Notably absent from a book purporting to be a refutation of racism is a definition of either race or racism. There is the ominous hint that racism is evil, and the assertion that races don’t even exist, but precise definitions — nay, even fuzzy ones — are quite lacking. Throughout, evolution is pinned with the blame — unless it should be the fault of that most anti-evolutionary of all Western peoples, the Americans. Listen to Ham speak:
Darwinian evolution was (and still is) inherently a racist philosophy, teaching that different groups of “races” of people evolved at different times and rates, so some groups are more like their ape-like ancestors than others. (51)
There is something dishonest about that statement. Darwinists routinely deny the very thing that Ham attributes to them. And indeed, when Darwinists make claims consistent with Ham, he is quick to jump on board with them:
Scientists today admit that, biologically, there really is only one race of humans. For instance, a scientist at the Advancement of Science Convention in Atlanta in 1997 stated, “race is a social construct derived mainly from perceptions conditioned by events of recorded history, and it has no basic biological reality.” This person went on to say, “curiously enough, the idea comes very close to being of American manufacture. ” (52)
Let’s start with the “American manufacture” slur. It only takes a page before Ham forgets he endorsed that and goes on to approve the statement, “the most hideous example was provided by Hitler’s Germany” (53). Is it or is it not of American manufacture then? Does Ham listen to himself talking? The appeal to Hitler will need to be examined more closely in due time. For now, focus just on the opportunistic dishonesty in Ham’s use of sources. Within two pages, he both blames evolutionism as being inherently racist, and praises them for denying racism.
Though neither race nor racism is ever defined, very clearly Mr. Ham thinks racism has something to do with common vs. disjunctive origin. For, he concludes the long section (chap 1-4) on the genetic possibility that all men are descended from a single pair, “Now that we understand that the so-called ‘races’ in reality constitute just one race…”
But this is crazy. Many people that believe humanity is divided into races also believe that all men are descended from a single pair, and the vast majority of Christians that believe in the existence of races share that belief. Moreover, chronologists, genealogists and mappers of humanity developed a comprehensive theory on the distribution of the races of humanity long before evolution was believed by any but a few esoteric neo-Platonists here and there. Their material on genetic theory is interesting, but Ham et al. are tilting at windmills if they think this is telling against a belief that races exist.
One could be cute and point out that some evolutionists believe in a common ancestor with a vengeance — indeed, that all living things descend from the same single cell! So by Ham’s definition, evolutionists not only deny “races” among men, but would be forced to concede that men and apes are of the same race. And elephants, and beetles.
Let’s unpack Ham’s presupposition a little more. He seems to think that one belief about origins, “common descent,” leads to racial egalitarianism if not the denial that races even exist; while another, “multiple descent” leads to racism. Call the “common descent” belief S1 and the multiple-descent S2. So Ham thinks
S1 ==> egalitarianism or no races
S2 ==> racism
But in the course of time, S1 leads to S2, as Ham himself is at pains to point out. That is, he teaches that eventually commonly-descended humanity separated into isolated “people groups” which then developed racial characteristics on the basis of naturalistic survival of the fittest. On the one hand, S1 obtains: “…the so-called ‘races’ in reality constitute just one race,” and this because of common descent. On the other hand, segregation caused by the Babel dispersion led to diverse “people groups”:
Clearly, though, there are groups of people who have certain features (e.g. skin “color”) in common, which distinguish them from other groups. As stated earlier, we prefer to call these “people groups” rather than “races”. (57)
In other words, S2 resulted from S1 in the course of time. Thus,
S1 ==> S2 in the course of time.
From this, if Ham would pay attention, it follows that
S1 ==> racism in the course of time (if his second premise is true).
His thesis fails immediately. In other words, both the evolutionist and Mr. Ham believe in both single-descent and multiple descent. And if multiple-descent implies racism, then Ham’s model implies racism no less than the secular evolutionist’s does.
To rescue his thesis, he is probably going to have to introduce a magic time-scale: there was “enough time” to generate different “people groups” with quite different characteristics, but “not enough time” as that that could account for the superiority of one people group to another, or even, “differences” between them that are anything more than superficial.
Maybe so; but that is quite different from saying that single-origin versus “evolution” per se establishes his thesis. If he is going to hang everything on a magic time scale, let him say so plainly.
But the magic time scale will not lead to his conclusion either. His time scale is enough to explain the current racial differences, he says. And those differences are what they are. If they are such that one would conclude that one race is superior to another, it is entirely irrelevant what the time scale leading to those differences was.
The only point worth making with respect to evolutionists’ denial of evolutionary differences between the races is that they are obviously lying. Modern academia is all about funding, and you must be politically correct to get the funding. If evolution is true, then Africa is at least several hundred thousand years behind the evolutionary curve. Obviously. Anyone who denies this is either blind, inexperienced, or fundamentally dishonest. Salve your conscience by chalking it up to bad luck, if you wish — like the chronic “bad weather” explaining the poor harvests of the Soviet Union — but don’t deny the obvious.
Europeans that do deny it must think they are being humble and generous. They are not. They are despising the good gifts that have been showered on their own tribe. They are ingrates and prevaricators.
Now, a word of grace and hope needs to be extended to the African as well — and in due time I will make that point. But denying the plain facts of the current situation is hardly a basis for grace or hope. To say, in the teeth of all evidence,”have hope! you are really no different than any other tribe,” is hardly a message of hope.
Faced with this fact, Ham will undoubtedly try to shift the focus from nature to nurture: the problem is “cultural,” not “racial.” But the evolutionist cannot do this so quickly. To deny “biology” in favor of “culture” is dishonest since for the evolutionist, culture is an aspect of evolution as well. Moreover, for both Ham and the evolutionist, the proof that there is no biological aspect to “culture” has not been made. What would such a proof look like? What could it look like? Even after hundreds of years simmering in a European-cultural pressure-cooker, Africans when left alone gradually revert back to music and mores that resemble Africa, not Europe. Africans create a distinctly African culture wherever they end up, even as Scandinavians create a typically Scandinavian culture in Minnesota. And this during a time that African-Americans overwhelmingly claim Christianity and Scandinavians have largely abandoned it. Where is the proof that there is not something genetic going on here? Christians need to get their heads out of the sand.
The evolutionists are clearly prevaricating for reasons of political correctness for the purpose of obtaining political respect and, above all, funding; Ham et al, unfortunately, show themselves committed more strongly to something other than the truth by the opportunistic way they now use, now abuse evolutionists, just as it suits their own politically-correct agenda. The obvious dishonesty of the evolutionists should have been pointed out. But Ham cannot do this, because he wants to join them when they make this lie.
[…] Racism and Evolution […]
When I visit my sister she lets me attend classes with her at UNCG. So I attended one of her Anthropology classes.
The entire class was devoted to pounding this embarrassing evolutionary conclusion out of the collective psyche.
In fact, one of the texts for the class was Stephen J. Gould’s “Mismeasure of Man” in which Mr. Gould attempts to refute an idea of “biological determinism.” He says:
“My message is not that biological determinists were bad scientists or even that they were always wrong. Rather, I believe that science must be understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of robots programed to collect pure information. I also present this view as an upbeat for science, not as a gloomy epitaph for a noble hope sacrificed on the altar of human limitation. Science, since people must do it, is a socially embedded activity.”
It’s like that old socialist saying: “If the laws of nature refute socialism, then the laws of nature are wrong!”
I bet Ken Ham would make a similar move, and begin critiquing himself or past scientists, or science itself, rather than change his conclusions.
It’s terrifying that some people are better than others. (So much so, that Kevin MacDonald claims in a June 9 interview, that if someone is accused of having discriminated against another, their negative reactions can be monitored via brain waves.)
A little aside…I was listening to a tape by Dr. Douglas Stuart of Gordon-Conwell Seminary. He’s a Hebrew poetry & OT scholar. He says that the curse on Ham’s son, was on the Canaanites, who were not in fact black but were another Semitic people, like the Hebrews (or Arabs). What do you think of that?
E. Raymond Capt. (for some unstated reason) claimed that Nimrod was of a Semitic race as well. (In his book: Missing Links Discovered.)
I got the impression that this was some sort of generally acknowledged pool of thought among archaeologists.
If Nimrod was really from Shem (and not Ham) as were the Canaanites, then I have no idea what to believe. For now, I have to stick with what scripture says.
T,
You’ve abandoned the term “negro” for “African” and “African-American”! You haven’t received “funding”, have you? Just kidding!
I do wonder why in this post “tribe” is being used for both the Negro and the Aryan. Yet, the biblical category of tribe might today distinguish between, say, a Scot and a Brit, not a Negro and an Aryan. On your usage, inter-tribal marriage would include both the lawful and the unlawful.
This raises the questions, 1)which biblical categories relate to ours today; and 2) which intermarriage laws pertained to redemptive/land aspects that have dropped off today?
You wrote elsewhere of a biblical scheme something like this: Family> Clan> Tribe> Race/Nation.
One argument against interracial marriage is to show that since inter-tribal marriages were explicitly condemned in the law of Moses, then, a fortiori interracial marriages are condemned. But today we permit a Scot and a Brit as a legitimate white marriage. Is this because the tribe category has been swallowed by the race category? Or are such marriages unlawful, the tribe category still holding?
These questions have puzzled me for some time. It seems that there is much more going on in the inter-tribal laws than can be dismissed by a Redemptive/Historical fulfillment.
Joshua — yes, those that might have caught the initial post may have noticed that the terminology did change a bit. I thought the nuance of national origin (African) brought the point home better than the racial (Negro) in this case, in order to bring out the lack of importance of place differences, though the two concepts refer to the same thing (think evening and morning star).
The tribe/race distinction is a fuzzy one — and necessarily so. Where to draw the line?
We should note well that the drinking fountains, schools, and real estate that were made the purported issue of the “civil rights” movement are all smoke screens for the real issue: access to the women. All kinds of inter-racial harmony is possible as long as the understanding is that men of the inferior tribe are not going to hit on the women of the superior tribe. That is the key to everything.
Though the fuzzy line can NOT [added 10 PM] be defined deductively (or at least it will require a lot more work to do so), as a practical starting point for knowing where to draw the line, I suggest the simple rule: two tribes count as the same race if the men of each tribe are content having their women courted by men of the other tribe.
In America, this has proven the case with Celt and German. Therefore this is our tribal destiny. Yet, you can imagine a state of affairs say in Europe, where neither Irishman nor Saxon would want to see his women going over to the other — though they might have friendly relations, a close brotherly alliance in resisting the incursions of the jew, and so forth.
My proposal gives a way through the fuzziness, while granting the lines might be drawn differently here or there.
“Two tribes count as the same race if the men of each tribe are content having their women courted by men of the other tribe.”
So laws on inter-marriage are positivistic rather than Divinely absolute? It seems that even our practical starting points must not be socially relative and defined.
“My proposal gives a way through the fuzziness, while granting the lines might be drawn differently here or there.”
Yes, your proposal allows for a Nuremberg approach and a neo-Babelist one. It’s even contrary to what you said about “as long as…men of the inferior tribe are not going to hit on the women of the superior tribe. That is the key to everything.” For I can imagine a white tribe (either aware or unaware of the the Negro’s inferiority) being content to give their women to the Negro.
Joshua — rather than frame it as normative vs pragmatic (your absolute vs positivistic) I would rather observe that there are a variety of trajectories and nested norms, and that we can explore one trajectory or layer without needing always to prove the whole kahuna. Thus, it seems much easier to prove that a tribe is within its rights to forbid miscegenation, than to prove that miscegenation is everywhere and always sinful. In addition to the difficulty of proving the latter, there would also be the attendant difficulty of providing a rigorous and undebatable definition of the boundary lines. If the weaker claim can bypass these difficulties, it seems worthwhile to mention that at least as an interim working solution, while we ponder the stronger claim — especially since the weaker claim may lead to the same salutary result as the stronger.
There is a “natural law” aspect to the matter (which incidentally points to moral law origin, not positivistic). Does anyone seriously believe even in our debased age, that a national assembly of Aryan men would vote to approve giving Aryan girls to the Negro? (Only right-jew-wing Christians would vote “for” in large numbers.) This is why the jew must do everything to prevent us having such an assembly. Even those that are wavering could be brought back by telling the whole story of the deliberate and hostile inculcation of these ideas via movie and media controlled by jews; how it means the end of 2,000 years of history; how it was repugnant to their grandfathers’ sensibilities. I’m pretty sure the problem we are having with our tribe is control of the media, not bad exegesis in the first place.
T,
Thanks much. After I posted my comment, I re-read your post and thought that is what you were getting at. Your words are very helpful.
“I’m pretty sure the problem we are having with our tribe is control of the media, not bad exegesis in the first place.”
This is something to this. But we’ve chosen to believe their lies; we like them so much we upgrade to our 150 dollar cable bills. We believe their lies and fight for them in the public square. I can’t tell you how many common, good, white men I’ve tried to engage with simple arguments. They simply will not have an argument against egalitarianism. It is their God and starting point. The Jewish propaganda is no longer retraining them, it serves as conditioning.
Perhaps you are referring to your generation where this shift may be locked-in. But the younger men, especially those in their twenties and younger are completely sold-out. I think if men my age (mid-thirties) and older assembled along your cause, the younger ones would be as quick to secede and start their own.
It really is scary.
last par should read “…may not be locked in.”
“But the younger men, especially those in their twenties and younger are completely sold-out.”
This is true. The right to marry anyone you want regardless of race (as well as share the same drinking fountain) has become foundational in the minds of young white folk. Even in “red-state” areas where Talmudic TV has less of an influence, egalitarianism is an absolute given in any high-school or university classroom discussion. Suggestions of white ethnic solidarity will be met with booing, condescending laughter, or shame-on-you self-flagellation. Japhethites of all tribes have lost any sense of peoplehood, and I’m not sure how it can be regained.
One glimmer of hope though is that 20-somethings have long been heads full of mush, because their only experience is government education. Ten years in the real world does wonders.
As for secession — well good look to them! We will need to carve out a land for incorrigibles to emigrate to. I’m thinking Florida below the panhandle — a place for jews, dispensationalists, feminists, egalitarians, and libertarian Christian Reconstructionists.
[…] Europeans that do deny it must think they are being humble and generous. They are not. They are despising the good gifts that have been showered on their own tribe. They are ingrates and prevaricators.” – http://firstword.us/2009/09/ham-on-racism-and-evolution/ […]
Very very close, sir.
http://thewhitechrist.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/the-idiotic-beliefs-that-undergird-modernity/
Father — you take ubrage at the quote: “Many people that believe humanity is divided into races also believe that all men are descended from a single pair, and the vast majority of Christians that believe in the existence of races share that belief.” But note that the mood of this sentence is indicative, describing the landscape. It was meant to show the invalidity of Ham’s taxonomy, not to vote for or against per se.
Sorry, but I still feel that there is a ‘great gulf fixed’ between the White and the Negro, as this very good film indicates,
http://vimeo.com/10806611
I also feel that there exists a sort of ‘want their cake and eat it, too’ mentality among all whites who call themselves Christians, in that they have learned a false exegesis of the ‘set apart’ racial paradigms of the O.T., in misconstruing the extent or the focus of the N.T. ‘go unto all nations’ statements of Christ – i.e., the “Great Commission.” We forget that the ‘universalist’ statements of that post-Resurrection statement have to be looked at (if we believe all of Scripture to be divinely inspired – II Tim. 3:16, etc.) in light of Matt. 10:6 – “I am come ONLY to the lost sheep of the HOUSE OF ISRAEL. CI or not CI, the Lord’s statement is clear.
Fr. John,
Matt. 10:6 is a weak proof text for your position. It merely means that Jesus’ earthly ministry was focused on his covenant people, and is a companion to verse 5, which says “Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not”. Yet, at his Ascension, Jesus lifted this ban to include the ministry to “all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8), and commissioned Paul to go to the Gentiles as you know.
To you, “house of Israel” is the entire set of people to whom the gospel is limited, yet in that very passage Jesus treats “house of Israel” as but a subset of God’s elect, with the gentiles being the complement subset.
As my last post was over two years ago here, I cannot say that I have stayed still in the interim. I would wonder how you could say a verse of Scripture is a ‘weak proof text’ for my position, when…. it is Scripture!
Are not ALL verses ‘god-breathed’? (the one- and possibly, only- decent translation the NIV ever did….) I believe they are Confed.
So, in saying my position is ‘weak,’ I wonder to what you are alluding. If scripture does not contradict itself, then we should see two or three witnesses corroborating this vision of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and clearly, the rest of the N.T. does corroborate that vision. While v.5 of THIS part of St. Matthew’s gospel does ask the Apostles to get their ‘practice’ among the Judeans and Galileans of their homeland, that does not mean that, once that prohibition is lifted, somehow the Samaritans (who are as the Irish are to the Scots- a related, but distinct/distant part of the same genetics/ethnos) become the ‘very model of a modern multicultural’!
And I do disagree that St. Paul was commissioned to the ‘Gentiles’ as though the whole of hominidity was to be included in this ‘Great Commission.’ This would make the verse in St. Matthew both disingenuous, as well as a lie. Which is (from a biblical p.o.v.) tantamount to heresy. What the word ‘Gentiles’ in Scripture indicates, are those who are the ‘Hellenes’ – or Caucasoid Greeks/Romans. That they- like the similarly racially related Samaritans- were all one ‘ethnos’ does not deny Christ’s command to ONLY go to the Lost Sheep. It merely means, that WE in the Marxist Modern West, need to figure out WHO those Israelites, are! That we are prohibited from doing so, by one of the greatest disinformation campaigns (by those ‘who say they are “Jews”- but are not. – Rev. 2:8,9] clearly should raise some ‘red’ flags- and make ANYTHING that Gould, Ham, or the egalitarian race mixers- wherever they may be found- John Piper, etc.- SUSPECT.
I’ve noted on my blog much of this self-discovery. As to the biblical ‘three witnesses to this idea of Europe/Christendom as ‘God’s Israel,’ here is one post, among many.
http://thewhitechrist.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/the-three-witnesses/
From this corroboration of St. Peter and St. James, as well as the ‘who is NOT a ‘jew’ from St. John, I believe you do not have a leg to stand on, when you say that the ‘House of Israel’ is a subset of God’s elect. That is merely universalism, applied to a 21st-century marxist view of Hominidity, rather than the Biblical view of Adam and ‘his seed’ [Gen. 3:15] ALONE, as being/comprising the totality of the ‘Israel of God.’ [Gal. 6:16]
african americans are not really Christian. They are syncretists.
[…] Word, “Ham on Racism and Evolution” […]