Wednesday 24th of April 2024
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non-believers crucifying some atheists

crucifying atheists...

They are often described as “The Unholy Trinity” – a trio of ferociously bright and pugilistic academics who use science to decimate what they believe to be the world’s greatest folly: religion.

But now Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris are on the receiving end of stinging criticism from fellow liberal non-believers who say their particular brand of atheism has swung from being a scientifically rigorous attack on all religions to a populist and crude hatred of Islam.

In the last fortnight a series of columns have been written denouncing the so-called New Atheist movement for, in one writer’s words, lending a “veneer of scientific respectability to today's politically-useful bigotry.”

The opening broadside began earlier this month with a polemic from Nathan Lean on the Salon.com website. Lean, a Washington DC native and Middle East specialist who has recently written a book about the Islamophobia industry, was prompted to pen his attack following a series of tweets last month by Professor Dawkins attacking Islam in snappy 140 character sound bites. 

“Haven’t read Koran so couldn’t quote chapter & verse like I can for Bible. But often say Islam [is the] greatest force for evil today,” the Cambridge evolutionary biologist wrote on 1 March.

For a man who has made a career out of academic rigour the admission that the author of the God Delusion hadn’t studied Islam’s holy book surprised many and led to a flurry of responses from both fans and critics alike.

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When left-wing US columnist Glenn Greenwald retweeted Hussain’s original article Harris got in touch, describing the piece as “garbage”, “defamatory” and an exercise in “quote mining”. In a lengthy email exchange that Greenwald eventually posted online, Harris insisted that there was nothing remotely racist about his criticisms of Muslims: “I criticize white, western converts in precisely the same terms,” he said. “In fact, I am even more critical of them, because they weren't brainwashed into the faith from birth.”

 

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“When criticism of religion morphs into an undue focus on Islam - particularly at the same time the western world has been engaged in a decade-long splurge of violence, aggression and human rights abuses against Muslims, justified by a sustained demonization campaign - then I find these objections to the New Atheists completely warranted,” Greenwald concludes. “In sum, [New Atheism] sprinkles intellectual atheism on top of the standard neocon, right-wing worldview of Muslims.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/face-islamophobia-backlash-8570580.html

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Dawkins, in a recent rant on Twitter, admitted that he had not ever read the Quran, but was sufficiently expert in the topic to denounce Islam as the main culprit of all the world’s evil: “Haven’t read Koran so couldn’t quote chapter and verse like I can for Bible. But [I] often say Islam [is the] greatest force for evil today.” How’s that for a scientific dose of proof that God does not exist?


http://www.salon.com/2013/03/30/dawkins_harris_hitchens_new_atheists_flirt_with_islamophobia/

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God knows that there is no scientific experiment to claim god exists or not... That is a stupid question. The point here is that the various religious believers are not only claimant about the idea that god exists (or not, which it does for them) but that god gave them — mostly in writing — messages about behaviour, dress codes including funny hats and how to treat women. This is the ludicrous part. Organised religions are about keeping people underfoot in a hierarchy of men, and presently the least forgiving religious structure could be Islam.


In the same manner as people criticise Dawkins for "not having read the Koran", I will criticise atheists who accept the right not to criticise religions without having read their holy books...

Religion does not have a place in modern politics, nor in sciences, nor in society in general... Most Abrahamic Religion only retains their number one spot of mind-bending ability — ahead of druism, witchcraft and shamanism, not because they are right, but because they have infiltrated the social conscience like cancer — through wars in which they aligned themselves with ruthless kings, rulers and despots (of which some religious rulers may have themselves been dualists), and through ruthlessness and torture (physical and mental), while building grand monument to beliefs — from pyramids, mosques and cathedrals to impress impressionable minds.

Karl Marx reference to religion being the opium of the people is partially correct. In fact religions are intoxicating like nazism, a belief that built its own temples in its own Germanic style... Unfortunately too many people are still addicted. Too many people have been inoculated with the virus of religious habit of "need"...

One does not have to be an Islamophobe to criticise Islam... One does not have to be a Christianophobe to criticise Christianity... Atheists have the right, dare I say the duty, to post a strong position that is anti-religious.

Atheists who criticise other atheists for their lack of religious acceptance is a  bit useless...
What's your problem?

Don't you see that politico-christianity is highly hypocritical in its pick-and-choose moments to suit a capitalistic scrooge-superiority, while the politico-islam may appear slightly less hypocritical but more ruthless in its unforgiving applications?... Judaism, Christianity and Islam are religions set up to control people, especially women, under the umbrella of "god". Unless one criticise these religions, one is actually doing a disservice to the future of humanity — and to the full equality of people within.
Come on, speak up! 

Otherwise you will end like a "see-I-was right-dude", who believed in global warming but did nothing to counteract the rabid disinformation, when the whole place is on fire. Religion is disinformation. Religion is based on erroneous interpretations of natural phenomenon. Science a long time ago has shown that these religious interpretations are idiotic, simplistic and at time dangerous... This does not mean that science is not "dangerous" but this is where atheism and humanism comes in to make sure that we use science, not like a religion but like an understanding of processes for the benefit of all, including the survival of this planet and creature travellers.

In the flotsam jetsam of religion, Dawkins chose to point a strong finger at Islam... Islam can foster dangerous unforgiving fanatics at grass root levels. Christianity can foster hypocritical fanatics at the top echelons. Both structures claim to respect women as long as the females don't come in and walk on the turf on men — which is self-decided by men in white robes. All religions are misogynist to various degrees, even in their veneration of women which are patronising ways to keep them underfoot. 

In some Aboriginal communities I visited in the past, there was designated areas for men secret business on one side of the pathway while women had their secret women business area a bit further on... Meanwhile within the community, all the elders, men and women, had equal rights... kids rarely misbehaved. The concept of "community" is that most of everything was shared, without fear of favour. 

Religion like Islam and Christianity strongly use a sense of frightening ownership —including the amazingly arrogant "children of god", while aboriginal communities mostly have had a sense of belonging together with nature. 

This is what science in its purest form is trying to reconnect... Religions have been illusionary distractions away from reality. Populist assault on religions is the only to shake the apple tree.


Gus Leonisky 

 

 

nice tits...

 

Now that I have your attention:

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Fighting sexism can only be powerful while operating coherently in its cultural context. Tunisian women often take to the streets in large numbers to protest against what they see as curtailing of their freedom by the government. In Egypt, the group Tahrir Bodyguards, comprised of men and women, was formed to offer women free self-defence classes against sexual harassment and to patrol the streets in order to help protect women against assault in the face of an indifferent government. There are numerous similar initiatives all over the Muslim world. These are organic initiatives that not only made sense locally - they worked.

This would matter to Femen if they were genuinely interested in helping to improve the situation for women in countries like Tunisia, where female employment is low, laws and norms restrict women's access to employment... etc....

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But beyond just being offensive, such actions have serious long-term consequences for challenging sexism in these countries. When women's rights are tied to an insulting, sneering cultural imperialism in the minds of local people, the Muslim and Arab women who engage in the painstaking, important work of fighting sexism in these places are often viewed suspiciously and as cultural and religious traitors before they've even begun. And when that happens, the only losers are women's rights.

 

 

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/04/10/3734377.htm

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Operating coherently in a cultural context has never revolutionised much... Revolutions are difficult. The revolution of the Arab Spring has actually gone backwards... and should we support the rebels in Syria, it will go more backwards still...

An environmentalist up a tree in the Tarkine Forest won't save the Amazon...  Sometimes shock tactics are need to make people aware at local level of certain "restrictions" whether we are right or not. Let me say here that the Femen or/and any respectful feminists won't have an ounce of effect on the plight of women in Tunisia where their fate is decided by the religious dictum of men. That's why the Tunisian women are organising initiatives for improvements. Under the rule of president Habib Bourguiba there was far more freedom for women in that country. One of the problem encountered here is that many women themselves are totally oppose to having more rights as it goes against the teaching of the Quoran...

Along side this conservative article (read some of the comments) there is a column in which a title caught my eyes:

Living in the light of God: Islamic law and ethical obligation

I could be wrong in my little head, but to me there is no such things as an ethical obligation. There are ethical dilemmas for which we make choices.  These choices of course are influenced by the experience and accumulation of successful results in an ethical context for which we hope for the best outcome. No obligation, apart from the trust in our decisions for which we accept the consequences, but not an "obligation" — usually with punishment from others — when the laws, such as religious laws, are wrong for the circumstances we're in...

 

demonising the religious industry, not the people...

New Atheists Are Not Islamophobes
An article by Nathan Lean is making the rounds on the internet and it seems like everybody is jumping on the atheist-bashing bandwagon. Lean recently wrote an article for Salon – the title: Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens: New Atheists flirt with Islamophobia. Many anti-Islamophobia crusaders quickly shared it with comments like “Dawkins’ idiot brigade”. To be fair, many liberals, atheists and Christians shared it too. But Lean’s article is currently a hot favourite in circles that dislike atheists in general because of their atheist views.
If you’ve read Lean’s article, you probably already know who he is. But if you haven’t, let me fill you in.  Nathan Lean is the editor-in-chief of the non-profit organisation Aslan Media, an aggressive pro-Islamic, self-proclaimed opponent of Israel of which some members – including Lean himself – hold a reputation for making anti-Israel comments on Twitter. Aslan Media is supposedly an anti-Islamophobia crusader, taking cheap shots at Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller in the past, and been called out by Jihad Watch on more than one occasion. It is also ‘supported’ by Loonwatch, a group of anonymous people who smear almost every critic of Islam while also outing anti-Muslim bigots.  Lean is also the author of the book The Islamophobia Industry, which received a critical review by Jonathan Schanzer for the Wall Street Journal, and elicited a petulant and defensive response piece viciously attacking Schanzer by Loonwatch. As well as writing books, Lean also endorses cyber terrorism:    
A criticism of 'new atheism' is that this type of non-believer is the 'mean' and ‘in-your-face’.  Lean puts new atheists like Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens in the ranks of Pamela Geller and anti-Muslim bigots, calling new atheists ‘the new Islamophobes’. This is a little disturbing and so over the top that it sounds almost absurd.  Anyone who has read the works of 'new atheists' such as Dawkins and Harris knows that their ‘invectives’ are directed against Islam as a religion, and not Muslims. If Lean should be criticising anyone, it should be those who engage in destructive acts of terror, those who make the lives of people hell on earth by giving fatwas, those Muslims who kill Muslims and then go on to whine about Islamophobia...
http://atheistalliance.org/news-a-articles/archive/627