Their works – Dawkins’s, The God Delusion, Harris’s, The End of Faith, Dennett’s, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, and Hitchens’s, God Is Not Great – were all essentially written as a blind reaction to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and all zoomed in on Islam and the Muslim world, demonstrating a remarkable ignorance of both.
Needless to say, none of the four was able to offer any serious historical understanding of this terror act, why it happened, what it meant, or how to prevent similar acts of wanton violence in the future. Nor did they make any intellectually challenging or noteworthy contribution to the millennia-old debate on belief and disbelief in God.
That publishers have chosen to resurrect, today, this 12-year-old Islamophobic backslapping session advertised as a “landmark discussion about modern atheism” is indeed quite telling. With white supremacy currently flourishing in the US and elsewhere, a book on “new atheism” – a pseudo-intellectual movement that has heavily contributed to its rise – would surely sell.
Before proceeding any further, let us be clear: Atheism as such is a perfectly healthy proposition and the world, including the Muslim part of it, has never been devoid of atheists – all the power to them.
Across religions and cultures, there are decent and reasonable atheists, as there are equally decent and reasonable believers, who can and should openly engage in debate about religion and the belief in God without succumbing to hatred and convictions in one’s supremacy. Such open and honest conversations are indeed healthy for any community or nation and should be encouraged.
So who are these four “new atheist” crusaders (yes, they may deny it, but they are indeed very much the product of the white Western Christian crusader tradition)? They are all white older men, who have never embarked on studying Islam, do not speak Arabic – the language of the Qur’an – and certainly have no special insight into any Muslim community on earth. They are, literally, illiterate.
If I’m trying to make a point with a single bolded sentence I would maybe choose my words carefully and not use the term for a broad group if I’m talking about a specific subset. They didn’t say ‘the new atheism movement’ they said ‘atheism’.
If I was ignorant on how fascism have been again entrenching itself in western society over the last 20 years, on how and through which pipelines ideologies were spread I would at least stay silent instead of trying to pull out semantics :v
So I guess by your logic it’s fair to say Islam is terroristic. Obviously distinguishing between the broader Islamic community and boko haram or al qaeda is just semantics.
*gotta wonder if the downvoters realize I was doing argumentum ad absurdum or if they think I was unironically saying that
Yeah surely broader islamic community congregated in millions on social media and forums between 2006 and 2016, mainly in western countries, mainly appealing to young disenfranchised men. To don’t know the context, you either got on to the internet in 2020’s or somehow, for 20 fucking years did not encounter an atheist from this batch, either irl or online. Or you’re deliberately bullshitting.
Your false dichotomy of every atheist is either a white supremacist or a communist is still completely batshit even if some fraction of new atheists fell into the far right pipeline.
Some new atheists went on to become fascist does not mean every person who followed r/atheism in 2010 is now a white supremacist or a communist, that’s fucking insane.
I’ve always read it as more of a warning. Warning as to what will happen when you leave out the fundamental issues, who’s interest will be then furthered, what will be ingrained in the conscious and subconscious of the masses.
And it’s not even mine, it’s a paraphrase of Chico Mendes.
This is actually really complicated because of the way Christian identity is woven into colonialism, white supremacy, and the west overall. I fully agree with you that there’s a sort of new atheism that can and has been a deadly pipeline to hate and Islamophobia, but also, the growth in the population of unbelievers especially in the United States and Europe is imo a positive trend to breaking so many people free from delusions that keeps them living in a separate reality and creates a different flavor of Islamophobia alongside other bigotries against the LGBTQ+ community and many other groups.
That’s not what illiterate means. If that was the case, every person on Earth who doesn’t speak Arabic and study Islam would be illiterate… which is of course completely ridiculous, and bigoted, for that matter.
It’s like becoming a “China critic” without speaking any Chinese or having any concept of Chinese culture but instead repeating racist stereotypes about Chinese people you saw on Fox News.
I don’t speak Chinese, know very little about Chinese culture or Chinese history. Am I therefore banned from criticizing the well documented and ongoing violations of human rights in China? The treatment of Uighurs, the death penalty, the lack of democracy, the suppression of women’s rights?
Are you trying to tell me, with a straight fucking face, that material conditions and socioeconomic position of an individual doesn’t affect whether they become religious or not? And that the sudden change of their status will not affect their worldview, both present and down the line?
We have seen how colonial society, the colonial administration, perceives the veil, and we have sketched the dynamics of the efforts undertaken to fight it as an institution and the resistances developed by the colonized society. At the level of the individual, of the private European, it may be interesting to follow the multiple reactions provoked by the existence of the veil, which reveal the original way in which the Algerian woman manages to be present or absent.
For a European not directly involved in this work of conversion, what reactions are there to be recorded? The dominant attitude appears to us to be a romantic exoticism, strongly tinged with sensuality. And, to begin with, the veil hides a beauty. A revealing reflection-among others of this state of mind was communicated to us by a European visiting Algeria who, in the exercise of his profession (he was a lawyer), had had the opportunity of seeing a few Algerian women without the veil. These men, he said, speaking of the Algerians, are guilty of concealing so many strange beauties. It was his conclusion that a people with a cache of such prizes, of such perfections of nature, owes it to itself to show them, to exhibit them. If worst came to worst, he added, it ought to be possible to force them to do so.
A strand of hair, a bit of forehead, a segment of an “overwhelmingly beautiful” face glimpsed in a streetcar or on a train, may suffice to keep alive and strengthen the European’s persistence in his irrational conviction that the Algerian woman is the queen of all women.
But there is also in the European the crystallization of an aggressiveness, the strain of a kind of violence before the Algerian woman. Unveiling this woman is revealing her beauty; it is baring her secret, breaking her resistance, making her available for adventure. Hiding the face is also disguising a secret; itis also creating a world of mystery, of the hidden. In a confused way, the European experiences his relation with the Algerian woman at a highly complex level. There is in it the will to bring this woman within his reach, to make her a possible object of possession. This woman who sees without being seen frustrates the colonizer. There is no reciprocity. She does not yield herself, does not give herself, does not offer herself.
You probable know about elevatorgate already, but Dawkins’ racism was pretty apparent even then when he picked some cultural practices that are widely shunned and extrapolated them to billions of people. This was his comment under the infamous video.
Dawkins, racism
Dear Muslima
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and … yawn … don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so …
And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
Look how far Christianity is spread across the world. That was white supremacy.
Genuinely curious what else you think it was? Like maybe not during the time of Constantine but anything done during and after Columbus’ time definitely is
Well, most sects of christianity were and are tools of colonialism but oppressed peoples tend to develop them into various flavors of liberation theology. islam has it’s own spin on them, with only judaism kinda sticking out, mainly due to amerikkkan project in the middle east (but out of all three I’m the least knowledgeable on judaism)
To all you fucking reddit atheists
Atheism without class struggle is just white supremacy
If by atheism you mean anti-islamism you might have a case. ‘lacking belief in a god is inherently white’ is a fucking wild take.
The resurrection of ‘new atheism’ - As white supremacy reigns supreme in the US, a new book seeks to bring back to the fore one of its ideological branches.
If I’m trying to make a point with a single bolded sentence I would maybe choose my words carefully and not use the term for a broad group if I’m talking about a specific subset. They didn’t say ‘the new atheism movement’ they said ‘atheism’.
This is about how Atheism can (and has) be used for colonialism, not that it necessarily follows or must be an integral part of it.
Ironically the New Atheist movement primarily just recycles crusader-age Christian propaganda
If I was ignorant on how fascism have been again entrenching itself in western society over the last 20 years, on how and through which pipelines ideologies were spread I would at least stay silent instead of trying to pull out semantics :v
So I guess by your logic it’s fair to say Islam is terroristic. Obviously distinguishing between the broader Islamic community and boko haram or al qaeda is just semantics.
*gotta wonder if the downvoters realize I was doing argumentum ad absurdum or if they think I was unironically saying that
Yeah surely broader islamic community congregated in millions on social media and forums between 2006 and 2016, mainly in western countries, mainly appealing to young disenfranchised men. To don’t know the context, you either got on to the internet in 2020’s or somehow, for 20 fucking years did not encounter an atheist from this batch, either irl or online. Or you’re deliberately bullshitting.
Your false dichotomy of every atheist is either a white supremacist or a communist is still completely batshit even if some fraction of new atheists fell into the far right pipeline.
Some new atheists went on to become fascist does not mean every person who followed r/atheism in 2010 is now a white supremacist or a communist, that’s fucking insane.
I’ve always read it as more of a warning. Warning as to what will happen when you leave out the fundamental issues, who’s interest will be then furthered, what will be ingrained in the conscious and subconscious of the masses.
And it’s not even mine, it’s a paraphrase of Chico Mendes.
This is actually really complicated because of the way Christian identity is woven into colonialism, white supremacy, and the west overall. I fully agree with you that there’s a sort of new atheism that can and has been a deadly pipeline to hate and Islamophobia, but also, the growth in the population of unbelievers especially in the United States and Europe is imo a positive trend to breaking so many people free from delusions that keeps them living in a separate reality and creates a different flavor of Islamophobia alongside other bigotries against the LGBTQ+ community and many other groups.
Not an easy subject to unpack
That’s not what illiterate means. If that was the case, every person on Earth who doesn’t speak Arabic and study Islam would be illiterate… which is of course completely ridiculous, and bigoted, for that matter.
It’s like becoming a “China critic” without speaking any Chinese or having any concept of Chinese culture but instead repeating racist stereotypes about Chinese people you saw on Fox News.
I don’t speak Chinese, know very little about Chinese culture or Chinese history. Am I therefore banned from criticizing the well documented and ongoing violations of human rights in China? The treatment of Uighurs, the death penalty, the lack of democracy, the suppression of women’s rights?
Yes, if you don’t know what you talking about shut the fuck up, free speech is not for telling the entire world how dumb you are.
Thanks for the respectful response. Always nice to talk to someone who knows how to behave themselves and treat strangers well.
You don’t know shit but are trying to be a smart ass and you’re surprised that your vanity doesn’t sit well with people?
Now imagine you deleted that part of your comment and replaced it by saying you’re an expert on China and Chinese human rights.
Imagine I did, would that give more or less credibility to my disdain of how the Chinese government is behaving in regards to these issues?
Less because you’d be lying about that so the rest of the comment would be dubious as well.
New Atheism and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race
I fucking loathe these dipshits
What has class struggle got to do with atheism?? Atheism: a-theism, as in “not theist”, without religion. Class and race have nothing to do with it.
Are you trying to tell me, with a straight fucking face, that material conditions and socioeconomic position of an individual doesn’t affect whether they become religious or not? And that the sudden change of their status will not affect their worldview, both present and down the line?
I could interpret this in the following ways:
Which way then?
Atheism is simply the lack of a belief in a god.
I’m not sure where you’re getting all this other weird baggage
Frans Fanon - A DYING COLONIALISM
We have seen how colonial society, the colonial administration, perceives the veil, and we have sketched the dynamics of the efforts undertaken to fight it as an institution and the resistances developed by the colonized society. At the level of the individual, of the private European, it may be interesting to follow the multiple reactions provoked by the existence of the veil, which reveal the original way in which the Algerian woman manages to be present or absent.
For a European not directly involved in this work of conversion, what reactions are there to be recorded? The dominant attitude appears to us to be a romantic exoticism, strongly tinged with sensuality. And, to begin with, the veil hides a beauty. A revealing reflection-among others of this state of mind was communicated to us by a European visiting Algeria who, in the exercise of his profession (he was a lawyer), had had the opportunity of seeing a few Algerian women without the veil. These men, he said, speaking of the Algerians, are guilty of concealing so many strange beauties. It was his conclusion that a people with a cache of such prizes, of such perfections of nature, owes it to itself to show them, to exhibit them. If worst came to worst, he added, it ought to be possible to force them to do so.
A strand of hair, a bit of forehead, a segment of an “overwhelmingly beautiful” face glimpsed in a streetcar or on a train, may suffice to keep alive and strengthen the European’s persistence in his irrational conviction that the Algerian woman is the queen of all women.
But there is also in the European the crystallization of an aggressiveness, the strain of a kind of violence before the Algerian woman. Unveiling this woman is revealing her beauty; it is baring her secret, breaking her resistance, making her available for adventure. Hiding the face is also disguising a secret; itis also creating a world of mystery, of the hidden. In a confused way, the European experiences his relation with the Algerian woman at a highly complex level. There is in it the will to bring this woman within his reach, to make her a possible object of possession. This woman who sees without being seen frustrates the colonizer. There is no reciprocity. She does not yield herself, does not give herself, does not offer herself.
Everything exists in a vacuum it seems…
deleted by creator
To you:
No, it’s not, you are silly
The audacity of Facebook believers like yourself never ceases to amaze me.
You probable know about elevatorgate already, but Dawkins’ racism was pretty apparent even then when he picked some cultural practices that are widely shunned and extrapolated them to billions of people. This was his comment under the infamous video.
Dawkins, racism
Dear Muslima
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and … yawn … don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so …
And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
I would call you illiterate but then I risk another paragraph of you arguing that you know better than english dictionary
Yes, we all know how much you despise paragraphs, it’s not your fault, really. You never had a chance.
I’m happy that you can manage full sentences from time to time, well done.
boo hoo evil ass dictionary
Maybe you should leave the west for a bit.
west is very welcome to leave and can do it whenever it pleases, yet for some reason it chooses not to… peculiar isn’t it?
Look how far Christianity is spread across the world. That was white supremacy. (You can put all Abrahamic religions in this box)
Genuinely curious what else you think it was? Like maybe not during the time of Constantine but anything done during and after Columbus’ time definitely is
I said it was.
sorry I read it as sarcasm
Well, most sects of christianity were and are tools of colonialism but oppressed peoples tend to develop them into various flavors of liberation theology. islam has it’s own spin on them, with only judaism kinda sticking out, mainly due to amerikkkan project in the middle east (but out of all three I’m the least knowledgeable on judaism)
Yeah you hear that all of you non white athiests! You just secretly hate yourself according to this idiot. /s
Everyone knows only white people experience class conflict /s