Criticizing Islam vs. Anti-Muslim Bigotry

[rug]

October 8, 2015
Posted by Jack Vance at 5:13 AM

There is nothing inherent in atheism that prevents an atheist from engaging in bigotry. Not believing in gods provides little in the way of protection against bigotry. We are certainly capable of bigotry. We are capable of bigotry not just against religious persons but against any group of people.

At the same time, there is nothing inherent in atheism that condones, justifies, or promotes bigotry. We have no "holy" book that can be read (or misread) as advocating bigotry. We have no clergy who are assumed to be a conduit to any sort of divine beings that might make it easier for us to justify bigotry. And even if one recognizes that atheists become atheists by traveling many different paths - not all of which involve reason, critical thinking, skepticism, or freethought - it seems that our lack of "holy" books, clergy, and the like could be relevant. Bigotry might be a bit harder for atheists to justify than it is for at least some religious persons to justify.

And yet, there does seem to be at least one are where atheists are regularly accused of engaging in bigotry against members of one religious group. Interestingly, the accusers often seem to be left-leaning atheists, and the accusations typically involve "Islamophobia."

Consider the following sentiment for a moment:

(Insert name of group here) are immoral and dangerous to society. We should round them all up and get them the hell out of our country before it is too late. They are our enemies and should be treated as such

.
It seems pretty clear to me that this reflects bigotry and that this remains true regardless of whether we fill in the group with Muslims, Christians, people from Latin America, atheists, or whatever group you prefer. It doesn't seem to matter which group one might select; the result is still bigotry. We're saying that everyone who belongs to this group is evil as a function of their membership in the group, and we're calling for their persecution.

http://www.atheistrev.com/2015/10/criticizing-islam-vs-anti-muslim-bigotry.html#ixzz3nzDUUgVG

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674088700/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0674088700&linkCode=as2&tag=atheistrevolu-20&linkId=6SFCTESRE2IB3CON

[cpwm17]

1. The author correctly understands there is a big difference between bigotry against Muslims

and criticizing Islam:

The difference between anti-Muslim bigotry and criticism of Islam strikes me as so obvious that I struggle to express it. I'm not sure how to explain it to those who seem unwilling or uninterested in grasping it. I acknowledge that there can be cases that seem to blur the lines between criticism of Islam and anti-Muslim bigotry; however, they seem few in number compared to the clear-cut differences.

I can't drink, so I would find that long video with Sam Harris difficult to take.

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-end-of-liberalism

Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies.

This is poorly disguised racism. The actual results of devoting a lot of time and effort to condemning Muslims as a people, while down-playing our own nation's faults, is to support US aggressive foreign policy. It is not surprising that Sam Harris, and other right-wing atheists, support aggressive wars against Muslims:

In my view, Glenn Greenwald is exactly right about Sam Harris and his tribalism and dishonesty:

[rug]

2. That clip you posted makes those points well.

[Yorktown]

3. Racism? Silly me, I thought Islam was an ideology

That racism fallacy falls when you look at historical parallels:

• fighting the Japanese during WWII? Racism.
• fighting the Nazis? Anti-"Aryan race(whatever that meant)" racism.
• criticize Mao? Anti Chinese racism

By the same token, it's easy to see where the original article fails:

(Insert name of group here) are immoral and dangerous to society. We should round them all up and get them the hell out of our country before it is too late. They are our enemies and should be treated as such

If in (Insert name of group here), I insert "Nazis", I sure hope they get rounded up.

Ditto for people (of whichever 'race') if their ideology is Islam over democracy. Or worse.

And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush.(9:5)

[cpwm17]

4. War-mongers, such as Sam Harris, target the people in predominately Muslim nations.

He promotes war against them because he thinks they are inferior. Racists have various excuses for their hate, Sam Harris' excuse is that they are Muslim and scary.

The 1.5 billion Muslims in the world are not equivalent to Nazis. You can post religious verses from the Bible that are terrible, but it doesn't mean that the vast number of Christians (or Jews) support them. The terrible verses do show that the religions are nonsense, but the verses are not good evidence that the religious believers are necessarily bad people.

In the last century, Western nations engaged in far more political violence and wars than predominately Muslim nations. The worst crime so far this century is the Iraq War. We should worry about getting our shit together before proclaiming those folks on the other side of the world inferior to us.

It's no coincidence that those folks that Sam Harris considers inferior are the very same people that the US has for decades treated as cannon fodder.

[Yorktown]

5. Islam, not Sam Harris, preaches war

The Quran is actually on par with Mein Kampf. Just replace A by B
• A:Aryan race B:Believers
• A:Aryan race superior B:Muslims (the best of people, 3:110) non-believers (worst 98:6)
• A:Jews=bad B:Jews=bad

And yes, as you say, the OT/Torah is equally bad. With one very important distinction: Jews and Christians pick and choose, defanging OT/Torah quite a bit. Haven't heard of a Jew or Christian stoning people to death because they worked on a Sabbath. While I did hear about stonings in countries where the crazy muslim ideology is given free rein.

And the race card is a red herring. Should the Brits in India have respected tradition of sati in the name of not looking down on people's customs and religious sensibilities? Ravi Zacharias is an Indian. Does it make the story of the resurrection of baby jesus any more credible because we must respect the creeds of people of different continents? Ravi Zacharias 'race' is as irrelevant to the inanity of Cristianity as the 'race' of Yusuf Estes is to the inanity of Islam.

[stone space]

6. What exactly is "the race card"?

the race card

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. It was played in reply #1 with a quote from Harris and then a claim it's racism:

"Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies."

This is poorly disguised racism

Harris may be wrong about how many Muslims are far scarier than Cheney (it's debatable, I'd think), but that's not racism. He's comparing what could be just one or two percent of Muslims in the whole world to Cheney. Hell, one or two percent of Americans may be scarier than Cheney.

[stone space]

9. So, "the race card" is something that is "played"?

It was played in reply #1 with a quote from Harris and then a claim it's racism:

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Yes, and the metaphor is apt.

It's not like a yellow or red card that is shown by a referee in a sports match; it's a tactically-played card, as in a card game. The player is trying to give someone a bad reputation by saying "that's racist", when it was something that wasn't about race.

[stone space]

11. On a Democratic board like DU?

Yes, and the metaphor is apt.

Seriously?

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Do you think that no post on DU can be criticised?

Your use of smilies seems to show you think it's OK to say DUers are wrong. Your posts often tell DUers they're wrong.

[stone space]

13. I'll take that as a walkback.

(it got pretty generic pretty quick)

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. I have not got the faintest idea why you think that's a walkback

It's nothing of the sort. I'm trying to explain to you what 'playing the race card' means, since you seem to have problems understanding, and then you seem surprised that I should use the expression on DU. It gets used often.

[stone space]

15. OK, not a walkback...more like doubling down.

I'm trying to explain to you what 'playing the race card' means, since you seem to have problems understanding, and then you seem surprised that I should use the expression on DU. It gets used often.

It gets used often here at DU?

Seriously???

Right here at DU?

Find three examples.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. That's easy enough:

The Original Sin: Who Really Used The Race Card First in Obama v. Clinton?
Hillary again playing the race card
How Barack Obama played the race card and blamed Hillary Clinton.
There are many more examples around.

[stone space]

20. Is that some sort of old archaic obsolete version of DU?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5564485

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5527942

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5012735

None of those links look anything like the current DU setup.

Those are all from some version of DU that I've never even seen before.

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. DU existed for 13 years before you joined

The last revamp was at the end of 2011, after some beta work earlier that year. See http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1013&page=2

[Yorktown]

22. Thanks for explaining the 'race card'

Some people just pretend not to understand tricks laid by people they agree with..

[cpwm17]

18. When it walks like a duck...

Sam Harris' position is indistinguishable from racism, because it is racism. He hates those scary people over there and he promotes hatred and war against those scary people over there. He claims they are dangerous while he promotes aggressive war against them.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. You ought to have found a quote about race, then

You chose one that isn't about race. If you think he's racist, give some evidence.

[Yorktown]

23. Sorry, but it's still untrue

You can repeat Sam Harris is a racist all you want.

As long as you (or anyone) can't define what the 'muslim race' is supposed to be,

it's just an opinion that comes out from nowhere.

[rug]

7. Oh, bullshit. Here is his apologia for the invasion of Iraq.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/dec/1/20041201-090801-2582r/

In the Washington Times of course.

[cpwm17]

17. The US is the world's biggest supporter of war.

Sam Harris defends war supporters while condemning US war victims. He also openly supports war. Much of the current violence in the Middle East is caused by US foreign policy and war making.


Muslims are under represented on this list:

30 Worst Atrocities of the 20th Century:
[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/atrox.htm





http://www.alternet.org/belief/despite-wingnut-freakout-obama-right-christian-violence-just-bad-muslim-violence


I understand that the Bible supports war more than the Koran, but Muslims are not all a bunch of saints and neither are Christians and Jews.

Jews in Israel start aggressive wars against Arabs and level Palestinian towns, ultimately based on Bible mythology. It was big in the news recently. Did you miss it? Many American Christians and the US Government also support these atrocities. It's convenient for you to ignore this. American Christians are also among the biggest supporters of US war making, more so than other groups.

I'm critical here of US Christians' support for war, but I would never support hatred and war against Christians as a group.