Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Atheist Richard Dawkins attacks liberals who defend Islam's homophobia and misogyny [View all]cpwm17
(3,829 posts)51. That's one big old straw man.
Last edited Sat Dec 12, 2015, 08:01 PM - Edit history (3)
First thing, I'm an atheist. I specifically said I'm condeming "new atheists" which is a particular movement.
On DU, many of us don't like it when people engage in blanket hatred of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims. That's just plain old bigotry.
[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]
Examples of "new atheist" bigotry:
Here's professional liar, "new atheist" and neocon darling, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an employee at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI):
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/04/ayan_hirsi_ali_bibi_netanyahu_deserves_nobel_peace_prize_for_gaza_campaign/
During an interview published on Friday by Israel HaYom, the Sheldon Adelson-backed Israeli daily, public intellectual and author Ayan Hirsi Ali claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for waging the ongoing military campaign by the IDF against Hamas militants in Gaza.
Asked whom she admired, Ali who once called Islam a nihilistic cult of death included Netanyahu on a list featuring her husband, Harvard professor Niall Ferguson, as well as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Princeton professor Bernard Lewis. Ali said she admired Netanyahu because he is under so much pressure, from so many sources, and yet he does what is best for the people of Israel, he does his duty.
I really think he should get the Nobel Peace Prize, Ali added. In a fair world he would get it.
Asked whom she admired, Ali who once called Islam a nihilistic cult of death included Netanyahu on a list featuring her husband, Harvard professor Niall Ferguson, as well as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Princeton professor Bernard Lewis. Ali said she admired Netanyahu because he is under so much pressure, from so many sources, and yet he does what is best for the people of Israel, he does his duty.
I really think he should get the Nobel Peace Prize, Ali added. In a fair world he would get it.
Here's an interview of Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
https://reason.com/archives/2007/10/10/the-trouble-is-the-west/1
Reason: Should we acknowledge that organized religion has sometimes sparked precisely the kinds of emancipation movements that could lift Islam into modern times? Slavery in the United States ended in part because of opposition by prominent church members and the communities they galvanized. The Polish Catholic Church helped defeat the Jaruzelski puppet regime. Do you think Islam could bring about similar social and political changes?
Hirsi Ali: Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims.
Reason: Dont you mean defeating radical Islam?
Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once its defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. Its very difficult to even talk about peace now. Theyre not interested in peace.
Reason: We have to crush the worlds 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, defeat Islam?
Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And theres no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and theyre the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, This is a warning. We wont accept this anymore. There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.
Reason: Militarily?
Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you dont do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.
Reason: Are we really heading toward anything so ominous?
Hirsi Ali: Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims.
Reason: Dont you mean defeating radical Islam?
Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once its defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. Its very difficult to even talk about peace now. Theyre not interested in peace.
Reason: We have to crush the worlds 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, defeat Islam?
Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And theres no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and theyre the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, This is a warning. We wont accept this anymore. There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.
Reason: Militarily?
Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you dont do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.
Reason: Are we really heading toward anything so ominous?
While Sam Harris was interviewing openly racist and neocon promoter, Douglas Murray, on his podcast, Sam Harris said:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/11/24/jebus-sam-harris-again/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freethoughtblogs%2Fpharyngula+%28FTB%3A+Pharyngula%29
"Given a choice between Noam Chomsky and Ben Carson, in terms of the totality of their understanding of whats happening now in the world, Id vote for Ben Carson every time. Ben Carson is a dangerously deluded religious imbecile, Ben Carson does not the fact that he is a candidate for president is a scandal but at the very least he can be counted on to sort of get this one right. He understands that jihadists are the enemy."
Sample of Sam Harris quotes:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Sam_Harris
Let's play "Harris or Malkin?":
"Islam, more than any other religion human beings have devised, has all the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death."
"Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live. Certain beliefs place their adherents beyond the reach of every peaceful means of persuasion, while inspiring them to commit acts of extraordinary violence against others. There is, in fact, no talking to some people. If they cannot be captured, and they often cannot, otherwise tolerant people may be justified in killing them in self-defense. This is what the United States attempted in Afghanistan, and it is what we and other Western powers are bound to attempt, at an even greater cost to ourselves and innocents abroad, elsewhere in the Muslim world. We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas."
"I am one of the few people I know of who has argued in print that torture may be an ethical necessity in our war on terror."
"The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists."
"To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization. We are at war with Islam. It may not serve our immediate foreign policy objectives for our political leaders to openly acknowledge this fact, but it is unambiguously so. It is not merely that we are at war with an otherwise peaceful religion that has been hijacked by extremists. We are at war with precisely the vision of life that is prescribed to all Muslims in the Koran.
"We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it."
"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."
"In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so (LIE). Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause; the political discourse throughout much of the Muslim world, especially with respect to Jews, is explicitly and unabashedly genocidal."
"We cannot let our qualms over collateral damage paralyze us because our enemies know no such qualms. Theirs is a kill-the-children-first approach to war, and we ignore the fundamental difference between their violence and our own at our peril. Given the proliferation of weaponry in our world, we no longer have the option of waging this war with swords. It seems certain that collateral damage, of various sorts, will be a part of our future for many years to come."
"Islam, more than any other religion human beings have devised, has all the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death."
"Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live. Certain beliefs place their adherents beyond the reach of every peaceful means of persuasion, while inspiring them to commit acts of extraordinary violence against others. There is, in fact, no talking to some people. If they cannot be captured, and they often cannot, otherwise tolerant people may be justified in killing them in self-defense. This is what the United States attempted in Afghanistan, and it is what we and other Western powers are bound to attempt, at an even greater cost to ourselves and innocents abroad, elsewhere in the Muslim world. We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas."
"I am one of the few people I know of who has argued in print that torture may be an ethical necessity in our war on terror."
"The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists."
"To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization. We are at war with Islam. It may not serve our immediate foreign policy objectives for our political leaders to openly acknowledge this fact, but it is unambiguously so. It is not merely that we are at war with an otherwise peaceful religion that has been hijacked by extremists. We are at war with precisely the vision of life that is prescribed to all Muslims in the Koran.
"We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it."
"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."
"In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so (LIE). Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause; the political discourse throughout much of the Muslim world, especially with respect to Jews, is explicitly and unabashedly genocidal."
"We cannot let our qualms over collateral damage paralyze us because our enemies know no such qualms. Theirs is a kill-the-children-first approach to war, and we ignore the fundamental difference between their violence and our own at our peril. Given the proliferation of weaponry in our world, we no longer have the option of waging this war with swords. It seems certain that collateral damage, of various sorts, will be a part of our future for many years to come."
Edit history
Please sign in to view edit histories.
120 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
RecommendedHighlight replies with 5 or more recommendations
Atheist Richard Dawkins attacks liberals who defend Islam's homophobia and misogyny [View all]
davidn3600
Dec 2015
OP
I always wonder why we as liberals give Muslims a pass on things like this. Makes you wonder.
yeoman6987
Dec 2015
#101
Many liberals hold back from criticizing Islamic fundamentalism to the extent it deserves.
Nye Bevan
Dec 2015
#4
Actually, another poster on here has a far more comprehensive post on this aspect of Harris.
Crunchy Frog
Dec 2015
#78
That's self serving bullshit. Many on DU issue passes to other anti gay activist clergy as well.
Bluenorthwest
Dec 2015
#32
And Barack Obama was routinely lauded even when he opposed marriage equality.
Nye Bevan
Dec 2015
#48
"Despite the fact that..." rather than "because of..." seems to be the relevant qualifier.
LanternWaste
Dec 2015
#98
And there you issue Francis yet another pass. A mitigation for the facts of his actions and words.
Bluenorthwest
Dec 2015
#50
I knew as soon as you mentioned the Pope you were going to get a taste of your own medicine
kcr
Dec 2015
#58
It isn't just that he's not 100% in favor of equal rights for LGBT people
skepticscott
Dec 2015
#112
Well I'm just an "old school atheist" who finds all religion to be silly at best.
Throd
Dec 2015
#23
But liberals also do not characterize advocacy for LGBT and women as blanket hatred aginst
Bluenorthwest
Dec 2015
#36
Hatred of stupid, harmful religious beliefs isn't the same as hatred against people.
Arugula Latte
Dec 2015
#82
Aren't you like an older white male? Because you are so super wrong about this.
Bluenorthwest
Dec 2015
#38
Who said that he was? I said he's an anti gay activist and gets a pass issued to him by liberals
Bluenorthwest
Dec 2015
#40
I'm just sick of the subject. So very many people just sound roilingly anti gay to me as they
Bluenorthwest
Dec 2015
#47
Liberals don't defend Islam's homophobia/misogny any more than dictators' repression/torture.
pampango
Dec 2015
#25
If they didn't put that, no one would know or care who he is or what he thinks. nt
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
Dec 2015
#79
Russian cultural homophobia is to a huge degree a product of Orthodox Christianity which
Bluenorthwest
Dec 2015
#93
My grandpa was from Northern Ireland and I used to be profiled and deeply interviewed going
Bluenorthwest
Dec 2015
#96
No it's not snark, and you should know my history on DU well enough to know that.
closeupready
Dec 2015
#105