Sam Harris’ detestable crusade: How his latest anti-Islam tract reveals the bankruptcy of his ideas

[MisterP]

29. the New Atheists seem a bit nervous, that people won't listen to their policy advice anymore

in the sense of kneejerk antitheism that sees fundamentalism as the epitome of theism (plus feeble attempts at legitimation through physics or biochemistry), New Atheism bubbled up before 9-11: after the attack it seemed like something that at least could simultaneously condemn the unprovoked bolt from the blue ("confirming" their books), the snake-handling yobs screaming for war, and the Iraqis blowing up our boys (who just happened to be in Iraq at the time)

but even by the time of the 2006 Euston Manifesto it and its larger associated movements were creaking--everyone just scratched their heads at the proposal that Bush and Bibi were the true torchbearers of leftism and that the onus of violence was all on those dang Mideasterners; after even 3 years in Iraq it seemed sick, perverse

so today Harris's Salon fans still yell about some hallucinatory pro-Salafist totalitarian-loving "illiberal left," but that sounds almost archaeological nowadays (like the attacks on Sanders for visiting Yaroslavl or Rand Paul saying he's gonna go all Khmer Rouge on us)

reality's steadfastly refused to humor the New Atheist view of the world (such as it is): theologians, historians, philosophers, and scientists are telling them to sit down before they hurt someone else after their cheerleading Iraq; Hirsi Ali, Darwish, Ye'or, Namazie, Shoebat, Gabriel, etc., all outed themselves as liars (about most things or literally everything in their lives)

and yet European refugees aren't joining IS like the Frontists and PEGIDA say, but instead are telling the rest of us that "these are the sort of people we fled" and that the reaction the terrorists want was to increase persecution (to prove their culture-clash): other than the surge in hate crimes I'm surprised by how mob-free the reactions to Paris and San Bernardino has been

even the facts of the Paris shooters themselves--that they seem to've been nebbish unchurched drunk stoners--doesn't jive with the assertion that "the trouble with Muslims" is that they take their religion too seriously and Grinchily lash out at us types who like to party; OBL and al-Baghdadi, it turns out, don't speak for most Muslims, who take issue with New Atheist assertions that those are the only guys truly following the Quran and Hadith--that theists can't be good people (however defined) if they were really following their own religion

their attempts to create a "science of ethics" was stillborn without them realizing it, already as ridiculous as the 60s calls to invade Cuba in the name of tribal evolution or EO Wilson saying women were evolved for the kitchen: and, after all, the main guys who derive their morality from chemistry turn out to be the Koch Brothers; Dawkins turns out to just have always been Trump without the dyejob

even the popular phrasing "Old Testament God" rubs everyone the wrong way after the first few times they blame Him for Pedro de Alvarado/Torquemada/Raynald of Châtillon: everything repressed and violent that did happen in Western history is being accidentally blamed on the Jews!

as the religious right ages and loses much of its GOP leadership it's facing a revived religious left boosted by the new Pope: to the antitheists this is the worse outcome, because it 1. keeps religion going after they said it'd be over by 1950 and 2. makes them unable to say that theists are all gay-stoning creationists; meanwhile Gohmert says we shouldn't get our science from religious leaders (what's wrong with that man) and much of our AGW denialism has deep roots in the skeptic movement; I smell another reshuffling of US religiosity like in the mid-70s--a historical curio, like Guatemala's temples to Minerva