The Religion Thread

[HertsWolf]

I note that the Portland train attacker was an atheist. Looking forward to seeing all atheists denounce this. I think it's high fucking time we deport all atheists back to...ummmm...where they come from. And we should keep atheism out of politics and definitely keep atheism out of schools. In fact, I think we should ban atheism completely.

 

[Jockney]

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

I note that the Portland train attacker was an atheist. Looking forward to seeing all atheists denounce this. I think it's high fucking time we deport all atheists back to...ummmm...where they come from. And we should keep atheism out of politics and definitely keep atheism out of schools. In fact, I think we should ban atheism completely.

This is ridiculous overreaction. The vast majority of atheists are moderate and peace-loving and want nothing more than to co-exist in a democratic and multicultural society.

Yes, some of the doctrines of atheism advocate violence against non-believers but again, most atheists don't subscribe to literalist interpretations - when Sam Harris says it's morally acceptable to kill people for holding beliefs that lead to violent behaviour and that Islam is inherently violent - most atheists believe this should be viewed as an academic thought experiment rather than a call for genocide against Muslims.

I think the key is to distinguish atheism as a personal belief system and belonging to a community from political atheism, which is a violent, racist ideology that seeks to dominate other faiths and frequently leads to atrocities such as this one and the Chapel Hill shooting. IMO, we need a program to prevent people being radicalised by political atheism. School teachers need to look for warning signs of atheist radicalisation - such as an interest in atheist political causes like the murders of atheist bloggers in Bangladesh and the persecution of apostates in the Middle East.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Everything is equal lads! Nothing to see here!

 

[Jockney]

Everything is equal lads! Nothing to see here!

Aside from their problems with orientalism and pandering more broadly to cultural racism, I don't see how the New Atheists will ever be able to formulate a viable critique of monotheism while treating the secular and the religious as completely discrete spheres of life. Much of mainstream religion is tied up with capitalism, that great secularising global force. Conversely, religion has, traditionally, often been a bulwark against the deadening, impoverishing effects of capitalist political economy. You can't disentangle the two without fundamentally changing the social, economic and political make-up of the globe.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

There's no such thing as "New Atheists" any more than there is "Cultural Marxists". It's a completely made-up term used to identify liberal atheists that haven't been cowed by cries of "bigot" from the so-called progressives.

 

[Jockney]

There's no such thing as "New Atheists" any more than there is "Cultural Marxists". It's a completely made-up term used to identify liberal atheists that haven't been cowed by cries of "bigot" from the so-called progressives.

There was a rupture within the atheist communities who inhabited those burgeoning digital media spaces in the mid-2000s. Particularly in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan, you had people like Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris variously defending imperialist foreign policy, torture and illegal detention to justify a sort of nebulous liberal secularism.

Not to mention how that strain of political atheism tends jive quite comfortably with anti-feminism and dogwhistling for white supremacy among disaffected (usually white) young men.

Call it what you want, but there seems to be a qualitative difference between most recognisable manifestations of political atheism or secularism and the kind that has gained traction post-9/11.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

You're conflating atheism with anti-theism. There's no such thing as the atheist community or strains of atheism, and Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris had wildly varying views on interventionism, torture and detention. Hitchens supported both the Afghan and Iraq wars, Harris supported going into Afghanistan but not Iraq, and Dawkins was opposed to both, for example.

Call it what you want, but there seems to be a qualitative difference between most recognisable manifestations of political atheism or secularism and the kind that has gained traction post-9/11.

Because until then taking Islam apart hadn't seemed necessary. Some anti-theists took an egalitarian approach to this, and some found they were only comfortable going after conservative Christianity.

 

[NorfolkWomble]

Surely if you're a Muslim, you should want to condemn terrorism because you want to emphasise your religion is not about that, and a key part of Islam is prosletysing to others?