Atheism's Dark Side Aiding the Trump Agenda

[rug]

BY STEPHEN LEDREW FEBRUARY 26, 2017

Sam Harris recently appeared in a one-on-one segment on Real Time With Bill Maher to discuss Donald Trump’s immigration ban, which he criticized for being poorly executed and too sweeping, though he approves of the goal of keeping radicals out. Harris levied his familiar charge that the Left is an ally of Islamism because of its mindless commitment to multiculturalism and tolerance, which he’s been repeating since his 2004 book The End of Faith launched his career as an anti-religious crusader. These views were the basis of his highly publicized dust-up with Ben Affleck on the show in 2014.

It’s telling that the “alt-Right” (read: white nationalist) website Breitbart posted an approving summary of Harris’ comments from this Real Time appearance. Long before Trump’s travel ban, Harris was arguing that America should ethnically profile “Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim” at airport security. Recent events should compel atheists to assess the impact of these views, proudly promoted by their exalted public representatives. I, like many other atheists who were optimistic about this movement’s prospects when it came alive about ten years ago, have been dismayed by how willingly some of its members subordinate reason to blind ideology.

Soon after Alexandre Bissonnette murdered six people at a mosque in Quebec City it was reported that “likes” on his Facebook page included Donald Trump, French far-right politician Marine Le Pen, and “atheist scientist” Richard Dawkins. The immediate reaction was to point to the toxic effect nationalists like Trump and Le Pen are having on our political culture, now materialized to tragic effect in what appears to be an ethnically motivated act of violence.

But these defenders of a white Christian vision of nationhood have found curious allies in celebrity atheists like Dawkins and Harris, who echo their paranoid views of Muslims to their ostensibly liberal supporters. Bissonnette’s actions and personal “likes” highlight the weird entanglement of atheists, Christian neoconservatives and theocrats, and far-Right white nationalists, which is something reasonable atheists should reflect on very seriously.

http://religiondispatches.org/atheisms-dark-side-aiding-the-trump-agenda/

[bluedye33139]

1. Movement atheists

Movement atheists are united in opposition to Islam, women's rights, racial equality, and are very tenuous on LGBT rights. There is a big crossover with the so-called libertarian movement, which is a bunch of right-wingers who don't go to church but who hate everything that right-wingers hate.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. "Movement atheists"? Who do you mean by that?

Here is an example of use of the phrase, but none of the 4 categories are anythingf like the people you're describing:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/camelswithhammers/2012/12/4-kinds-of-movement-atheist-secularist-atheists-identity-atheists-evangelical-atheists-and-constructive-atheists/

Opposition to Islam does turn up, but the rest, frankly, sounds like a made-up load of bollocks.

So what 'movement' are you thinking of?

[bluedye33139]

14. Great question

Thanks for asking.

The adjective "movement" signifies that someone or something belongs to a movement. Movement conservatives or conservatives but that belong to the conservative movement. Movement atheists would be atheists who belong to an atheist movement. Who is currently heading the pop culture atheist movement? you ask.

Dawkins, Dennet, Harris.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Then this is a load of bollocks

There is practically no connection at all between Dennett and Harris. There's no 'movement' either that involves these people, and your accusations of dodgy views on race, LGBT etc. are just rubbish.

[bluedye33139]

19. Again, thank you for the wonderful and kind commentary

[The Sand Reckoner]

32. None of what any of them has written

qualifies as "pop culture".

Nor are they "united" in opposing women's rights and racial equality.

I defy you to show us quotes from them and all of the member of the "movement" you claim they head that prove that.

[bluedye33139]

33. Thanks for your great input

[caroldansen]

2. Then he's calling the christian Bible an ally of islam because the bible says, Let he who is the

Greatest among you be servant of all. He can take that up with the Christian God, the God of the Bible.

[rug]

3. Er, want to try that sentence again?

[sfwriter]

4. Atheist here...

That editorial is nonsense. Alexandre Bissonnette hated Islam more than he loved Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins, and no atheist I know of has condoned violence. Buried 12 graphs into this is the fact that Bissonnette liked more Christian sources than Dawkins. I would be leery of calling him a Christian extremest based on that. Atheists sometimes find Islam distasteful because of its human rights record, but I know of none calling for violence.

I also know of no atheist Trump supporters in either the activist community where I live or among the larger community silent atheists in my circles. They voted for everyone BUT Trump. I do know of online atheist trolls who supported Trump, but the author fails to cite this much more robust source of evidence either out of ignorance, laziness or the desire to keep his claims centered on Harris and Dawkins. This is a person with an ax to grind with the New Atheists.

Then in the next to last paragraph, "No one would claim that Bissonnette was motivated to murder specifically by Dawkins’ words, but the persistence with which he and other New Atheists have uttered these words has contributed to the dismal present condition." So in other words, the author implied just this motivation to murder to create an editorial and is now covering his ass and backing off to a more general claim. Dawkins no more contributed to Trump or the rise of religious hatred toward Islam than did Obama. You can cherry pick anyones statements and actions to make a case for anything.

Finally, the author claims a need to rescue the "narrative of secularism" from its use as a tool of fascism when in reality, secularism of all stripes is under threat from fascism. (https://www.thenation.com/article/its-not-trump-versus-the-pope-its-trump-versus-secularism/)

The whole thing feels like someone reducing the world to fit a lens they're already invested in. I don't know the author, but I'll bet he has some investment in tearing down New Atheists specifically. Anyone know of his background? Is he a Ph.D. student with a dissertation on Dawkins or a book deal to promote?

[rug]

5. Here's an interview with him.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/religion/article/68423-sociologist-stephen-ledrew-on-the-rift-in-the-atheism-movement.html

But you're wrong about Harris and Hitchens. They both strongly supported Bush's wars on "Islamic terrorism". That is not simply condoning violence; it's promoting it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Hitchens? The first time he's been mentioned in this thread

Dawkins has been mentioned a lot, but he was highly visible in the opposition to the attack on Iraq.

[rug]

9. He's right there in the fifth paragraph.

While Dawkins, Harris, and other New Atheists (most famously the late Christopher Hitchens, also one of Bissonnette’s “likes”) have preached a secular gospel of scientific rationality and hostility toward religion, their harshest criticism has been reserved for Islam.

Most famously.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. As I said, not mentioned in this thread

You specifically talked about what sfwriter had said about Hitchens. But sfwriter hadn't said anything.

[rug]

11. He read the first 12 paragraphs. I doubt he missed Hitchens.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. But he didn't say anything about Hitchens

despite your assertion. The reply was mostly about the article's assertions about Dawkins; but Dawkins was famously opposed to the invasion of Iraq.

[guillaumeb]

6. That some atheists support a war on Islam is not surprising.

Some Christians also support such a war.

That some atheists are conservatives is also not surprising. Why should atheists not be as politically diverse as theists?

[Bretton Garcia]

21. That sounds plausible in some ways.

[guillaumeb]

23. Thank you.

It seems obvious to me that intolerance is a universal human behavior.

[Bretton Garcia]

25. Though some may have more, or less, than others

[True Dough]

16. I'm an atheist

And Sam Harris, in my view, is in no way an "exalted representative" of atheism, as characterized by the author. Sure, he has a following, but I disagree with some of his positions including his stance on Muslims.

[pokerfan]

17. According to Pew Research atheists tend to be liberal

Just not 100%...

Self-identified atheists tend to be aligned with the Democratic Party and with political liberalism. About two-thirds of atheists (69%) identify as Democrats (or lean in that direction), and a majority (56%) call themselves political liberals (compared with just one-in-ten who say they are conservatives). Atheists overwhelmingly favor same-sex marriage (92%) and legal abortion (87%). In addition, three-quarters (74%) say that government aid to the poor does more good than harm.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/01/10-facts-about-atheists/

[True Dough]

18. As it happens

I fit with the majority in all those categories! PEW did some good work there, as far as I'm concerned.

[Bretton Garcia]

20. Is there a contradiction between being liberal...

And being disinterested in helping the poor with say, handouts?

[True Dough]

22. Did you misread that?

I did the first time around. The sentence in question says government handouts to the poor do MORE GOOD than harm (not more harm than good). It's unusual phrasing that could throw people off.

[Bretton Garcia]

24. Yes. My apologies

[noiretextatique]

26. atheists who are anti-Muslim are: BIGOTS

just like Christians who are anti-Muslim.

[The Sand Reckoner]

35. Define what you mean

by "anti-Muslim"

Be specific

[Snackshack]

27. I agree with

Harris.

"Atheism is a term we do not need in the same way we do not have a term for someone who is not an astrologer."

[C_U_L8R]

28. Nihilists

v

[RoadhogRidesAgain]

29. I'm an atheist

And I find a lot of the practices carried it in Muslim countries to be extremely distasteful and wrong. Saudi Arabia is abhorrent in its treatment of gays and women. It's the type of society the GOP tries to implement here. Will some racists latch on to this valid criticism of a RELIGION in order to mask their racially based hatred? Probably.

That's not my fault.

As far as I'm concerned any group of people, be they Christian or Muslim or any other religion that tries to implement Bronze Age backwards beliefs into a modern society will find resistance from me. Frankly if it were up to me, I would purge all forms of religion from society. But I can't do that.

[PsychoBabble]

30. Interesting topic, but as an atheist ...

... there is no one that I "follow," period. The whole point is to follow MY conscience on a host of issues -- spiritual, cultural, and political.


Maybe the "Movement Atheists" do have leaders, but in my mind that sorta makes them similar to the people who follow religious tenets.

To each their own. But MY leader is ... ME.

[The Sand Reckoner]

31. Why should "reasonable atheists" reflect on this?

What does it have to do with non-belief in gods? Why is any other atheist answerable for what Dawkins and Harris say or think?