APOLOGIAreport
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In this issue:
ISLAM - a blueprint for understanding
declining pluralism across the Middle
East
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES - avoiding
another embarrassment?
ORIGINS - does Darwinism account
for the most remarkable features of the
human mind?
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ISLAM
Purifying the Land of the Pure: A History of
Pakistan’s Religious Minorities, by Farahnaz
Ispahani1 — reviewer Kim Ghattas explains
that it “describes how Pakistan unraveled —
and provides a blueprint for understanding
declining pluralism across the Middle East. ...
“Ispahani, a former journalist, was at
the time a member of Pakistan’s parliament
serving on the Human Rights Committee.
Together, the small group had repeatedly
tried to raise the issue of minority rights.
In parliament, Ispahani had access to more
information than the general public and was
shocked about the extent of daily violence
against minorities — and that none of her
colleagues were willing to discuss the issue. ...
“The book ... charts the slow death of
minority rights and pluralism in Pakistan,
and what it means for the future of democ-
racy. The result is a sweeping but concise
chronicle of how things unraveled. A minor-
ity herself, as a Shiite, Ispahani was careful to
avoid polemic and opinion by delivering a
thorough, methodically researched work. She
and her husband, former Pakistani Ambas-
sador to the United States Husain Haqqani,
have both faced death threats for their work
and live in self-imposed exile in Washington.
“In her book, Ispahani tracks the unrav-
eling to within a few years of the indepen-
dence of Pakistan. ...
“The trend toward making Islam a cen-
tral tenet of life in Pakistan started soon
after independence in 1947.... By 1973,
Islam was declared as the state religion of
Pakistan. In 1974 ... parliament declared
Ahmadis as non-Muslims. A Muslim move-
ment that started in the late 19th century,
Ahmadis follow the teachings of the Quran
and consider their founder to be a prophet,
upsetting orthodox Muslims who believe
Muhammad is the final prophet. ...
“By the mid-1980s, hate literature target-
ing Shiites was proliferating. ... Since 2003,
an estimated 2,558 Shiites have been killed
in sectarian violence.
“Ispahani identifies four stages in Paki-
stan’s loss of minority rights and growing
intolerance. The first stage was the ‘Muslimi-
zation’ of society, with transfer of non-Mus-
lim populations out of Pakistan around the
v o l u m e 2 3 : 1 ( 1,3 6 7 ) / J a n u a r y 9 , 2 0 1 8
time of independence, followed by the rise
of an Islamic identity with the loss of East
Pakistan. Then came the Islamization of laws
under Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s, and finally
the rise of militant, organized violence.
“While there was no sudden, overnight
transformation, Ispahani nevertheless iden-
tifies Zia’s rule as the point of no return. ...
“Between 1947 and today, minorities
went from 25 percent of the population to
3 percent.” Foreign Policy, Oct 20 ‘17 <www.
goo.gl/UPVU7w>
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES
The Watchtower Society’s annual Yearbook
of Jehovah’s Witnesses, published since 1927,
will no longer be produced according to
an internal letter sent to all congregations
worldwide dated October 7, 2017. Alex-
andra James suggests why: “One statistic
included in the Yearbook is the number of
‘Memorial partakers.’ For those unfamiliar,
Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that only 144,000
persons will go to heaven when they die,
with the rest of approved Jehovah’s Wit-
nesses living forever in a paradise on earth.
(See <www.goo.gl/on4jdY> for more infor-
mation about that teaching.)
“Jehovah’s Witnesses observe the pass-
ing of the bread and the wine only once
per year, which they call the ‘Memorial
of Christ’s death,’ or just the ‘Memorial.’
According to their teaching, only those who
belong in that small group of 144,000 (‘the
anointed,’ or ‘the remnant’) should partake
of that bread and wine.
“Since, according to Jehovah’s Witnesses,
the number of persons who are to go to
heaven is finite or fixed, it would seem logi-
cal that the number of those partakers would
decrease every year, as those in that group
would eventually pass away. Jehovah’s Wit-
nesses themselves embraced this thinking:
“‘Over the past seven years, from 1974
to 1980 inclusive, Jehovah’s Witnesses have
made steady progress. Their growth is
healthy. Only as to Memorial partakers has
there been a gradual decline, which is in
accord with Scriptural expectations.’ (Year-
book of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 1981, p31)
“However, there have apparently been

jehovah’s witnesses (continued)
over 186,000 partakers from the years 2000 to
2016 alone. <www.goo.gl/bEw1vj> Because of
this outright conflict with their own teaching,
Jehovah’s Witnesses have said that some who
would partake may have a ‘mental or emo-
tional imbalance’ <www.goo.gl/wGDG33>
or that they ‘mistakenly think that they are
anointed.’” <www.goo.gl/bHgeic>
ORIGINS
From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolu-
tion of Minds, by Daniel C. Dennett2 <www.
goo.gl/b3X5rV> — Angus Menuge (profes-
sor of philosophy at Concordia University,
Wisconsin) begins his review: “Daniel Den-
nett is the most philosophical member of
the New Atheists and a prominent defender
of Darwinian materialism.” Dennett has
“argued that Darwinism accounts not only
for the physical diversity of life but also for
the most remarkable features of the human
mind: consciousness, intentionality, and
belief in God.
“In From Bacteria to Bach and Back,
Dennett considers two main questions.
First, how can natural selection, a blind,
bottom-up process devoid of foresight and
comprehension, produce intelligent design-
ers? How do we get from bacteria to Bach?
Second, how can the intelligent designers
produce computer programs like Watson,
which lack foresight and comprehension
but outperform human experts? How could
Watson defeat two champions on Jeopardy?
APOLOGIAreport
How do we go back from intelligent design-
ers to systems such as Watson that seem
very intelligent but have no comprehension
of what they are doing?
“Underlying both questions, Dennett has
a larger goal. He wishes to heal the ‘Car-
tesian wound’ that divides the cosmos into
two radically different kinds of things —
conscious minds and unconscious things.
Dennett aims to show that there is a gradual
path between blind competence and con-
scious comprehension (and back again),
and argues that consciousness is merely a
helpful illusion humans acquired, not a fea-
ture of immaterial human souls. ...
“Dennett’s clever explanation of human
intelligence faces a number of serious
objections. His account helps itself to items
that are not a good fit for materialism, such
as information and words. ...
“Likewise, Dennett’s theory of cultural
evolution appeals to words....
“Dennett is right that information in-
forms: it gives reality a coherent form. But if
it is part of reality that we can extract, there is
an underlying, intelligible order to the world.
... But this points to an intelligent creator.
“Further, if we can know the world,
our words must be able to capture real-
ity. If words are merely part of our mani-
fest image, we should only expect them to
v o l u m e 2 3 : 1 ( 1,3 6 7 ) / J a n u a r y 9 , 2 0 1 8
describe the world as it seems to us....
“Dennett is also right that there can be
reasons without humans representing them.
But this surely points to an inherent, ratio-
nal structure of the world. ...
“Finally, the idea that the conscious self
is a ‘user-illusion’ is simply incoherent. Only
conscious selves can have illusions. ... It
makes no sense at all to say that the subject
of the illusion is part of the illusion.” Chris-
tian Research Journal, 40:5 - 2017, pp54-5.3
SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Purifying the Land of the Pure: A His-
tory of Pakistan’s Religious Minorities, by
Farahnaz Ispahani (Oxford Univ Prs, 2017,
hardcover, 224 pages) <www.goo.gl/
d39gzu>
2 - From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The
Evolution of Minds, by Daniel C. Den-
nett (W. W. Norton, 2017, hardcover, 496
pages) <www.goo.gl/R3eL2w>
SOURCES: Periodicals
3 - Christian Research Journal (Christian
Research Institute), <www.equip.org>

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