-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
To go along with blasphemy and hate-speech criminalization, there’s a new line of attack on atheists that has recently gained some popularity. Critics of atheism are trying to associate atheistic arguments against Islam with Islamophobia. In a recent article in Salon, Nathan Lean has written what is basically one long ad-hominem fallacy focusing on Richard Dawkins. Lean’s attempt to link Dawkins with the Islamophobia of the far-right is totally lacking in substance.
Lean claims that Dawkins is “on record praising the far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders.” We have previously discussed Wilders’ trial as a threat to free speech, here, and his travel ban from England for his anti-Islam movie “Fitna,” here. Dawkins wrote:
To repeat, Wilders may have said and done other things of which I am unaware, which deserve condemnation, but I can see nothing reprehensible in his making of Fitna, and certainly nothing for which he should go on trial.
Dawkins characterizes Wilders’ trial as “pandering to the ludicrous convention that religious opinion must not be ‘offended’.” Russell Blackford wholeheartedly agrees with Dawkins when Dawkins wrote: “In Fitna, taken on its own, I have found no cause to put Wilders on trial or even to censure him in any substantial way.” Lean conflates Dawkins’ praise of Wilders’ film with praise for Wilders’ other views, while offering no supporting evidence. The support of free speech rights, especially for those with whom we disagree, is a cornerstone of liberty. Lean’s article is devoid of any reference to the right of free speech.
Lean quotes Dawkins’ Twitter account:
Islam is comforting? Tell that to a woman, dressed in a bin bag [trash bag], her testimony worth half a man’s and needing 4 male witnesses to prove rape.
Lean makes no attempt to deny the validity of the content, he only notes that Dawkins, by his own admission, hasn’t read the Quran. Lean offers no explanation as to why reading the Quran is a prerequisite for criticizing the words, deeds, and beliefs of its adherents.
Lean notes Dawkins’ criticism of the gender segregated seating at a University College of London debate. Lean seems to find nothing wrong with the “separate seating option for conservative, practicing Muslims.” I’m a “conservative, practicing” civil-libertarian and a Muslim’s Female-segregation is not to be accommodated. Lean goes on to cite a similar situation when “Barclays Center in New York recently offered gender-separate seating options for Orthodox Jews.” Lean is fallaciously directing attention away from Muslims’ Female-segregation by pointing out someone else’s Female-segregation. Lean’s article is devoid of any reference to equal rights for women.
Powerful philosophical arguments, such as the imaginary nature of God and the impossibility of omniscience/omnipotence, are just as valid with respect to Islam as Christianity. The arguments for creationism are just as vacuous when they come from Muslims.
Lean’s substance-free diatribe only highlights the intellectual flimsiness that supports religion.
H/T: Jerry Coyne, Eugene Volokh, Russell Blackford, Taner Edis.
Did I just see you trying to change the opinion of atheists? Good for you!
The rights of people to practice their religion means that nobody should criticize their opinion. Because the 1st amendment is about protecting people’s feelings about their religious practices, and it has absolutely nothing to say about free speech.
Or something.
But I love your idea that trying to change someone’s ideas on a subject, like the subject of religion, means that you are trying to get more power over them. That is so true!
We atheists are all about world domination, and the best way for us to attain that is to get everyone else to stop believing in nonsense, and to start thinking more clearly about reality. Our agenda, unlike that of the organized churches, is all about mind control. I guess we are going to have to get our sleepy heads up a lot earlier in the morning, if we are going to try to put one over on you!
I am not an atheist but know many people who and I agree with Tony C.’s descriptions and characterizations 100%.
I don’ know how anee church or religion missed a’knee one of “thee’s”…
~!@#$%^&*()_+…?
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… a little mon-keying around, ate is aw sum… I saw it on the sisterhood where he bought the little ffu’.cuff’s for hear, see, and speak no evil, and the I’s know’s, (knews), not to change any thing that is written: protect youre eye lest it sin …, gouge it out…, if you have not fullfilled the rites given you on sight, therin gouge out the other eye as’ well! …, etc. -…
…the r’ ears, and ton gu’ : they can claim no dis ability fore any reason : it is a commandmint in the gospel !
then again there was al’ gore and the murphy brown ^ KEY, know hy-phinn, an’GEE’S list NO’S watt to do’n oh,zone.
ewe start everairy thought with i knead in any language and thee^thought’s kneaded… guud ore bad…, what did knew’t, a georg’a peach, and prickly pear’a con’nee co-ch’ng (con-fess two)-
…god will breathe life in two there knawstr’lls and when nos strings at hatched thee wom’an’soul is give ‘ n sew wear is the abor’shun now ! …-
… Been frankli’ n in vented bi fock’le and light’neeing two’n a deck clearayshun and cons tit two shun and pond herd wi.GOD told the jews to call their lan’ Is.Ra ‘El.
a’other place and Tim’ cock was called cat. and care oh’l’n’een un BLUE j. with ash’buro and as’ville in the four tease and JESUS CHRIST zipped up the mid’ll in another year.
then greens-burr owe. a woman said to a preacher that’s he did knot knead a middle man to tok. too GOD. I did knot know how to tell her I muved U S TwO-3 knowing I-76, is seven – ate.
tern up the what’age, stop in two any I-hop’ or. waff’ll house for gri’s and a good case of the sh’ts
ohm ne. pod-mi. pa’d me. ‘ome.
c’ant find the rest area, it’s a w’i.ghtt’n me.ga.-h’ertz, and d’f-fer-rant k’rran’see’. … a bit of U’S thirty, one VI- Keying read tee-see, mI! ware did yer house get it’s copy rite? spar-t’ns, leeches, tit-t’ns, musk’ll-ung, gladi-a-terse, perch, or old mission.
ware did U R HOUZ get “iT’s copPyee – rite ‘Rick! sew p.u.re-lee mis’again?
…a bore’in reed from seagrove, enn.see-luck’s Be ‘ns
a read blows in the whin ‘ ‘ ds…
a dog eat it’s own vom-met, when his’ss is dirty.
Dredd: the problem with people who love religion is that they want every one to love it too. If you don’t or if you dare criticze their religion or follow another, they want the government to punish you…. Atheists feel the same way about their atheism.
No, they do not. I am an atheist; even stronger, I am a complete non-supernaturalist. I do not care if others embrace that, I do not want the government to punish others for believing in the supernatural, and I have no problem with people criticizing my atheism. They are just wrong and deluded, but usually because that gives them some existential comfort and I don’t mind that. My mother is religious, two of my sisters are religious (one is not), most of my extended family is religious (with atheists sprinkled in).
My observation is that the people I know that are atheists (several dozen) typically are mentally incapable of being anything else. They mentally gag on the magic and contradictions that would be necessary to swallow in order to truly believe; “faith” doesn’t work for them.
Most people can submit themselves to irrational authority without question. Call that “faith” or whatever you want, some of us are born (or possibly raised, or some combination of both) with a demand for coherency that overrides our emotional desire for something to be true.
I do not expect others to embrace atheism because I say so, or the government tells them to do it. Atheism is a destination that people arrive at by independently concluding that nothing else makes any coherent sense; and the majority of people will never arrive at that destination because they are not distressed by incoherency and bad logic.
I certainly do not feel about atheism as religionists feel about their religion; they are not equivalent. The reason is that the religionist believes in something, and the atheist does not.
Therefore, the religionist can believe that my actions that break his God’s laws are inviting God’s wrath upon him, or his city, or his town. Christians may believe that Katrina was sent by God to punish New Orleans for its sins; or 9/11 was a warning from God about America’s sinful nature.
The false beliefs of the religionist can directly lead to false conclusions about the world, and thus cause them to take action against false targets and cause harm to innocent people. (That is not just true in America, but the rest of the world; the false belief that a city (e.g. Jerusalem) is “sacred” or it, or some particular stretch of land, was given to them “by God” and no other acreage will do, but that they own that “holy” ground.)
The atheist does not believe in supernatural laws, retribution or warnings (or that objects or places are imbued with some supernatural value), and thus does not make that kind of harmful error, and by excluding both supernatural causes and supernatural “solutions” we are more likely to discern the true causes of problems, and more likely to devise solutions that have a chance of working in the real world.
I agree that the article is badly written, but I do think Dawkins, and especially Sam Harris, muddy their thinking with emotion when it comes to Islam.
The Dawkins quote: Islam is comforting? Tell that to a woman, dressed in a bin bag [trash bag], her testimony worth half a man’s and needing 4 male witnesses to prove rape.
This is beneath his considerable intellect. That there are some Muslims who justify their barbarous behavior with an ancient text, in no way invalidates the positive feelings millions of people feel because of their faith. Muslims are just as capable as Christians of picking and choosing which parts of their faith to follow. And thank goodness!
It’s really no different than when someone uses the atrocities of officially atheist dictatorships as illustrations of the inherent negative qualities of atheism. Bad people will use a variety of excuses to justify their bad behavior.
There are good people who use religious texts as guides for living good lives. I don’t agree with their beliefs, but this is a fact. “There is no evidence for the existence of God” is an obvious fact. “There are no good things that come from religion” is not.
Sam Harris is not just a little logically muddled when it comes to his feelings on Islam, he’s downright bigoted.
As recently as last year, he said, “We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it.”
He’s also as ignorant and/or dishonest as many religious fundamentalists when he says things like: “In our dealings with the Muslim world, we must acknowledge that Muslims have not found anything of substance to say against the actions of the September 11 hijackers, apart from the ubiquitous canard that they were really Jews.” This is easily found to be demonstrably false.
I don’t believe there is a God. And I think Dawkins is one of the greatest science writers ever. But arguing against the existence of a supernatural force behind the universe is very different from claiming that religion (and especially one in particular) is inherently a negative thing.
Give me that old time religion..
Give me that old time religion…
Give me that old time religion, its good enough for me.
It was good enough for Martin…
If it was good enough for Martin, its good enough for me.
—
Now why would there be a “new time religion”? Or another religion from a different time? Or a faith based non religion? Or shake n bake and not fried chicken daddy?
[music]
We’re rednecks, rednecks,
We dont know our arse from a hole in the wall.
etc.
Frankly,
I completely agree with you. I don’t have to agree with all of Sam Harris’ political positions (for instance) to think that his arguments against conscious free will are scientifically sound (and, in my opinion, incredibly dangerous to many people’s religious philosophies—omnipotence and omni-benevolence cannot be reconciled without conscious free will). On the subject of pastafarianism, I would note that it is also the only religion that I know of which has a deity with a “noodlely appendage”—so it’s got that going for it.
May her noodlely appendage enfold us all,
rAmen
Michael Murry,
Well said.
Dredd said: “Both sides should be happy with being protected in their beliefs, and stop the struggle to grasp more power than the other.”
Wow, that’s like the mother of all false equivalences.
This athiest tent head pirate hating dog who also beleives in the 9th Day Dog Adventist theme (contradictory with atheism) believes that all folks east of Corfu demand strict scrutiny whether Christian, Muslim, Goathead, or Pirate Athiest. Bhudists are excepted from the strict scrutiny.
Dredd 1, April 27, 2013 at 11:14 am
Justice Holmes 1, April 27, 2013 at 10:11 am
… the problem with people who love religion is that they want every one to love it too. If you don’t or if you dare criticze their religion or follow another, they want the government to punish you.
======================================
The converse is also true.
Atheists feel the same way about their atheism.
*****
Atheists want the government to punish believers? Really? Do most atheists proselytize? I think atheists may be looking for acceptance. There are people in power who do not speak well of the non-believers.
*****
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels Accuses Atheism as Cause of Holocaust and Other Great Crimes Against Humanity
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/12/27/indiana-governor-mitch-daniels-accuses-atheism-as-cause-of-holocaust-and-other-great-crimes-against-humanity/
The Blair Witch Project: Former Prime Minister Warns of Atheists Among Us
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/10/09/the-blair-witch-project-former-prime-minister-warns-of-atheists-among-us/
The Sacking of Secularism: Chief Rabbi Denounces Secularism as Threat to Western Civilization
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/11/05/the-sacking-of-secularism-chief-rabbi-denounces-secularism-as-threat-to-western-civilization/
New Report Details Global Crackdown On Atheists and Secularists
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/02/26/new-report-details-global-crackdown-on-atheists-and-secularists/
Report: Atheists and Religious Critics Persecuted Around The World
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/12/10/report-atheists-and-religious-critics-persecuted-around-the-world/
Subjecting “religion,” like any other subject, to Scientific Method quickly reveals its fundamentally ludicrous supposition: namely, that the world works not according to discoverable laws working everywhere the same but through the whim of obscure, fickle personalities whose “powerful” appetites and prejudices one can assuage or conciliate through stereotypical ritual practices such that the world will work otherwise than predictably, and to one’s own personal advantage.
I once asked a professor of Religious Studies how anyone could expect me to read the infantile, barbaric “sacred scriptures” of the three major desert religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He smiled genially and replied: “You’re not supposed to read them. You’re supposed to worship them.” As a study in comparative infantile psychopathology, however, application of the Scientific Method to “religion” can yield some truly hair-raising insights into the “sacred” and “profane” — but I repeat myself.
As for “offending” the tender sensibilities of the willfully ignorant, I believe the Buddha dispensed with that notion when he said: “You cannot give offense to anyone unwilling to take it.” Noting the active nature of the transitive verb, “to take,” so-called and self-styled “religious” persons need to “take personal responsibility” for their own equanimity and not allow others to give them an emotional “gift” that they can easily refuse to accept.
Dredd, From a “to each their own” believer, Bravo!!!
I’ll give nothing for a mans religion whose dog is not the very better for it…. Forget who wrote it….
BTW – as a pastafarian I can honestly say mine is the only religion that has not had the problems displayed by all other religions . . . yet. I assume if we survive long enough there will be one.
I’ll be if I tried I could even find atheists that behave badly. Thats just human nature I guess, some people are @ssholes. If a belief in an invisible sky wizard makes them bigger ones that is a feature of the person not the belief
Yes Amy, Islam is sooooooooooo different from every other religion. Unlike all those other religions you can’t find any decent people who are Muslim. Unlike Islam you can’t find a single murderous, bigoted, misogynistic, authoritarian morons in every other religion.
If you can find any examples of those things they they are exception not the rule, right Amy? The ugly things that can be pointed out in the Bible and the Torah are blips as are the peaceful loving passages of the Koran. The peaceful loving passages of the Bible and Torah are what is important, along with the ugly violent part of the Koran. Because why? Because Amy read about it some place after 9/11. Good thing she didn’t read about Christianity after OK City or the Atlanta Olympic bombings or she might have decided that is a religion of human rights abuse.
Justice Holmes 1, April 27, 2013 at 10:11 am
… the problem with people who love religion is that they want every one to love it too. If you don’t or if you dare criticze their religion or follow another, they want the government to punish you.
======================================
The converse is also true.
Atheists feel the same way about their atheism.
One of the keys is the language in the establishment clause:
Atheism is not mentioned, but the government is also prevented from imposing any religion on atheists.
Both sides should be happy with being protected in their beliefs, and stop the struggle to grasp more power than the other.
Equal protection is sufficient.
It pleases me to have Dawkins in the news, even if it’s not based in reality!
Justice Holmes, fixed and thanks.
The author of the article attacking Dawkins et al is Nathan Lean not Lane. (I wondered why the actor would be taking on Dawkins.).
Having cleared that up, the problem with people who love religion is that they want every one to love it too. If you don’t or if you dare criticze their religion or follow another, they want the government to punish you.
As to Islamophobia, I am afraid of theocracies of every stripe but there are some particularly nasty practices that some Muslim theocrats currently engage in that are particularly troubling and their penchant for blasphemy and apostasy prosecutions makes me rather intolerant, if you will, of their theories and methods of government allegedly based on the Quran. Whenever these concerns are raised, one is often lectured about the love of science and tolerance of the ancient Muslim rulers but that was long a go and far away and from what I have read rather embroidered. The other lines of attack include claims of racism and ignorance of the many and varied shades of Islam of which one is clearly and intolerantly unaware.
Discussions of the oppression of women often results in a righteous claim that the women of Islam are freer and more respected than any the western world. One is told that women want to wear clothing that covers everything but their hands and eyes; it frees them. From what you might ask? Don’t ask, its just too ridiculous.
Blasphemy and apostasy laws are an abomination. They place government power in the hands of men who see themselves as keepers of the ultimate knowledge and chosen by god to impart that knowledge to others or in the alternative rule others with gods power both here and in the hereafter. Call it religion or call it megalomania, it is the same illness when it gets to that level. When a human believes he is in touch with the Almighty and knows his mind, he is dangerous. Give him the power of government and he is lethal. It doesn’t matter whether the claim to power comes from Muhamed, Christ, Moses or Buddha, they are dangerous to humans.
Nal,
Salon is not the only one to finger Dawkins as an as*hole.
In fact, he is named in a couple of books that are studying the social phenomenon of as*holes:
(“On The Origin of As*holes“). if you care to investigate further (since word press does not allow some descriptive words), turn the asterisk “*” into an “s” in the following URL, then read this post concerning the scholarly study:
http://powertoxins.blogspot.com/2013/01/on-origin-of-as*holes.html
Excellent piece. People don’t want to believe the truth about Islam — several truths of which Dawkins states in that tweet. I am an atheist, but I’ve been reading about Islam since 9/11 — changing my previously held (uneducated) view that it was just another religion: chocolate to Judaism’s strawberry and Catholicism’s vanilla. Islam, practiced by anyone but lapsed Muslims (per the Quran) is religion as human rights violations and a totalitarian system masquerading as religion.