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[Nivash]

This doesn't ring very true to me at all. I followed the New Atheism movement rather extensively a few years back after becoming an atheist myself (I later lost interest because my interest in religion waned, not out of any growing disagreement) and still occasionally see what it's up to but it has never had anything remotely close to a unified stance on any topic other than religion. And even then it was only ever unified on keeping Christianity out of the government in Western nations, particularly in the US. Pretty much any effort was towards either increasing tolerance towards atheists through outreach or limit things such as school-sanctioned prayer or creationism in biology.

There's no unified foreign policy view. Hell, there's hardly a unified view on Islam - sure, everyone agrees it's bunk and should go the way of the dodo with the rest of the organized religions, but it ends there. Opinions on the Middle East range from Hitchens who was close to neoconservative in his later years to P.Z. Meyers who's sufficiently left-wing that I don't even know what to call him. It's similar with other topics like women's rights where the spectrum ranged from the likes of Thunderf00t (who's basically an outcast by now, thankfully) to the more or less inherently feminist Skepchick group (granted, they're - as the name implies - more associated with the Skeptic movement, but there's a huge degree of overlap between them and New Atheism).

And here's the kicker: Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris have never been the official leaders of New Atheism. The media assigned them that role because they're strong personalities and made great people to invite to talk shows. They represent no-one but themselves. They're easily the three most visible members of the movement, no arguments there, but they don't represent it. No-one voted for them. There's no organization with a membership list and fees behind them. The entire premise of the article is moot.

 

[entremet]

This doesn't ring very true to me at all. I followed the New Atheism movement rather extensively a few years back after becoming an atheist myself (I later lost interest because my interest in religion waned, not out of any growing disagreement) and still occasionally see what it's up to but it has never had anything remotely close to a unified stance on any topic other than religion. And even then it was only ever unified on keeping Christianity out of the government in Western nations, particularly in the US. Pretty much any effort was towards either increasing tolerance towards atheists through outreach or limit things such as school-sanctioned prayer or creationism in biology.

There's no unified foreign policy view. Hell, there's hardly a unified view on Islam - sure, everyone agrees it's bunk and should go the way of the dodo with the rest of the organized religions, but it ends there. Opinions on the Middle East range from Hitchens who was close to neoconservative in his later years to P.Z. Meyers who's sufficiently left-wing that I don't even know what to call him. It's similar with other topics like women's rights where the spectrum ranged from the likes of Thunderf00t (who's basically an outcast by now, thankfully) to the more or less inherently feminist Skepchick group (granted, they're - as the name implies - more associated with the Skeptic movement, but there's a huge degree of overlap between them and New Atheism).

And here's the kicker: Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris have never been the official leaders of New Atheism. The media assigned them that role because they're strong personalities and made great people to invite to talk shows. They represent no-one but themselves. They're easily the three most visible members of the movement, no arguments there, but they don't represent it. No-one voted for them. There's no organization with a membership list and fees behind them. The entire premise of the article is moot.

It started with a feature called the Four Horsemen. It was about Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins, and Dennett--who is not as well known, but also wrote treatises on atheism.

 

[Nivash]

It started with a feature called the Four Horsemen. It was about Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins, and Dennett--who is not as well known, but also wrote treatises on atheism.

Right, that was it! Had it on my tongue but it slipped away because the three horsemen made no sense. Poor Dennett gets no recognition these days.

 

[Chairman Yang]

Alright CY. Let's break the article down into its own headings then.

Empire’s Handmaidens

I take it you completely agree with this section at least and how Harris in particular is outright in favour of the civilized West 'civilizing' dumb Muslims by force and agree that this kind of thinking is dangerous and destructive?

The other three sections are:
Islamic Exceptionalism
Islamophobia and Race
Parochial Universalists

Do you not like all of them? I thought the Exceptionalism one was pretty good. I can see how the latter two you might have issues with though I think the whole article was excellent.

Correct, I think the "Empire's Handmaidens" section is very convincing. There might be context to the statements I'm missing, and maybe the New Atheists have backtracked or disavowed some of them, but I can broadly agree with this part of the article and think that trying to civilize the Islamic world by Western force is a bad idea.

I disagree with the "Islamic Exceptionalism" section as a whole. I don't think all ideologies have an exactly identical impact on the actions of their followers, and I don't think many modern strains of Sunni Islam in vogue today are identical to, say, the popular strains of Buddhism, or Christianity, or Shia Islam, or Ahmadi Islam. That said, the section has some decent points, and isn't total garbage. The comment about Islamic extremism being modernist rather than traditional is interesting and worth debating, although based on what I know, probably wrong.

And yeah, the last two sections I find pretty bad.

 

[curlyfriski]

Oh man, I miss Christopher Hitchens.

Someone who could read the statements where he reveals his lust for killing Muslims and come and say this is sick. But then, I'm sure you didn't read the article.

 

[Air]

I thought the article was pretty solid actually. I've felt there were traces of those attitudes in that community for a while (when you have such spearheading figures, their opinions would definitely seep into their fans/followers). I thought the criticisms brought up against them were fair and it definitely informed me on some opinions of these guys I didn't know about (I knew Harris was a clown and Hitchens seemed mad, but some of the quotes there are disgusting imo). I do think there are weak points in the article. The end, I felt was a bit weak, I definitely think that the criticisms written there could have been more elaborated on. I think the writer is right to say what he did in the end (about the general callousness of criticisms said by atheists regarding religious institutions), but I don't think he had sufficient enough examples to drive the point home in a clear and precise way.

 

[patapuf]

Why does america keep fucking with ideological nomenclatures, i'm too old for this shit.

Jep at least name them after their founder or something, so you get where they come from ideologically.

The whole thing hasn't anything to do with atheism nor do i think it is a particularily new strain of thought.

 

[Siegcram]

Someone who could read the statements where he reveals his lust for killing Muslims and come and say this is sick. But then, I'm sure you didn't read the article.

Right, because someone can either 100% agree with a person or be in polar opposition. No middle ground.

 

[curlyfriski]

Right, because someone can either 100% agree with a person or be in polar opposition. No middle ground.

He supported genocide, but otherwise he was a pretty cool guy.

 

[Kinitari]

Dawkins doesn't, but Hitchens did, and Harris does.

Kintari, the point is that Harris isn't unintentionally bolstering imperialism. He's doing it blatantly and deliberately.

HERE'S HARRIS (right from the article):

I can appreciate that Harris says some pretty gross things - and maybe I underplayed them a bit - but I don't think this is indicative of anything more than well... a couple of guys who have not great views on Islam/Muslims. I think what bothers me is this desire to create a link between that and an entire ambiguous movement, where people are arbitrarily put into the ranks of 'New Atheist' to then reduce their credibility.

That Harris says terrible things about how he wishes Islamic nations were 'handled', doesn't equate to any particular movement, in my mind.

 

[soul creator]

Neoconservative, warmongering and imperialistic ideologies often inspires otherwise rational, intelligent people to support some horrible viewpoints in other areas of life.

Spoiler

kinda like religion

 

[Brawndo Addict]

Saying that Atheism groups or organizations are about a lack of belief in god and nothing else is like saying video game groups are about video games and nothing else. What brings a group or community together is not the same as what the group's identity is or what it stands for or tolerates. It ignores fundamental issues of group composition and group behavior.

There is a reason that atheism and video game communities are largely composed of more well off white men and that they have similar problems regarding racism/sexism. That it does not flow directly from the definition of video games or atheism is immaterial to the underlying problem.

 

[Fenderputty]

I kind of agree with the imperialism slant to a degree. Much like I unfortunately think capitalism will eventually have a somewhat violent end. So this isn't to imply that I think atheists should become violent. Just that violence is expected when somonething as engrained in society as religion starts to die off under scrutiny.

 

[Buckethead]

The article is trying to paint a certain picture but it is at best lazy, if not purposefully misleading for the sake of mischaracterizing the new atheism movement. I don't have enough time to refute many of their points but there's certainly a lot of confusion and inaccuracy.

Some of Harris' positions are far granular than presented here, regardless of if you agree with them.

Just like it's trying to equate new atheists like Harris and Hitchens with atheism, it's trying to equate them to politics and anti-Muslim sentiment.

 

[Azih]

I disagree with the "Islamic Exceptionalism" section as a whole. I don't think all ideologies have an exactly identical impact on the actions of their followers, and I don't think many modern strains of Sunni Islam in vogue today are identical to, say, the popular strains of Buddhism, or Christianity, or Shia Islam, or Ahmadi Islam. That said, the section has some decent points, and isn't total garbage. The comment about Islamic extremism being modernist rather than traditional is interesting and worth debating, although based on what I know, probably wrong.

So traditional Sunni Islam as it relates to legal matters is built on three sources each of which comments on the previous.

1. At the base of it is the Quran, of course.

2. Then there is the Sunnah which is the Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad. This is understood to be a commentary on the Quran, clarifying what is vauge in the Quran or filling in the gaps as needed.

3. Then there are the four main schools of law/thought. Hanbali, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi. These are commentaries on the Sunnah and the Quran, and provide somewhat differing methods on what the correct approach is needed to interpret the Sunnah and the Quran.

So these four schools of thought/law pretty much reached their current form about 200-300 years after the Prophet died and have been around ever since.

Current extremists, which are a very recent phenomenon as any cursory examination of history will show, are not members of the four traditional schools of thought at all. They chafe at the idea that they have go to go through the works of any of these traditional four schools at all to get to the true Islam. They want to ignore them entirely and go straight to interpreting the Sunnah and the Quran for themselves. Going back to the source material as it were. They're a form of Salafists (salaf means one of the first three generations after the Prophet) and get a lot of their inspiration from an 18th century figure named ibn Abd al-Wahhab.

People like Harris don't seem to give a damn about any of this history and context and are content to spout incredibly reductive bull like "Islam is the motherload of bad ideas" and "Islam is the only religion that acts like the mafia" and the bizarre and absolutely irrational conflation of hatred for Iran with modern Sunni terrorism as demonstrated by that terrible Hitchens quote about how wiping that country off the face of the earth would be no tragedy at all.

I can go into my thoughts on the other sections if you want CY, but I prefer talking about things point by point.

 

[Siegcram]

He supported genocide, but otherwise he was a pretty cool guy.

No, him saying some over-the-top, gross shit doesn't automatically invalidate everything he ever said.

 

[Valhelm]

That's a really great analysis that manages to summarize my issues with the current atheist movement without using the words "neckbeard" or "fedora".

By a lot of definitions I am an atheist, although I'd be hard-pressed to identify as such.

 

[Air]

Some of Harris' positions are far granular than presented here, regardless of if you agree with them.

Just like it's trying to equate new atheists like Harris and Hitchens with atheism, it's trying to equate them to politics and anti-Muslim sentiment.

Either Harris suffers from 'Dawkins on twitter' syndrome and he's not very clear on his thoughts, or he simply just does believe what he says. Surprisingly (but not really), I think both effect him. I'm not sure what your last part of equating new atheists like the four horsemen with atheism... the article very clearly addresses it's talking about new atheists specifically. I also don't think it's equating the politics and anti-Muslim sentiment with atheism, but that there are some weird parallels between these individuals, who are supposed to be beacons of rationality, yet they hold such extreme viewpoints.

 

[Buckethead]

Either Harris suffers from 'Dawkins on twitter' syndrome and he's not very clear on his thoughts, or he simply just does believe what he says.

That's the thing, he's extremely clear with his thoughts both in interviews and on his blog but many still mischaracterize him. Either they're lazy or have an agenda.

I also don't think it's equating the politics and anti-Muslim sentiment, but that there are some weird parallels between these individuals, who are supposed to be beacons of rationality, yet they hold such extreme viewpoints.

Harris does hold so-called "extreme" viewpoints and while I don't endorse all of his views or don't feel informed enough to comment on them, in many cases, those views are far less extreme upon closer inspection. The Affleck thread and situation is a prime example of this confusion.

 

[Azih]

That's the thing, he's extremely clear with his thoughts both in interviews and on his blog but many still mischaracterize him. Either they're lazy or have an agenda.


Harris does hold so-called "extreme" viewpoints and while I don't endorse all of his views or don't feel informed enough to comment on them, in many cases, those views are far less extreme upon closer inspection. The Affleck thread and situation is a prime example of this confusion.

"Islam is the motherload of bad ideas" is an extremely clear thought, but it's incredibly difficult to see how it can be mischaracterized as anything other than an absurdly simplistic blanket statement applied to the faith of 1.5 billion people. And how about the quotes of his about 'benign dictatorship' by the West being needed over muslim countries?

 

[patapuf]

Saying that Atheism groups or organizations are about a lack of belief in god and nothing else is like saying video game groups are about video games and nothing else. What brings a group or community together is not the same as what the group's identity is or what it stands for or tolerates. It ignores fundamental issues of group composition and group behavior.

There is a reason that atheism and video game communities are largely composed of more well off white men and that they have similar problems regarding racism/sexism. That it does not flow directly from the definition of video games or atheism is immaterial to the underlying problem.

The biggest proponent of atheism has not been video games or "well off white men" but communism.

And that's because religion was in the way of state ideology.

Really, white men with imperialistic ideologies are found just as often in religious communities as they are in atheism. Their justification for it as similarily obstuse, exept they don't use the word god as much.

 

[Ogimachi]

Oh man, I miss Christopher Hitchens.

The best Hitchens is still alive and kicking.

 

[Air]

That's the thing, he's extremely clear with his thoughts both in interviews and on his blog but many still mischaracterize him. Either they're lazy or have an agenda.

It could also be that he just has poor opinions.

In The End of Faith Harris suggests that nuclear-first strikes may be necessary if the ostensible conflict between “Islam” and “civilization” escalates: “What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry?…The only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own.”

That's a quote from the article, granted I haven't read the end of faith, so I don't know if the context is write, but that seems very clear that he's running with some serious presuppositions that are seemingly based on a slippery slop argument. Not to mention he's pro torture (but sure he might be more nuanced in the cited article...)

Harris does hold so-called "extreme" viewpoints and while I don't endorse all of his views or don't feel informed enough to comment on them, in many cases, those views are far less extreme upon closer inspection. The Affleck thread and situation is a prime example of this confusion.

That's fine, but again if he can't speak to his audience clear enough where they would get it, maybe he should try another avenue to express his discourse.

 

[Chairman Yang]

So traditional Sunni Islam as it relates to legal matters is built on three sources each of which comments on the previous.

1. At the base of it is the Quran, of course.

2. Then there is the Sunnah which is the Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad. This is understood to be a commentary on the Quran, clarifying what is vauge in the Quran or filling in the gaps as needed.

3. Then there are the four main schools of law/thought. Hanbali, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi. These are commentaries on the Sunnah and the Quran, and provide somewhat differing methods on what the correct approach is needed to interpret the Sunnah and the Quran.

So these four schools of thought/law pretty much reached their current form about 200-300 years after the Prophet died and have been around ever since.

Current extremists, which are a very recent phenomenon as any cursory examination of history will show, are not members of the four traditional schools of thought at all. They chafe at the idea that they have go to go through the works of any of these traditional four schools at all to get to the true Islam. They want to ignore them entirely and go straight to interpreting the Sunnah and the Quran for themselves. Going back to the source material as it were. They're a form of Salafists (salaf means one of the first three generations after the Prophet) and get a lot of their inspiration from an 18th century figure named ibn Abd al-Wahhab.

People like Harris don't seem to give a damn about any of this history and context and are content to spout incredibly reductive bull like "Islam is the motherload of bad ideas" and "Islam is the only religion that acts like the mafia" and the bizarre and absolutely irrational conflation of hatred for Iran with modern Sunni terrorism as demonstrated by that terrible Hitchens quote about how wiping that country off the face of the earth would be no tragedy at all.

Here's the problem: generalization is necessary to discuss any ideology, Islam included. If you don't generalize, you can literally subdivide over and over until you're left with discussing the beliefs of an individual person, which is useless when talking about society-wide trends.

Let's say Harris decided to pick on the Maliki school of Islam. Ok, great. Which regional variant of Maliki Islam? Indian? Saudi? African? What if a significant chunk of Maliki-adhering Muslims tend to ignore or downplay certain aspects in favour of others? What percentage of Maliki beliefs does someone have to agree with in order to be considered Maliki? What if someone is Maliki but, in practice, doesn't let Maliki Islam influences some of their actions in certain circumstances? What about someone who has a Maliki-influenced father and an Athari mother, and lives in an area with strong Deobandi influence and schooling? What are they?

You can say that to pave over these differences is reductionist. Fine. But to do otherwise makes any discussion of Islam's effect on society (or ANY ideology's effect on society) basically useless. Generalization shouldn't be the end point of discussion, I agree...but it is necessary to start with. Can we not criticize Communism's effect on people because there are so many variants of it? What about Republicanism? What about Christianity? Is saying something like "Feminist ideology tends to make its adherents more interested in equality between men and women" pointless because it's painting all types of feminism and all feminists with a broad brush? At what level of granularity is discussion about ideology acceptable?

 

[danwarb]

The best Hitchens is still alive and kicking.

Bleeeeeerrgghh! It's quite amazing how polar opposite those two were, when they were younger at least. Peter strives to be wrong about everything.

 

[curlyfriski]

No, him saying some over-the-top, gross shit doesn't automatically invalidate everything he ever said.

I never said every utterance he made was wrong. I said holding up a guy who gets off on the thought of killing off whole nations as an intellectual hero is gross.

 

[Azih]

You can say that to pave over these differences is reductionist. Fine. But to do otherwise makes any discussion of Islam's effect on society (or ANY ideology's effect on society) basically useless. Generalization shouldn't be the end point of discussion, I agree...but it is necessary to start with. Can we not criticize Communism's effect on people because there are so many variants of it? What about Republicanism? What about Christianity? Is saying something like "Feminist ideology tends to make its adherents more interested in equality between men and women" pointless because it's painting all types of feminism and all feminists with a broad brush? At what level of granularity is discussion about ideology acceptable?

You simplify as much as possible but no more is the simple (but obviously difficult to implement) answer. You for example were willing to start with a distinction between certain strains of Sunni Islam and Shia.. Ahmadi.. etc Islam. That's far better than Harris who seems to not give a shit at all and keeps making posts about "Islam" in general when criticizing specific phenomenon.

How granular to get depends on which part of the ideology you're speaking about. If you're speaking about "No God but God and Muhammad is his Prophet" for example then yeah that's general. But if you're speaking about whether terrorism is a moderninst or traditional phenomenon in Islam? You've obviously got to get specific to at least distinguish between the modern and the traditional movements in the faith to identify where terrorists get their inspiration. And in this case the scholarship is clear... it's very modern. Otherwise you get dumb stuff like Iraq being attacked because of the actions of Al-Qaeda or Iran being thought of as some sort of ally of theirs. Those are the kind of absolute and incredibly destructive mistakes that can come from not being granular. And Harris is NOT GRANULAR AT ALL.

 

[FairyD]

That was a good article. Thanks for the link.

Reading the entire thing, it makes Harris look like a real asshole.

 

[Chairman Yang]

You simplify as much as possible but no more is the simple (but obviously difficult to implement) answer. You for example were willing to start with a distinction between certain strains of Sunni Islam and Shia.. Ahmadi.. etc Islam. That's far better than Harris who seems to not give a shit at all and keeps making posts about "Islam" in general when criticizing specific phenomenon.

How granular to get depends on which part of the ideology you're speaking about. If you're speaking about "No God but God and Muhammad is his Prophet" for example then yeah that's general. But if you're speaking about whether terrorism is a moderninst or traditional phenomenon in Islam? You've obviously got to get specific to at least distinguish between the modern and the traditional movements in the faith to identify where terrorists get their inspiration. And in this case the scholarship is clear... it's very modern. Otherwise you get dumb stuff like Iraq being attacked because of the actions of Al-Qaeda or Iran being thought of as some sort of ally of theirs. Those are the kind of absolute and incredibly destructive mistakes that can come from not being granular. And Harris is NOT GRANULAR AT ALL.

Would you agree, then, that it's ok for Harris to generalize for some of his statements? For example, he talks about Pew poll results indicating that in many Muslim-majority countries, a disturbingly large percentage of the population supports death for those who leave Islam. He uses this as evidence that the ideology of Islam may promote this view. Would his point really be significantly stronger if he only looked at Sunni-majority, or Shia-majority, or Hanbali-dominated countries? I doubt it. In fact, in the countries that have lower rates of people believing in death for apostates (like Turkey or Indonesia), the difference seems to be driven by a general suppression of Islam in those countries during the 20th century, not relatively minor doctrinal differences.

Basically, I agree with you that generalization shouldn't be taken too far, and sometimes, more or less granularity is appropriate. I'm just not sure that all of Harris' points can be dismissed just because of this generalization issue.

 

[ReplacementPelican]

The best Hitchens is still alive and kicking.

Sneering fuckwit.

As for the topic, I agree. Hitchens, Harris et al are the prophets of Atheism and are the foundation of a new religion based around intellectualism and civil rights alongside violence, hatred for the religious and a contempt for all but them.

Because all of these people agree on all issues.

Spoiler

In all seriousness the article is ridiculous.

 

[Azih]

Would you agree, then, that it's ok for Harris to generalize for some of his statements? For example, he talks about Pew poll results indicating that in many Muslim-majority countries, a disturbingly large percentage of the population supports death for those who leave Islam. He uses this as evidence that the ideology of Islam may promote this view. Would his point really be significantly stronger if he only looked at Sunni-majority, or Shia-majority, or Hanbali-dominated countries? I doubt it. In fact, in the countries that have lower rates of people believing in death for apostates (like Turkey or Indonesia), the difference seems to be driven by a general suppression of Islam in those countries during the 20th century, not relatively minor doctrinal differences.

Basically, I agree with you that generalization shouldn't be taken too far, and sometimes, more or less granularity is appropriate. I'm just not sure that all of Harris' points can be dismissed just because of this generalization issue.

And I'm not dismissing all of Harris' points. But a lot of what he says is so disgusting and odious (such as the plethora of horrible things he says in the Empire's handmaidens section) that it needs to be highlighted. There is also the issue that Harris gets defended in totality by people unaware of how he uses his ideas to promote frankly horrific foreign policies. Plus that the kind of generalizations he promotes leads to things like the second Iraqi war (WHICH ACTUALLY HAPPENED) and the incredibly moronic calls for a war on Iran based on reactions to ISIS or Al-Qaeda cuz they're all muslim aren't they?

People can agree with him that all religion is equally dumb and we can have a debate about that

People can agree with him that Islam is more equally dumb than other faiths and we can have a debate about that

But at the very least people should allow themselves the intellectual freedom to draw a line and call Harris out for stating that we are on war with 'Islam' or promoting bullshit like 'Islamic demographic takeover of Europe' or calling for 'benign dictatorships' on muslims and oppressing them until they learn to behave themselves. It's Ad Homeniem defense and it sucks and I see a fair bit of it around. Don't defend the man, defend the individual points that you agree with and don't defend and even attack the horrible ones that you don't. Hell right here, we have an insistence on misrepresenting the article as being some sort of attack on the entirety of Atheism when the article is incredibly clear that it isn't. Like what NathanCX just did. Strawman city.

And really your bringing up the generic islamic consensus, such as it is, on apostasy has nothing to do with the OP article. I'm more than willing to talk about it but not in this thread because I think the entire article is solid while you seem to only be on board with about half of it.

We already agree on the Empire's Handmaidens section. What I'm trying to get at is one of your critiques of the Islamic Exceptionalism segment (that Islamic fundamentalism is modern, not medieval) is actually wrong. The article gets it right. The current form of Islamic fundamentalism is a pretty damn recent phenomenon.

This is an incredibly important point to emphasize because it blows the exceptionalist argument that unlike every other human philosophy "Islam. Islam never changes". For example "If you ask what is wrong with Islam, it makes the same mistake as [other] religions, but it makes another mistake, which is that it’s unalterable." (Hitchens). This is bullshit. Islam is not static at all as even a cursory examination of its history shows that.

And even IF you believe Islam has some weird extra power over its adherents that, Christianity, Buddhism, Communism, Capitalism, or whatever else ideology doesn't (and that is an orientalist garbage view in my opinion) then you can still disagree and criticize Harris comments like "Islam, more than any other religion human beings have devised, has all the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death.” or "“We are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with Islam.” or Hitchens "‘If only Islam would have a Reformation’ – it can’t have one." or Dawkins "the greatest force for evil today”. These are exceptionalist arguments and they are beyond the pale.

 

[Messofanego]

Why do these atheist figures care so much about the fear of islam? Was this timed after 9/11 and other terrorist organisations or is a recurring theme because it's one of the fastest growing religions?

 

[Chairman Yang]

We already agree on the Empire's Handmaidens section. What I'm trying to get at is one of your critiques of the Islamic Exceptionalism segment (that Islamic fundamentalism is modern, not medieval) is actually wrong. The article gets it right. The current form of Islamic fundamentalism is a pretty damn recent phenomenon.

The current form of Islamic fundamentalism is very obviously a recent phenomenon. Islamic fundamentalism in general, with the negative characteristics we associate with it (killing apostates, suppressing minorities, allowing religious concerns to crush free thought, and sanctioning expansionism, to name a few) has been around pretty much since Islam's inception. Not at all times, and punctuated by periods of intellectual openness and genuine tolerance, and not spread equally, but still disturbingly widespread and common. (Although not when compared with Christianity, probably.)

The question of whether Islamic fundamentalism is modern or traditional is important. It can be used to ask: is the rottenness in much of Islam today a temporary aberration that will eventually go away by itself? Or is it a feature core to Islam, that will always tend to rise and reassert itself in society unless kept in check?

I don't know the answer to this. I suspect it's the latter; the more history of the Islamic world I learn, the more predecessors to modern Islamic fundamentalist behaviour I see, across many cultures, geographical areas, and time periods.

This is an incredibly important point to emphasize because it blows the exceptionalist argument that unlike every other human philosophy "Islam. Islam never changes". For example "If you ask what is wrong with Islam, it makes the same mistake as [other] religions, but it makes another mistake, which is that it’s unalterable." (Hitchens). This is bullshit. Islam is not static at all as even a cursory examination of its history shows that.

All true. I don't think Islam is fundamentally different from other ideologies because it's unalterable.

And even IF you believe Islam has some weird extra power over its adherents that, Christianity, Buddhism, Communism, Capitalism, or whatever else ideology doesn't (and that is an orientalist garbage view in my opinion) then you can still disagree and criticize Harris comments like "Islam, more than any other religion human beings have devised, has all the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death.” or "“We are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with Islam.” or Hitchens "‘If only Islam would have a Reformation’ – it can’t have one." or Dawkins "the greatest force for evil today”. These are exceptionalist arguments and they are beyond the pale.

I don't know if Islam has weird extra power over its adherents. But Islam does affect its adherents differently than other religions. Obviously...all religions--and all ideologies--affect their adherents differently.

What Harris and Dawkins (though not Hitchens here) are talking about is the degree of bad behaviour Islam causes today. Is it less than other ideologies, or more? They obviously believe it's #1 right now; or at least want to say so as a rhetorical device. They also say and believe some terrible things I disagree with on top of that.

I don't think trying to rank the bad impact of various ideologies is a useful exercise. It doesn't seem very data-driven, it's fraught with judgement calls and subjectivity, ideologies are nebulous and ever-changing (as we've been discussing), and even if we miraculously came up with an acceptable ranking, I'm not sure it would help anything. But I'm not sure I agree with you that ranking Islam as the #1 bad, widespread ideology today is "beyond the pale". Incorrect, maybe. But inherently execrable and racist because it's arbitrarily picking on one ideology and calling it "exceptional"? No.

 

[Ashes]

Why do these atheist figures care so much about the fear of islam? Was this timed after 9/11 and other terrorist organisations or is a recurring theme because it's one of the fastest growing religions?

New atheism pretty much started gaining traction following 9'11 if not had its roots set in the decade post 9'11.

 

[Ashes]

I can appreciate that Harris says some pretty gross things - and maybe I underplayed them a bit - but I don't think this is indicative of anything more than well... a couple of guys who have not great views on Islam/Muslims. I think what bothers me is this desire to create a link between that and an entire ambiguous movement, where people are arbitrarily put into the ranks of 'New Atheist' to then reduce their credibility.

That Harris says terrible things about how he wishes Islamic nations were 'handled', doesn't equate to any particular movement, in my mind.

This isn't the goal at all. People who shares ideas tend to get lumped together. Especially, people who go out of their way to sell those ideas.

These are all published authors, media personalities, and were often times [not always] quite coherent and eloquent in establishing what their point is.

You almost seem to be reaching for the victim card. When there's no need.

 

[Derwind]

Well this is the first time I heard New Athiest, certainly the rhetoric used by Hitchens was pretty provacative and violent but there was a movement behind it? I honestly never knew.

 

[Stereogatari]

The article was pretty good until this part:


As far as I can tell, the author of the article is saying that, because Islam has been considered a "race" by some in the past (with the author's definition of "race" including nationality, ethnicity, and religion), criticism of Islam is now racist. Criticism of any religion is now racist. He's deliberately conflating the commonly-accepted connotations of "being a racist" with his arbitrary definition of race as including religion.

In the next section, the author says that New Atheism's attack on religious beliefs as irrational is weak. The thrust of his argument is that, because religions have many different interpretations, internal debates, and aren't always taken literally, you can't attack any particular religion as being irrational. He also says that fundamentalism is caused by "social and material conditions" rather than any religious ideas, but doesn't provide any actual evidence for this.

Terrible article.

I'm an Atheist of a Turkish background.

One thing that can't be denied is that there are people who are discriminatory towards Muslims in a racist manner. There's a difference between rational criticism of a religion, and between pseudo-racist bashing of Muslims.

 

[Air]

Well this is the first time I heard New Athiest, certainly the rhetoric used by Hitchens was pretty provacative and violent but there was a movement behind it? I honestly never knew.

It's a catch all term for atheists who come from the Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennet and Harris generation. I'm pretty sure the name started appearing when the God delusion came out. A lot of reddit atheists are new atheists.

 

[Iztli]

It could also be that he just has poor opinions.



That's a quote from the article, granted I haven't read the end of faith, so I don't know if the context is write, but that seems very clear that he's running with some serious presuppositions that are seemingly based on a slippery slop argument. Not to mention he's pro torture (but sure he might be more nuanced in the cited article...)



That's fine, but again if he can't speak to his audience clear enough where they would get it, maybe he should try another avenue to express his discourse.

Sam Harris actually responded to Chris Hedges when he used that very same quote.

My position on preemptive nuclear war (link to here)
The journalist Chris Hedges has repeatedly claimed (in print, in public lectures, on the radio, and on television) that I advocate a nuclear first-strike against the Muslim world. His remarks, which have been recycled continually in interviews and blog posts, generally take the following form:
I mean, Sam Harris, at the end of his first book, asks us to consider a nuclear first strike on the Arab world.
(Q&A at Harvard Divinity School, March 20, 2008)
Harris, echoing the blood lust of Hitchens, calls, in his book The End of Faith, for a nuclear first strike against the Islamic world.
(The Dangerous Atheism of Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, Alternet, March 22, 2008)
And you have in Sam Harris’ book, “The End of Faith,” a call for us to consider a nuclear first strike against the Arab world. This isn’t rational. This is insane.
(The Tavis Smiley Show, April 15, 2008)
Sam Harris, in his book The End of Faith, asks us to consider carrying out a nuclear first-strike on the Arab world. That’s not a rational option—that’s insanity.
(A Conversation with Chris Hedges, Free Inquiry, August/September 2008)



Wherever they appear, Hedges’s comments leave the impression that I want the U.S. government to start killing Muslims by the tens of millions. Below I present the only passage I have ever written on the subject of preventive nuclear war and the only passage that Hedges could be referring to in my work (The End of Faith, pp. 128-129). I have taken the liberty of emphasizing some of the words that Hedges chose to ignore:

It should be of particular concern to us that the beliefs of Muslims pose a special problem for nuclear deterrence. There is little possibility of our having a cold war with an Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons. A cold war requires that the parties be mutually deterred by the threat of death. Notions of martyrdom and jihad run roughshod over the logic that allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on the brink of Armageddon. What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime—as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day—but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe. How would such an unconscionable act of self-defense be perceived by the rest of the Muslim world? It would likely be seen as the first incursion of a genocidal crusade. The horrible irony here is that seeing could make it so: this very perception could plunge us into a state of hot war with any Muslim state that had the capacity to pose a nuclear threat of its own. All of this is perfectly insane, of course: I have just described a plausible scenario in which much of the world’s population could be annihilated on account of religious ideas that belong on the same shelf with Batman, the philosopher’s stone, and unicorns. That it would be a horrible absurdity for so many of us to die for the sake of myth does not mean, however, that it could not happen. Indeed, given the immunity to all reasonable intrusions that faith enjoys in our discourse, a catastrophe of this sort seems increasingly likely. We must come to terms with the possibility that men who are every bit as zealous to die as the nineteen hijackers may one day get their hands on long-range nuclear weaponry. The Muslim world in particular must anticipate this possibility and find some way to prevent it. Given the steady proliferation of technology, it is safe to say that time is not on our side.

Clearly, I was describing a case in which a hostile regime that is avowedly suicidal acquires long-range nuclear weaponry (i.e. they can hit distant targets like Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles, etc.). Of course, not every Muslim regime would fit this description. For instance, Pakistan already has nuclear weapons, but they have yet to develop long-range rockets, and there is every reason to believe that the people currently in control of these bombs are more pragmatic and less certain of paradise than the Taliban are. The same could be said of Iran, if it acquires nuclear weapons in the near term (though not, perhaps, from the perspective of Israel, for whom any Iranian bomb will pose an existential threat). But the civilized world (including all the pragmatic Muslims living within it) must finally come to terms with what the ideology of groups like the Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS, etc. means—because it destroys the logic of deterrence. There are a significant number of people in the Muslim world for whom the slogan “We love death more than the infidel loves life” appears to be an honest statement of psychological fact, and we must do everything in our power to prevent them from getting long-range nuclear weapons.

 

[jackissocool]

Great article! Very well thought out, thorough, and well supported.

 

[Derwind]

It's a catch all term for atheists who come from the Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennet and Harris generation. I'm pretty sure the name started appearing when the God delusion came out. A lot of reddit atheists are new atheists.

Thats a pretty large generation. I think its pretty hard to pidgeonhole groups of athiests in all honesty, there is far too many contradicting views that it looks too unorganized. I'm familiar with Dawkins and Hitchens pretty well but while I agree with a lot of things they have to say Dawkins especially, I think they have some really awful views on foriegn relations and thier response to religion.

I'm an Atheist of a Turkish background.

One thing that can't be denied is that there are people who are discriminatory towards Muslims in a racist manner. There's a difference between rational criticism of a religion, and between pseudo-racist bashing of Muslims.

I think there are people who use religion to discriminate a group of a specific look. Thats racist.

But simply holding a unreasonable prejudice against a religion isn't racist but is bigoted.

Racism, Sexism, Homophobia/Transphobia is a far different form of prejudice where a person unfairly targets qualities of a person that they cannot conciously decide. Not thier views but thier biology.

Not trying to suggest one is worse than the other, all bigotry is disgusting.

I say this as I come from a Islamic household.

 

[Volimar]

I like this differentiating between atheists and antitheists. It's great because atheists can pretty much shove all the assholes into the antitheist group and go on about their day.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

You & he are conflating issues.

Atheism is a lack of believe in god. Period.


Hitchens' view on Iraq, Harris' views on Islam, Dawkins views on whatever . . . are their own and are nothing to do 'atheism'.


In fact those three disagreed with each other on several things and thus trying to weave it together as some common narrative is just stupid.


Do you think the UAE is part of their 'new atheism group'?


http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=944350

notrueatheist

Am I doing it right, gaf

 

[Monocle]

The best Hitchens is still alive and kicking.

This man is toxic.

 

[Scrooged]

Sam Harris actually responded to Chris Hedges when he used that very same quote.

Yeah, the accusations against Harris in the article and this thread like he's for genocide is a gross mischaracterization.

 

[Maninthemirror]

Yeah, the accusations against Harris in the article and this thread like he's for genocide is a gross mischaracterization.

So you are saying he was taken out of context?

 

[Foffy]

Yeah I've run into some of these guys before in College. The one kept with me the most though was advocating the destruction and banning of all religions and religious centers as he saw them as a distraction from what should be societies real goal, the conquest of the middle east so that more resources would be extracted, removing as many environmental regulations as possible so as to extract as much as possible, stopping all non scientific and engineering related government funding and redirecting it towards developing STEM fields. His reasoning is that the sooner the singularity and brain uploads were achieved it didn't matter about anything else. Anything that distracted governments from this goal, be it religion, art, politics, environmentalism was something to be destroyed and ignored as quickly as possible so as to refocus all of societies efforts on his bright transhuman future. For that was only way he saw that utopia could be achieved and the faster the better for anything less than utopia was suffering in his mind.

What the fuck? This sounds like crazy projections all over the place. It reminds me of a few atheists I know who think death is so bad that any scientific effort to stop it has to be done and abandon any efforts not on that front. Of course, their arguments start falling apart when you consider the things human beings also depend on that are impermanent, and their response is "oh, we have to make find a way to make that infinitely too" to everything. Good luck of making infinite suns...

It comes off as very ignorant idealism. I think the most reasonable thing we can do is not in the name of "progress" but in the name of sincerity. We should be trying to shape a world in lines with nature - which we often forget we're a part of - and work with what we know of that. Instead, we're trying to conquer it with out little egoic games. This is an issue for a lot of people, and theology seems to be absolutely no role in it.

 

[Azih]

The current form of Islamic fundamentalism is very obviously a recent phenomenon.

And it's completely different from previous Islamic movements. There's absolutely no credible reason that I can see to conflate it with earlier events other than "Because Islam" it's exceptionalism.

Islamic fundamentalism in general, with the negative characteristics we associate with it (killing apostates, suppressing minorities, allowing religious concerns to crush free thought, and sanctioning expansionism, to name a few) has been around pretty much since Islam's inception.

This is a mite ridiculous. We're not talking about terrorism anymore but the general sins of past empires? EVERYONE in the past (well everyone who was expansionist) acted like this in terms of suppressing anyone who wasn't in the ruling/conquering tribe. The Romans did it, The British did it, The French did it, The Spanish did it, And yeah the Ottomans and the Ummayads and the Abassids and the Mughals did it too. Ruling tribes ruled and they were varying degrees of dicks or benevolent to the peoples they lorded over. It's not core to 'Islam' it's thinking your own people are exceptional and deserving of privileges that other peoples don't get. It's core to the darker part of human freaking nature. For some reason when anyone else does it it's because they're being greedy and glory hungry, or bigots, but when certain Muslim empires did it it's because "oooohhh, Islam, weird and mysterious juju, gets in their brain, makes them cray cray". Just let them be greedy assholes with power which is the Occam's razor explanation in any case.

The apostasy issue is certainly a unique one that I can talk about somewhere else but it's got very little to the OT article.

Also it's incredibly weird to see that you acknowledge how incredibly differently various muslim regimes have acted over the past 1.5 millennia but for some reason that I can't fathom you've got this conviction that the regimes that acted more according to our conception of morality were aberrations while the regimes that acted more harsh and intolerant are somehow more in touch with the 'core' of Islam. It's like when Ben Affleck called Sam Harris out by asking "So hold on – are you the person who understands the officially codified doctrine of Islam? You are the interpreter of that." And Sam Harris basically responded "Yup. And it's insane".

It's No True Scotsman in Reverse. Islam is bad. Muslims are bad in these stereotypical ways. Therefore any Muslim that doesn't conform to the stereotype isn't a true Muslim and Islam can remain this absurd background source of constant evil radiation.This is exceptional thinking. Harris calls us 'nominal' muslims or 'not true muslims'. Well he doesn't get to decide.

The question of whether Islamic fundamentalism is modern or traditional is important. It can be used to ask: is the rottenness in much of Islam today a temporary aberration that will eventually go away by itself? Or is it a feature core to Islam, that will always tend to rise and reassert itself in society unless kept in check?

We've already established that ISIS and Al-Qaeda types are thoroughly modern and their idealogy and thought leaders can be traced back to prominent 19th century figures like Rashid Rida and 18th century successful political firebrands like Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. BOTH of these figures, especially Wahhab, were NOT members of the traditional Sunni consensus of their times and really still aren't. You seem to be tying these people in with earlier empires being dicks to minorities and that is not reasonable in any shape or form.

I don't know the answer to this. I suspect it's the latter;

It isn't.

I don't think trying to rank the bad impact of various ideologies is a useful exercise. It doesn't seem very data-driven, it's fraught with judgement calls and subjectivity, ideologies are nebulous and ever-changing (as we've been discussing), and even if we miraculously came up with an acceptable ranking,

And getting back OT of the article that's kind of exactly what the article is arguing. Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins have or had no problems with doing just that and ranking the exceptional Islam all the way up as Civilization Enemy NUMBA ONE OF ALL TIME. So I don't get what your issue with this segment really is.

 

[Nexus Zero]

Islamic fundamentalism[..] is insidious not because of its adherence to some ossified medieval tradition, but rather because of its eager and effective embrace of modernist dynamism.

Oh, yes, that's it.

Bleeeeeerrgghh! It's quite amazing how polar opposite those two were, when they were younger at least. Peter strives to be wrong about everything.

Even opposite in traditionally odd opinion matchups - ie Christian/anti-Iraq war vs Atheist/pro

 

[Chairman Yang]

Sorry for taking a while to reply...this is a long and rambling post.

And it's completely different from previous Islamic movements. There's absolutely no credible reason that I can see to conflate it with earlier events other than "Because Islam" it's exceptionalism.

I definitely disagree with you here...but I'll address this in the next point.

This is a mite ridiculous. We're not talking about terrorism anymore but the general sins of past empires?

I'm talking about Islamic fundamentalism. Terrorism is one part (and, in my opinion, a relatively minor part) of this. The other things I mentioned--"killing apostates, suppressing minorities, allowing religious concerns to crush free thought, and sanctioning expansionism, to name a few"--are far worse. They affect a far larger number of people--mostly those born into Muslim families.

That's why I disagree with your assertion that there's no credible reason to conflate the modern incarnation of Islamic fundamentalism with historical Islam. I mean, obviously modern Islamic terrorism is different. Medievals didn't use the Internet to recruit or suicide bombs to kill. And yeah, different strains of Islam rose and fell in prominence, and modern fundamentalism is in part a result of a Salafist/Wahhabist surge. But to say that all of the bad fundamentalist stuff is brand new and unprecedented is wrong. To say that Islam never had these problems before the 18th century is wrong. To say that Islam, in general terms, is no better or worse than any other religion and just has a special problem in contemporary times because of Saudi oil money might be wrong, or it might be right, but it should be viewed with deep skepticism at the very least, and those who think otherwise (like Harris) shouldn't be immediately dismissed.

EVERYONE in the past (well everyone who was expansionist) acted like this in terms of suppressing anyone who wasn't in the ruling/conquering tribe. The Romans did it, The British did it, The French did it, The Spanish did it, And yeah the Ottomans and the Ummayads and the Abassids and the Mughals did it too. Ruling tribes ruled and they were varying degrees of dicks or benevolent to the peoples they lorded over. It's not core to 'Islam' it's thinking your own people are exceptional and deserving of privileges that other peoples don't get. It's core to the darker part of human freaking nature. For some reason when anyone else does it it's because they're being greedy and glory hungry, or bigots, but when certain Muslim empires did it it's because "oooohhh, Islam, weird and mysterious juju, gets in their brain, makes them cray cray". Just let them be greedy assholes with power which is the Occam's razor explanation in any case.

The bolded part might give me a start to explaining my thought process.

Everyone in history were dicks or benevolent to varying degrees. I believe this behaviour was (and is) modified by different ideologies. This should be obvious--if you don't agree, you are basically arguing that people's beliefs have no impact on their actions.

Ok. So how did ideologies affect their adherents? If you want to say that Islam (or whatever sub-category of Islam you want to talk about) was no better or worse than any other ideology, you're again saying that beliefs basically have no effect on actions. After all, Islam clearly has some different beliefs than, say, Buddhism. If it's exactly identical in how it modifies someone's behaviour, then those different beliefs are purely cosmetic and have no actual impact on that person's behaviour.

Do you want to say that Islam was sometimes better in its effects, sometimes worse, but because history is, frankly, a confusing, poorly-documented clusterfuck, we should just drop the issue and attribute everything to general human tendencies towards greed, bigotry, etc? I strongly disagree, and this is the core of why I think it's not crazy to think of Islam as an ideology that has caused more harm than many other ideologies.

You list a bunch of prominent political units that have caused harm without Islam. Fine. But that's not a real analysis. It's saying that harm can occur because of any ideology, or regardless of ideology. But shouldn't we look at exactly the bolded part of your paragraph? How much or how little harm is caused by the influence of an ideology? Did Stalinism's influence in the Soviet Union have as bad an influence as Buddhism's influence in WW2 Japan? Adherents of both ideologies did terrible things and wonderful things inspired by their reading of those ideologies. Does that mean we throw out the effect of those ideologies and just attribute everything to general human nature? I don't think so. It's better to look at the overall trends and see how those ideologies affected their societies...to look at the DEGREE to which those beliefs caused bad behaviour. It's a horrendously difficult thing to do, which is why I'm constantly uncertain of my opinion of Islam.

That said, the more history I read, the worse an impression I have of Islam's influence, and the less unreasonable Harris' view that Islam (or again, some types of Islam) is a bad ideology seems. Two recent examples I've encountered: the Mongol Empire after it dissolved, and Central Asia before and after its Islamization.

The Mongol Empire had extreme religious diversity. The traditional Mongol Shamanist, Nestorian Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and Muslim religions all mixed. As the decades and centuries passed and the Mongols splintered into smaller sub-empires, some of these political divisions also became religiously divided. Religious tolerance eroded in general, but most of all among the Muslim states. The Golden Horde, the Ilkhanate, the Chagatai Khanate (and their successor states, like the Indian Mughals) all ended up becoming religious intolerant. The Mongol states that were Buddhist or heavily influenced by the mix of Chinese religions didn't, for the most part.

Central Asia was a similar melting pot of religions (with Zoroastrianism added to the mix). Tolerance and openness was the norm. When the Muslim Arabs invaded (especially under Qutayba), they brought more than garden-variety slaughter and looting--they specifically targeted other religions, destroyed religious buildings, imposed conversion, and punished apostasy.

You can question these examples, say they're not representative, or that the frequency of Islam causing bad things isn't as high as it seems. That's totally fine, extremely worthy of discussion, and I'm always open to hearing more evidence. But to dismiss everyone critical of Islam (even Harris) as thinking that Islam is a mysterious religious zombie-making mind-virus that affects everyone the same way, and to just go with the supposedly Occam's Razor explanation that other non-ideological beliefs drive everything...well, that seems like the wrong approach to me.

The apostasy issue is certainly a unique one that I can talk about somewhere else but it's got very little to the OT article.

I think it's absolutely core to why Islam is often the way it is, and it supports holding an Islamic exceptionalist view (and a Christian exceptionalist view, too, probably), but fair enough...we'll leave it aside for now.

Also it's incredibly weird to see that you acknowledge how incredibly differently various muslim regimes have acted over the past 1.5 millennia but for some reason that I can't fathom you've got this conviction that the regimes that acted more according to our conception of morality were aberrations while the regimes that acted more harsh and intolerant are somehow more in touch with the 'core' of Islam. It's like when Ben Affleck called Sam Harris out by asking "So hold on – are you the person who understands the officially codified doctrine of Islam? You are the interpreter of that." And Sam Harris basically responded "Yup. And it's insane".

It's No True Scotsman in Reverse. Islam is bad. Muslims are bad in these stereotypical ways. Therefore any Muslim that doesn't conform to the stereotype isn't a true Muslim and Islam can remain this absurd background source of constant evil radiation.This is exceptional thinking. Harris calls us 'nominal' muslims or 'not true muslims'. Well he doesn't get to decide.

I don't think there's any "core Islam" or "true Islam". It's all a matter of interpretation that will never have a final, objective answer. All I care about is the effect the group of ideologies we call "Islam" has on its self-proclaimed followers (and the subsequent effects they have on the world). If suddenly all Muslims were, say, modified Ahmadis or Mutazilites and they espoused rationalism, allowed apostasy, and didn't commit many terrorist acts, great! Then I'd think Islam was a better ideology. The "official Islam" would be (and is) completely irrelevant.

Harris can define true Islam however he wants, and rail against it. I don't see how it fundamentally changes anything.

We've already established that ISIS and Al-Qaeda types are thoroughly modern and their idealogy and thought leaders can be traced back to prominent 19th century figures like Rashid Rida and 18th century successful political firebrands like Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. BOTH of these figures, especially Wahhab, were NOT members of the traditional Sunni consensus of their times and really still aren't. You seem to be tying these people in with earlier empires being dicks to minorities and that is not reasonable in any shape or form.

It isn't.

And getting back OT of the article that's kind of exactly what the article is arguing. Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins have or had no problems with doing just that and ranking the exceptional Islam all the way up as Civilization Enemy NUMBA ONE OF ALL TIME. So I don't get what your issue with this segment really is.

My issue is that I don't see any fundamental problem with ranking Islam the current worst ideology and considering it to be exceptional. I don't agree, and don't think it's a useful exercise anyways, but I don't think it's some sort of atrocious, racist view to hold by Harris, Dawkins, and the rest.

My post has gone on long enough for now, but let me know if I can narrow things down and address a specific point.