Atheist/Anti-theist/Agnostic Troper Group

On another note, it turns out that John C. Wright is a bit of an asshole. This may have been known to others, but not me. How disappointing to see, especially the hypocrisy of his comments. [1] Sorry, just had to vent a bit.

There is only one moral that is unique to monotheism that atheists don't demonstrate. And that is belief in god.

1. It's a false belief too. According to my belief system. So how can it be moral?
2. If that is the only belief that the two groups differ on, then saying that not believing in god makes you immoral, is identical to the statement that believing that god does not exist is in and of itself immoral. Which is a strange thing to say. So, nothing else makes you immoral? Why does this, specifically make you immoral?

Disclaimer: I do not consider god's reality a false belief. That is merely an unproven belief. God's nature as a thing that must be worshipped is what I consider a false belief.

You have a point. I'd rather not do so, but hey, optimism is pretty much what keeps me going these days.

No, they don't actually. That probably explains their attitude.

To everyone: I'd like to say thanks for all of your advice. I'll see how this goes. Wish me luck!

Good luck!

Also being of the non-confrontational type, and fairly unexperienced on the topic at hand, I chose to remain quiet. Sorry for that. Still, I wish you good luck.

I don't think belief in God is itself a moral anyway.

There have been at least points in history where it has been considered such. It seems to actually be one of the stickier points of the collective abrahamic faiths. The irrational belief at the heart of it all.

Yeah, that's true. "Atheist" has sometimes meant just an immoral/impious person. This makes it hard to tell when someone is accused of "atheism" historically just what that means.

I agree with war on the false belief thing. I myself think that if their is a god or a god-like entity out there then it's very likely that it wouldn't be something that you would want to worship.

Or perhaps, as the Epicureans thought, god(s) wouldn't need worship or care about humans anyway.

edited 23rd Aug '16 11:04:06 PM by Fireblood

This is kind of an interesting way to look at things, actually.

Yes, it was pretty revolutionary then, and not surprisingly Epicureans were called atheists over it (most modern ones explicitly are).

Oh my God.

Whenever the depth of stupidity appears to bottom out, there's a new plunge.

The well of stupidity never runs dry, @Fireblood.

OK, I have a question:

What are some statements Richard Dawkins has made in the past that are taken as Islamaphobic by many people?

This is a good place to take the conversation from the Things You Didn't Know Until Recently thread.

I looked up one of the cases I didn't fully remember: the Ahmed Mohamed clock incident. Mohamed, 14, had disassembled a digital clock and reassembled it in a pencil case and brought it to school to impress his friends and teachers. One of the teachers thought it looked like a bomb and confiscated it, and the police were called. The thing got a lot of publicity because it was alleged the item was only suspected to be a bomb because of Mohamed's ethnic identity.

Dawkins Tweeted a video of someone saying that the boy might have brought the clock specifically to get arrested, so that he could sue to school. Dawkins' comments with the video were along the lines that the kid might have had this or any number of other motivations. He also said the kid probably hadn't invented the clock, as some of the early reports (correctly) claimed. He had simply reassembled it in a new casing.

In this case Dawkins was accused of racism, but I think it's very obvious the kid's identity had nothing to do with it. Dawkins was more critical of the claim that he'd invented the clock than anything else. The kid got loads of attention (including a meeting with Obama) because people wanted to make the case that Muslim kids can have achievements and shouldn't be immediately suspected. I think Dawkins' comments on this case got greatly exaggerated, as all he did was question whether the kid had some self-serving motive for claiming he'd invented the clock (as I said, the early reports about the incidents had this bit wrong.) The school authorities might well have been bigoted but I don't think Dawkins was, as he was always more interested in whether the clock was real than whether it resembled a bomb. (Dawkins said from the beginning that arresting the kid was completely unjustified.)

I remarked on the Nobel prizes in a given western university compared to Muslim countries in general in this post. Basically, Dawkins has said that one or two Western universities have won more Nobel prizes than all Muslim countries combined, and that's been taken as bigoted against Muslims. Putting it in the context of debates Dawkins regularly has with Muslims, though, I think it's pretty clear this whole thing is a response to a specific argument, and not meant to imply that Muslims aren't capable of scientific achievement.

Then there's the fact that he's supported certain politicians - most notable Geert Wilders - who are anti-Muslim. I have to repeat myself from the other thread: at the time there was a series of Islamic terrorist incidents in the Netherlands, and Wilders was a prominent figure opposing fundamentalist Islamism. Dawkins endorsed some of the things Wilders had said, with some reservation.

For what it's worth, I think it's completely unfair to say Dawkins is anti-Muslim. He doesn't support any sort of discrimination against Muslims. He doesn't advocate for banning religious education in Islam or anything like that, either. (Well, his stance is that religious education for every kid should include a summary of all major religions, which some do consider equivalent to banning religious education because it means you can't teach one faith exclusively.)

EDIT: OK, I found one. Apparently, in response to the Charlie Hebdo attack, Dawkins Tweeted:

This statement is troubling. Of course it's limited by the format of Twitter, because it doesn't allow him to repeat what he always says when asked about it: that he doesn't think a majority of Muslims are violent. In his talks and debates and such he always points out that he's against all forms of fundamentalism, be it religious or political or otherwise, because it has a strong tendency to result in violence. He does say some ideologies are more prone to violence than others, and he often says Islamic fundamentalism currently produces more violent behaviour than any other fundamentalist ideology. Comments along those lines are often taken as Islamophobic.

That Tweet, in particular, is one that I would have advised him to retract if I was in a position to do so. There's so much bigotry against Muslims in the West that it's very harmful when a legitimate public intellectual makes statements like that. Dawkins has a much more nuanced position than anti-Muslim bigots, but a post on Twitter doesn't provide the context to express that position fully. Anyone who follows Dawkins would know that in an interview he'd preface a statement like that (or follow it up) with a general point about fundamentalism.

He does have a point, in that Islam is currently a source of a lot of violent fundamentalism. The problem, of course, is mostly circumstantial, by which I mean that fundamentalism arises in conditions of poverty and strife, and fundamentalists assume a radicalist form of the surrounding culture. In the West they may be neo-Nazis or other types of ultra-nationalists; in Muslim countries, they tend to be based on a limited variety of Islam.

Of course, if a religion is fundamentally opposed to violence, it will not be expected to generate violent movements; whereas ones whose founding texts advocate violence, or that have had periods of violent conflict, are more likely to produce violent movements. This is what Dawkins refers to. Most Muslims are opposed to terrorism, but Islamic terrorist manage to convince themselves are they're being good people by doing what they do because of the parts of their holy books that they choose to read. Of course they wouldn't be going there in the first place if they weren't already desperate. (Well, usually - Aum Shinrikyo did manage to recruit among wealthy and educated people, so it's not only about poor conditions.)

EDIT: The Wikipedia article of Dawkins' political views has a subsection on Islam with this quote:

Overall I think it's clear Dawkins has nothing against Muslims, but he dislikes Islam (as he does all religion). That, again, is the important distinction: he argues against ideas, he doesn't attack people.

edited 10th Sep '16 12:27:17 PM by BestOf

Oh hey look it's this again.

You will find that most atheists don't hate on religious people. It's the IDEAS we don't like, not the person. Personally, as long as you don't shove your ideas down my throat, I don't care what your belief system is.

Troper, none of this has to do with atheists in general hating on religious people, it has to do specifically with Richard Dawkins and Islam.

Well, it's roughly the same attitude. He's among the vast majority of public atheists (who talk about this at all in the first place) that have said that he doesn't care what anyone's religion is, so long as they're not doing anything to harm others with it. That includes stuff like making religion the basis of laws and so on, as well as indoctrinating people in religion before they've learned critical thinking skills.

Dawkins does consider Islam a more likely platform for violent ideologies than most other religions, based on the current situation; but he's also said that he doesn't think most Muslims are violent. It's just that Islam is often the majority religion and central point of identity in regions where there's conflict, and thus fundamentalist movements arising from those regions would tend to have Islam as their central source of ideology. Islam's history and holy texts, unfortunately, contain stories of violent conquest and religious persecution, which is easy to use as justification for more of the same (even though many Muslim rulers and governments have been peaceful and tolerant, especially during the golden ages of the Middle East.)

Of course some are also offended by Dawkins' position that decisions should be made on the basis of science, and children should get a scientific education. For this reason he's opposed religious schools and other institutions that promote pseudo-scientific or anti-scientific attitudes and positions (such as denial of evolution, climate change denial, etc). In the UK this is more likely to annoy Muslims, whose religious schools are more likely to be opposed to the teaching of evolution. In the US Dawkins' position on this is about equally likely to annoy Christians.

That's basically it. The worst things that Dawkins had said about Islam are that he considers it as one of the great evils of the world, and that Islamic fundamentalism is currently more prominent and more violent than that based on any other religion, and that this is in part because of the content of Islam's holy texts. He does not, however, have anything against the vast majority of Muslims in the world, nor does he advocate for any sort of policies against Muslims.

In case it matters, he didn't support the war in Iraq but he did support the one in Afghanistan because he thought the Taleban were protecting and supporting al-Qaida. I assume he supports the campaign against ISIS, but I'm not sure if he's said that directly. He has said that "religion itself is not responsible for [ISIS]… It's also this feeling of political involvement." I read that as referring to ISIS arising from the instability in that region that resulted from the Iraq war. (Of course it's a complicated chain of events, to say the least.)

Another place where people often get accused of Islamophobia is regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. According to Wikipedia, Dawkins agrees with Hitchens' statement that "it is reasonable to deplore both the original foundation of the Jewish State of Israel & aspirations now to destroy it." That was Hitchens' position: Israel should not have been founded the way it was, but now that it's there it's not OK to threaten to exile or kill the people there. Dawkins (according to Wikipedia) tends to side with Palestine more than Israel because of Israel's often excessive use of force.

That's the usual position among Britain's centre-left, which is roughly where Dawkins is politically. Basically, they think Palestine should be an independent country - so it's the two-state solution. Of course in the US this would be viewed as anti-Israel and, in the same way that supporting Israel is called Islamophobic, it might be called antisemitic.

Best Of, he's pretty clearly anti-Islam. Of course for some Islam is their identity, and they aren't going to take it well. There is also the sensitivity over Islamophobia which gets this lumped in with that. It's hard for me not to take criticism of atheism personally too (especially the ones that are just downright insulting) and so I understand why others react this way. I am not a great fan of Dawkins. He says very dumb things, whether or not they're bigoted. Also he seems ignorant about many subjects he's gone off about (this is hardly unique to him of course). When he's talking about evolution he shines-that's his own field. People going outside of the area where they have the most knowledge of often doesn't go well. Regarding desperate people joining terrorists groups, it depends what you mean. Desperate for a purpose maybe, not poor in a lot of cases. Many ISIS recruits have been from a middle or upper class backgrounds. From what I've read it's common for terrorists to be middle class, have a degree and so on. I read recently about a Finnish convert to Islam who joined the Caliphate with her husband from a sense of religious duty. There's no indication it was due to desperation, at least materially.

edited 10th Sep '16 2:13:13 PM by Fireblood

Now what about Hitchens and Harris, then? Because I vaguely remember Harris wanting to racially profile Muslims.

Yes, or "anyone who looks like they could be a Muslim." I'm not sure what this means, since Muslims are from all racial backgrounds. Perhaps by Islamic-style clothing? Notably he also put himself in the category for profiling.

Harris in general seems like a bigot from what little I've heard of him.

I'm sure it's not always material circumstances, especially in cases of Western people going there to fight (or just live in the Caliphate.) The extreme case would be Aum Shinrikyo; the converts were the sort of people you'd assume to be least vulnerable to that sort of indoctrination.

Of course it's also worth pointing out that out of the people who are currently subject to the Caliphate, the overwhelming majority probably don't support it. They just don't have a realistic way to fight it, so they try to survive a day at a time until it ends and (hopefully) a proper government is established.

Hitchens would reply with a similar standard to what he was given by his opposition. If someone said they think or hope he'd burn in hell, he might very well say he hopes the same for the other, but he doesn't believe it will happen because he doesn't believe in the soul (or hell). If you debated him politely and sticking to the arguments, he'd do the same.

His book God is Not Great is an attack on religion in general, with some chapters dedicated to specific religions or parts of them. The title itself is a reference to Islam, and it has a chapter on Islam. He does state that he believes that the miracle stories are false, and that the text of the Koran is largely plagiarised. To most Muslims that is quite offensive, so by that standard he's an Islamophobe. He was against racial profiling and similar policies, though, and for freedom of religion and so on.

Harris has actually advocated for profiling on the basis of religion, which I (and what I believe to be a majority of public atheists) consider deplorable and bigoted.