. ...
"Inspired by the 1969 Stonewall Riots, the first Pride parades took place in 1970....
"In 2023, the backlash came. On April 1, the transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney posted a picture on Instagram featuring a personalized can of Bud Light. The conservative commentator Matt Walsh called for a boycott. Kid Rock posted a video of himself shooting a case of beer. Megyn Kelly compared drinking beer to giving 'a middle finger to women.' Bud Light's sales declined by approximately 25 percent in a matter of weeks. Two executives associated with the Mulvaney promotion were placed on leave. Anheuser-Busch's chief marketing officer stepped aside. Bud Light, the top-selling beer in the U.S. for twenty-two years, was dethroned...." Target and Nike are cited as other companies that have suffered in a similar way as "public support of LGBTQ causes shows signs of weakening. ...
"More troubling for supporters of Pride are polls showing that support for same-sex marriage is declining among young Americans. ... Gen Z Americans are now less supportive of same-sex marriage than their Millennial elders.
"These results may reflect a broader rightward turn among Gen Z men, who are much more opposed to feminism than their Millennial counterparts. ...
"Queerness - which rejects not only heteronormativity, but any stable sexual identity - appears to be the controlling term. It may embrace homosexuality or lesbianism insofar as those are opposed to heterosexuality, but it turns against them when they begin to insist on biological sex.
"If Pride were being challenged only by a diminished, if persistent, religious right, then its recent setbacks could be dismissed as temporary. But in fact the challenges are more wide-ranging. Pride is now criticized not only by conservative Christians, but by progressive activists who make a claim on its deepest meaning. Long associated with youth and the future, it is bleeding support among young Americans. It must overcome not only external opposition but its own internal contradictions, as it is invoked in the name of a global imperial project, and of decolonial revolution - of rights for gay men, and of the denial of all sexual distinctions. The Pride flag, like the flag of the United States, no longer unifies those who once marched behind it." <www.tinyurl.com/5bm5dtek>
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PHILOSOPHY
In his feature, "The 'God' of the 'Philosophers,'" Justin Brierley - a podcast and radio host who deals with the intersection of faith, culture, and philosophy - muses about the sour nature of emeritus professor of chemistry at Oxford University, Peter Atkins while reminiscing over past interview experiences.
Brierley concludes: "Atkins may represent an extreme example of inflexible skepticism. But [Brierley feels the encounter is] helpful in explaining why a book on the philosophical arguments for and against God will inevitably be limited in its ability to persuade."
Then Brierley considers Jack Symes, editor of Philosophers on God: Talking about Existence, <www.tinyurl.com/36xubc4y> and observes: "Symes himself is not a theist, but he's not exactly a typical atheist naturalist either. He's an adherent of an increasingly fashionable position called 'panpsychism' - the view that consciousness is the fundamental constituent of reality and that everything, from the smallest atom to the most complex human brain, is 'conscious' at some level."
Further into discussing the book, Brierley remarks: "For a book titled Philosophers on God, however, it's unclear why [Richard] Dawkins (a biologist) and [Susan] Blackmore (a psychologist) are included. ...
"I can imagine many atheist readers feeling let down given the many very capable atheist philosophers in existence who could have engaged more fruitfully with the opening arguments in the book. ...
"Most cultural thinkers have long shed the dewy-eyed optimism of the New Atheist promises of a utopian future based on science and reason. The quasi-religion of the postmodern ideologies that have replaced Christianity in the West and their attendant culture wars are not seen as signs of progress. ...
"Likewise, many other secular intellectuals, such as Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson, and Tom Holland, have been asking where exactly we are heading in the absence of Christianity. ...
"Reading the anachronistic arguments of Blackmore and Dawkins only confirmed my sense that the New Atheism is well and truly over as an intellectual project. ...
"The climax comes in the final chapter as Asha Lancaster-Thomas, a pantheist, argues that God and the universe are the same thing. ...
"Personally, I find pantheism a pointless sort of philosophy. It stretches the concept of God so thin and is so all-encompassing that it fails to say anything interesting at all. ...
"In conclusion, allow me to wear my faith on my sleeve. Whether someone argues for (or against) God on the grounds of Christianity, atheism, Islam, Hinduism, or something else, I can't improve on the words of C.S. Lewis:
"The Pantheist's God does nothing, demands nothing. He is there if you wish for Him, like a book on a shelf. He will not pursue you. There is no danger that at any time heaven and earth should flee away at His glance.… It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. 'Look out!' we cry, 'it's alive.' And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back - I would have done so myself if I could - and proceed no further with Christianity. An 'impersonal God' - well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads - better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap - best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband - that is quite another matter." <www.tinyurl.com/2jfj78jm>
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PERSUASION
When a public high school teacher's short video on logic gets a million views, it catches our attention. "Warren Smith, Teacher in Viral Video on J.K. Rowling, on the Power of Critical Thinking" (Epoch Times - American Thought Leaders, Jul 6 '24) -- "In January [2024], high school teacher Warren Smith posted a video <www.tinyurl.com/ms4jc66x> of an exchange he had with a student - an exercise in Socratic dialogue and critical thinking. Within a short time, the video went viral. Six months later, his life has dramatically changed.
"'When I look at that video, I never in a thousand years would have guessed that it would have gone viral. And to me, that's indicative of a larger problem. The fact that there's that much hunger for logic and critical thinking and seeing such a transformation occur - there's so many presuppositions and unfair accusations and such lazy thinking out there that that is what went viral. Really?' Mr. Smith says."
Going deeper, he adds: "I think the Socratic method is something, like many things that are highly effective, within us. And if you kind of have the right intention, the right goal, it often just happens. I don't think Socrates invented the Socratic method. I think he discovered something that was already there. ...
"We dissect the viral video Mr. Smith recorded, and discuss his project to expand the Secret Scholars Academy. We also discuss his faith in God, views on higher education, and lessons he has learned from the Harry Potter series." <www.tinyurl.com/5zrhvtjh> (registration required)
Here's a brief rundown of what has happened since, including things like getting fired and being featured by Piers Morgan, Candace Owens, and The Rubin Report. <www.tinyurl.com/4zef79wt>
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