Fuck all of these guys
There is no doubt but that the New Atheism was a channel that directed people towards right-wing, conservative, anti-immigration politics. Eiynah explains it all, and I think she’s right.
This link between New Atheism and the far-right is a dangerous and an under-discussed one. This has never been demonstrated so starkly as when Richard Dawkins tweeted out a recommendation for a book by fellow atheist Douglas Murray.
The day after the mass shooting in Buffalo that was explicitly motivated by great replacement theory, by ideas like there being an outright “war on white people,” Dawkins chose to tweet praise for a book titled The War on the West. He called it “utterly superb” and urged his nearly three million followers to read it with an open mind and “forget about labels like right wing”…Because surely, among us secular friends, we can overlook an inconvenient term like that, even in the aftermath of a mass shooting underpinned by the same ideology.
I’ve been listening to the audio version of Murray’s book myself, and it is reminiscent of the incendiary rhetoric of former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. In his promotional podcast tour for this book, Murray talks repeatedly of an “outright war on white people.” He is losing patience, he says, done being polite with people who don’t “respect [his] ancestors, history and culture” – while disparaging other cultures for supposedly not contributing to “mathematical, scientific or artistic discoveries”. The combination of ignorance and arrogance is staggering, as this is patently, overwhelmingly untrue.
This is no dog whistle, it is an airhorn.
While I was attracted towards Dawkins’ ideas, at least I was never tempted by Murray. I was actively repulsed by Douglas Murray — he was just a garden variety Nazi wanna-be, fed on racist literature and never questioning it. It was one of the factors driving me away from New Atheism and the Dawkins fandom, evidence that he was losing it altogether with his fawning over Murray. Sure, Murray is an atheist — but he’s a cultural Christian atheist who values his local religion as a tool to bludgeon those foreign people with different traditions.
Of course, Douglas himself is no outsider to the atheist scene. He too is a well-known and prominent atheist figure, one who happens to lament the loss of Europe’s Christian heritage and the supposed identity-crisis caused by increased secularization. Despite this, he has been propped up in vocal anti-theist circles because, rather than consistency on the matter of critiquing religion, it is his views on Islam and immigration that are appealing to a certain crowd. Murray has a long history of cloaking extreme statements in a posh accent, his rhetoric has been described as gentrified xenophobia. Which is putting it mildly.
Remember Dawkins’ declaration that he was a “cultural Christian” because he like hymns and church bells, and hated Islam because it was “indecent”? That sounds like he’s been hanging out with Douglas Murray too much.
Any much is too much.
Let’s not forget Sam Harris, who has also been sipping from the chalice of Douglas Murray.
Harris often claims that ‘woke identity politics’ is destroying the path to a harmonious ‘colourblind’ world. But his actions and endorsements do not paint a picture of someone who truly prioritizes colour-blindness, as seen by his repeated promotion of race and IQ, or his endless propping up of Douglas Murray.
The War on the West is overflowing with racialized language. The first chapter is even called “Race.” It wouldn’t be unbelievable as a parody of a far-right book featured in The Onion. But colourblind Harris has been filled with praise, referring to it as a “fantastic read and a doubly fantastic listen.”
Interestingly, Harris’s attitude changes completely when it comes to anti-racists like Ta-Nehisi Coates whom he refers to on several occasions as a “pornographer of race”—not Douglas Murray who talks obsessively of race, or even Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, a book funded by the white supremacist organization Pioneer Fund. In fact Harris is also a dedicated defender and promoter of Charles Murray, referring to him as a “deeply rational and ethical thinker” and “the intellectual who was treated most unfairly in my lifetime.”
Has anyone else noticed that all of the worst people associated with atheism have been gravitating together into one horrible toxic clump? And that they’re all making apologies for conservative Christianity nowadays?
The image is from an ad for a Pangburn lecture series. Remember Pangburn? Another right-wing grifter who funneled money to the other right-wing grifters.
Don’t forget Coyne who has become obsessed with Israel (MEMRI adjacent), student protests, woke identity leftism (in the same vein as Rufo and Lindsay), and Maori folk beliefs (yeah that too). He also irks his own commenters railing how he doesn’t have to vote for Kamala because Illinois.
And Boghossian is a nasty offshoot too.
That negativity aside New Atheism also led to PZ’s dissent (and FTB), Eiynah above, Rebecca Watson, and even Hemant Mehta (Friendly Atheist) has become more woke over time. There are other positive stands descending from the New Atheist rooting that aren’t coming to mind right now. But it’s not all doom and gloom.
It’s amazing how fast “New Atheism” got OLD. And it didn’t age well either.
I’ve always liked how places like FTB and Scienceblogs became places for what I’d like to call “NEW New Atheists,” who: a) were a huge improvement on the Old New Atheists; and b) included atheists from the non-White-Christendom-leisure-class world, including Africa and the Muslim world. (Or as the old White academic atheists call it, “DEI hires.”)
I’d never heard of Douglas Murray or his book, The War on the West. For good reason.
It’s trash. Garbage, A waste of time.
Routine far right wingnut racism.
Nothing new or intelligent.
Douglas Murray is an idiot!
This is just dumb racist drivel.
There is no such thing as Western Civilization.
(This is something any academic discussion of Western Civilization will eventually explain and why.)
There are a large number and variety of cultures that have some similarities and many differences.
They also freely borrow from each other and other cultures often.
They also frequently conflict and fight bloody wars among themselves partly over which version of “Western Civilization” is going to end up dominant. The latest is Russia against Ukraine and most of the rest of the world.
These cultures or civilizations change rapidly in Real Time.
The coastal California civilization I live in now has little in common with the rural northern US culture that I was born and raised in.
It has almost nothing in common with what Douglas Murray thinks he is defending, upper class British civilization from the 1950s or maybe the 1850s.
This is dumb.
The greatest threat to us is people like Donald Trump, Douglas Murray, and the other right wingnut fascists.
Douglas Murray isn’t defending the mythical Western Civilization. He is attacking the modern world of the 21st century and the vast majority of people who live in it.
Including people like…myself.
Great! Now that both sides of the political spectrum have pissed on atheism, The left will be run by the primitivist TRASH with their new age spirit-moon-mother-yonni-goodess bullshit or “progressive” Christian SCUM who wants us to think Jesus was a proto-socialist and that the last 2000 years of faith-based tyranny didn’t happen or wasn’t committed by “true Christians.”
Karl Marx would be weeping!
Are Douglas Murray and Charles Murray related?
In general, people have a tendency to endorse ideas they agree with.
That is not the critical stance.
Like the religions they claim to oppose, Dawkins and Harris et al. are skeptical only to other people’s beliefs. Themselves they think they own the truth because Great Skepticism told them. All we have to do is surrender to their moral superiority.
So, thanks to them, “atheism is a religion too” finally became a valid argument.
Don’t forget “gender critical” fear mongering transphobia about gender-affirming care. According to Jerry Coyne, it’s just “biology.”
Dawkins is one of the reasons why I have a hard time supporting CFI as enthusiastically and to the extent that I used to. Ever since CFI merged with RDF and put Dawkins on the board of the new org,..ugh.
I have to confess, I only just realized that Douglas Murray and Charles Murray are different people today; I’ve been conflating them all this time. I’ve seen Douglas Murray’s name pop up every now and then in online commentary and just thought, “The Bell Curve Guy is popular again? Ew.”
But now that I know they’re different people, it’s obvious in hindsight. Charles Murray is a few inches shorter.
Akira @7
I generally agree with your posts, even the more “extreme” ones, but do you ever consider that your doom prophecies are completely unfounded?
If the left will be “run” by anyone, it’ll be by activists fighting for those who are marginalized not people promoting woo.
The New Atheism drifted into right-wing xenophobia and racism and deserved to be called out. To do otherwise would be to excuse hate which isn’t something the left should tolerate.
And a few of the “New Atheists” even abandoned atheism such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali. It was never about atheism or promoting reason but to bash non-Western/non-white people and societies.
Had Hitchens lived to the present, I wonder how regressive he may have become on issues other than Zionism and Palestine-Israel. He seemed no fan of Zionism nor settlers. I wonder if he’d be giving partisans like Coyne the side-eye right now, while still justifying his neo-con friendly stance on invading Iraq. Maybe he would be part of The Bulwark orbit?
I think Akira forgot the “/s” tag at the end of his comment @7.
I’ll just repeat what many other people have pointed out.
Atheism is the low hanging fruit of critical thought or even any thought.
It’s easy and obvious to say that the gods don’t exist. The gods don’t care if you don’t believe in them. They never do anything. Mostly because invisible beings are also imaginary beings.
With thousands of years of progress, both scientific and cultural, it is easy and obvious to say that the universe looks like it would if the gods didn’t exist. They don’t explain anything and aren’t needed for anything.
You don’t have to be very smart or educated to figure this out.
It’s a huge step and much harder to say that nonwhites, women, gays, Trans, nonxians, etc.. are equal people entitled to equal rights.
Dawkins couldn’t make that step.
Douglas Murray is claiming that this step doesn’t even exist. If you aren’t a white male you are inferior and a second class citizen.
Raging Bee @16: Not sure you’re not being sarcastic yourself, but Akira certainly isn’t. He really believes that socialist theists are scum and trash. Oh sorry, SCUM and TRASH.
Orac @10: And before that, Coyne was railing against safe spaces from the security of his blog, where he would ban anyone who contradicted him.
Re #18: Oh, and that includes atheists who see socialist theists as allies.
@. 17
If atheism is do easy to come to then why are the vast majority of human beings theist?
@ 18 & 20
Right Rob, because people who deny reality and science in favor of magical, supernatural nonsense are just as virtuous and intelligent as atheists—even more so. They totally aren’t poisoning the world and dragging down civilization with their superstitious brain rot.
Actually, no, not all theists are “poisoning the world and dragging down civilization with their superstitious brain rot.” Lots of them (including many of my own Catholic ancestors, as well as quite a few decent scientists) are perfectly capable of making good and sensible choices, with or without being told to by their ministers, and without letting their magical, supernatural nonsense beliefs degrade their thought processes.
Dawkins is a signatory of the “Women’s Declaration of Sex-Based Rights,” a petition that, among other things, calls for all world governments to ban scientific research into sex organs, under the reasoning that such research might theoretically benefit trans people.
I think it is perfectly reasonable to say Dawkins is anti-science.
These preening GHOULS are clearly the NADIR of the human species. Writing article after article for low-quality MAGAZINES about how non-European cultures, and particularly the Arabs, have contributed nothing to our collective culture, science or learning. They sit on their SOFAS, stirring SUGAR into their COFFEE (fresh from the JAR of course, a veritable ELIXIR in the morning), or, more likely, drunk on ALCOHOL and lying on their MATTRESSES of an evening, talking about how ALGEBRA and CHEMISTRY, with its ALEMBICS and ALKALIS and the calculation of AZIMUTHS in astronomy have nothing to do with peoples whose skin wasn’t of an ash-pale colour. They have ZERO understanding of these matters, hardly a surprise, but they churn out REAMS of this INDECIPHERABLE garbage to great FANFARE among brainless right wing racists nevertheless. Well, maybe science has had some Arabic influence, but surely nothing else? Surely European culture – the ZENITH of world culture in such areas as food and fashion – is untainted by the Muslim hordes? From the simplest JUMPERS or COTTON shirts to GAUZY numbers in SATIN, MOHAIR, DAMASK and TAFFETA, covered in SASHES and SEQUINS, clothing is something entirely without foreign influence? Arabic influence in food? Mere SERENDIPITY that we have all these ORANGES and LEMONS and LIMES, SYRUPS and CANDIES and the like! Slap a TARIFF on all that suspicious foreign stuff! Or, better yet, have the navy sink any vessels bringing it over. I’m sure the ADMIRALS will agree to that. No, clearly the Muslims are all just dangerous ASSASSINS with ARSENALS of weaponry coming to destroy our way of life. They’re an ALBATROSS round our necks!
Because they are afraid of being killed.
Up until recently even in the West, atheism was a death penalty offense.
It still is a death penalty offense in some countries in the world today.
While you probably won’t get murdered in the USA, you will get death threats. At one time, PZ Myers got a hundred death threats. In one day.
And then there are the social sanctions especially in the USA. When you leave a lot of xian sects, you leave all your family and friends behind. It’s a high cost and many people in for example, Mormonism, mentally drop out but never say anything.
Forget about getting elected to anything in the USA as an atheist. JD Vance was an atheist. And an opportunist who converted to Trad Catholicism, the horrible subcult for horrible people.
1.1. billion Nones is a significant number of atheists and similar in the world.
It’s around 25% in the USA, also a significant number.
‘Nones’ are generally not atheists or similar to atheists; what they are is unaffiliated with a formalised religion.
cf. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/01/24/religious-nones-in-america-who-they-are-and-what-they-believe/
“Most “nones” believe in God or another higher power. But very few go to religious services regularly.”
@ 22
So the fact that they think magic is real doesn’t bother you in the slightest? You don’t think that ruins society?
raven @25
I don’t think “Nones” means quite what you think it does. Does no heavy lifting at all. “Nones” couldn’t be bothered to lift anything at all. I wish people would purge it from their vocabulary. It dovetails with Robert Putnam’s “bowling alone” concept more than being an atheist or agnostic. “Nones” are disengaged, even from civic activities like voting, more than atheists are. Slackers! We atheists tend to be more engaged in stuff. And we are a far smaller percentage of the population though using the “Nones” wordplay umbrella inflates our self-esteem (“Winning!”). Sorry. A pet peeve of mine.
What John Morales@26 said.
Akira @21:
See, that’s the problem with your strictly binary view; the many theists who helped (and continue to) lay the groundwork for modern science didn’t deny reality. In fact, they did more than you or I could dream of.
I’m not sure that changing from an atheist-hating theist fundie to a theist-hating atheist fundie signifies much progress.
Even if we take the lower bound of pure atheist, at 8% in the UK, it still makes atheism a low hanging fruit.
So Dawkins is in the top 8% of critical thinkers about religion in the UK.
That is not exactly a big deal or a huge accomplishment here.
Dawkins is 1 of 5.4 million hardcore British nonbelievers.
I’m too angry and busy to deal with HTML by tags right now, so forgive the quotations.
Rob:
“See, that’s the problem with your strictly binary view; the many theists who helped (and continue to) lay the groundwork for modern science didn’t deny reality…”
They still deny reality because THERE IN NO FUCKING GOD! They still believe in the supernatural WHICH ISN’T FUCKING REAL! Next thing you’ll be asking me is to be quiet about alternative medicine cranks and because a large chunk of them vote for Democrats. Can’t afford to alienate “Homeopaths for Harris,” right?
“I’m not sure that changing from an atheist-hating theist fundie to a theist-hating atheist fundie signifies much progress.”
It is. For the same reason that being a racism-hating-fundie and a capitalist-hating-fundie is progress. And no, the theists who claim to support leftist causes don’t count because the elimination of superstition and religion is part of the package!
Why does nobody care about what’s real?
Akira MacKenzie
I have issues with theism, yet acknowledge theists can align with views popular here. There are theistic anticreationists. And believers were instrumental in both abolitionism and civil rights. Some were teetotalers and prohibitionists back in the day too…ughhh! There are believers against fascism and Trump. Should we alienate them with firebrand polemics? I’d prefer people jettison theism, but here we are.
Right wing atheists are aligning with right wing believers. Maybe we should acknowledge we share some goals with leftist believers?
Freedom of religion is real, regardless of your personal opinion on the existence of gods. Eliminating religion has never been a goal of liberals, but plenty of the features of ‘modern society’ do in fact stem from the humanist philosophy of religious believers.
Conscientious objectors are directly linked to deeply religious beliefs, as was the abolition of slavery and creation of public education.
Some of the most radical leftists I’ve ever known were Nuns, so claiming that religion itself is the cause of all evil is completely bonkerz.
New Atheists = Old Fascists?
“New Atheists = Old Fascists?”
No.
cf. https://pharyngula.fandom.com/wiki/New_Atheists
Yeah, it’s true: Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris believe in a supernatural “immutable binary sex” with a constantly shifting definition that is somehow completely objectively and easily observable at birth, and which also magically stays the same as every part of your body changes. This magic “immutable binary sex” cannot be detected or measured, as any part of the human body which can be observed can change. Yet Dawkins and Harris want us to believe that their Invisible Pink Sex Unicorn is both very real and an important factor in deciding whether someone gets legal rights.
Shall I assume you have the same hostility for Dawkins and Harris that you do for theists?
So the fact that they think magic is real doesn’t bother you in the slightest? You don’t think that ruins society?
Which “they” are you talking about, exactly? Also, it’s not what people believe that ruins society, it’s what they SAY and DO.
I’m too angry and busy to deal with HTML by tags right now…
Then I suggest you step back and do something else for a little while. This thread won’t vanish very soon.
@33: I care plenty about reality, and so does pretty much everyone else in these parts, I think. (And of course, everything I believe is the truth, right? /sarc). But out there in the big wide world, lots of people agree with me on some questions, and disagree with me about others, so I have to prioritize when deciding who I do and don’t want marching in my personal parade (should I ever hold one, which is astronomically unlikely). And you know what? Belief vs. non-belief in God does not seem to be the question that reliably draws that line. I’ve got a damn sight more respect for the moderate and politically leftish Christians I know than I do for Sam Harris or Dawkins and their fawning fan clubs.
I’m so sick of ‘cultural Christians’. The laughable idea that Christianity is why the West is so advanced and tolerant. They ignore the wars and crusades Christians have carried out, often against other Christians, because they didn’t worship the right kind of Christ.
They ignore the persecution of Galileo, and Michael Servetus, and the suppression of ideas like Heliocentrism. It wasn’t until we defanged Christianity that we started to advance as a society. Dawkins and his ilk seem to enjoy ignoring that fact these days.
Jared Diamond explained that long ago in his book, “Guns, Germs, and Steel.
The main reason, was because the Eurasian land mass was very large and extended east to west in the mid latitudes.
This allowed ideas, technology, plant crops, and domesticated animals notably the horse to diffuse over the whole area.
The West was good at grabbing anything worthwhile that came to their attention. IIRC, paper and gunpowder were invented by the Chinese and Asians first domesticated the horse.
Who says the West is tolerant? My family members fought in World War II and saw Hiroshima after we nuked it.
Some of the people I knew died in both the Vietnam and Iraq II wars.
Akira
Yes it bothers me that a lot of people believe in magic sky daddies (and to give eg Hindus a look-in sky mummies too). However I learnt that being angry all the time is bad for me, both mentally and physically, as well as being dangerous for others to be around – I almost castrated one of my brothers because I threw a sharp object at him while angry, luckily for me it hit a banister rail sinking in to the wood rather than part of him. I also learnt that that kind of anger is addictive, it can give you a real high, and it took me a long time to learn to respond more moderately. I do still feel anger about things, but rarely that all consuming anger that led to violence on my part, now – if I am up to it – it leads to actions to attempt to solve or at least mitigate the cause of my anger. I don’t suppose my actions are particularly effective, certainly not on their own, but I find others who share the desire for change, although rarely face to face, and together we try, sometimes we even succeed. For me giving in to the anger is also to give the cause of my anger too much power and I don’t want to do that either.
@38
I’m going to assume you’re new here, but if you were to look at my other comments on this forum about the right you’d know that I despise anti-LGBTQ bigots, racists, and conservatives in general.
So fuck Dawkins and Harris with a razor-wire -wrapped dildo. I just resent how they are now being used to attack atheists and atheist activism.
Please, can I go back to that moment in time five minutes ago when I HAD, in fact, forgotten Sam Harris? That was nice.
So fuck Dawkins and Harris with…
So in fact you agree with stevewatson @40 that there are plenty of theists more decent and respectable than Dawkins and Harris? Excellent. Moving on…
No, I fucking don’t.
I used to be very vocal in my atheism, but one thing I’ve learned in recent years is I’d much rather stand with progressive believers than with conservatives of any stripe. Some of my favourite people I used to interact with on Twitter were Muslim, and while I will never understand why Stephen Colbert still clings to his Catholic faith, it’s great that he is unabashedly vocal about his politics on US national television. Then there is the ongoing genocide against Palestinians where some of the loudest voices shouting for it to stop are Jewish. I’d never scream at any of these people to get away from me with their religious cooties. I welcome that they want to make the world a better place.
Glad I stuck to the old Atheism. Staying to the Bill and Ted model of “Be excellent to each other!”
Akira — I know you’ve been hurt by religion personally. Hurt rather badly, even. I think nearly everyone here would prefer for more people to move away from religion. I certainly find the apparent desirability of religious belief to some people all but impossible to understand. And yet, despite the cruelty found in all those holy books and religious traditions, and the illogic of religious belief in general, a whole lot of religious people manage to be both kind and rational. Most humans are very good at compartmentalization, after all. Perhaps here, of all places, we ought to allow that compartmentalization in the religious population to be used for good. At least for the moment.
I can’t bring myself to think that religion is completely fine. I can’t shake the feeling that even the really great religious people would be even better if they were atheists. I just can’t wrap my head around the idea of it being a benefit for anyone to actually believe. And yet, to compare religious leftists to atheistic racist cranks… You’re letting your rage get the better of you. It’s justified rage, of course, but even justified, that rage can make it hard to reason, far more so than a religion that gets compartmentalized away from science. If you can’t deal with this topic without that rage surfacing, I understand. If that’s the case, though, you’re probably better off focusing on other topics for a while, just because it’s going to be rough on your mental health. Hang in there, friend.
What “Western” culture has perfected, and surpassed every other culture, is exploitation.
Our culture is really really good at plundering, at extracting every grain of power from anything, be people, the environment, art, ideas, meaning, and transferring it to the ruling classes among the cheers of the crowds.
Problem is, even if you don’t care about the morality of it all, that plundering sooner than later turns to YOU, and we’re seeing this now.
And still the crowds cheer at their own plundering.
I think we can make good use of the Scooby Doo unmasking meme here. Being aggressively atheist especially when it comes to non-Western religions, means just being a right-wing anti-immigration conservative, and even more meta: Being aggressively conservative especially when it comes to immigrants means just being racist. Who knew?
Sam Harris was where I became very wary of the celebrity-led New Atheist movement – specifically his vile defence of torture.
Does it bother me that there are people out there who believe in magic and demonstrably untrue things like religion? Only to the extent it bothers me that we all carry somewhat untrue beliefs of some sort or another. Whether someone is right is not the basis of how I treat them as a human being.
I mean, I don’t understand how a lot of things really are. Compared to a nuclear physicist MY mental model of how a reactor works could rightly be described as magical thinking. Compared to PZ my brain is full of misconceptions, misunderstandings and faulty models about how cell biology and evolution work. I don’t know the nuances of Kazakhstani politics. I tend towards the paranoid and quickly assume on unfounded grounds that people are out to get me.
But none of this really matters in how I live my life. I don’t write letters to my local nuclear power station telling them how to operate their machines. I don’t lecture PZ on how biology works. I don’t rush headlong into debates about Kazakhstan’s global trade relations with any sense that I can meaningfully contribute as more than an outsider. I don’t go around acting on my paranoid suspicions.
Most religious people are the same. Sure, they believe some wrong things about reality, but it’s mostly on such an abstract level that it doesn’t impinge on their daily activities or relations with society in general. I complain when they cross that line, but as long as they are willing to cooperate and respect others and do good things it’s not really any of my business what weird contortions their brains are going through.
I don’t believe in gods, but I do believe in people. They exist, they’re complicated, and religious beliefs are a very common part of their psychology. That’s a scientific fact about the world we have to deal with.
@7. Akira MacKenzie :
They have? The reichwing has always been pretty pro-religion and anti-atheism. The left is still much more toelrant of everyone belieing a sthey please including allowing athiests to be , well, athiests and stillable to do whatever from what Ican see. Is there a specific anti-athiest leftist thing I’m missing here?
Really? Who exactly do you think is “running the left” and specifically matches those criteria?
The Left does include some progressive Christians e.g. Fred Clark from the Slacktivist, blog :
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/tag/left-behind/
But I dont think he’s running anything other than that blog and speaking out sometimes on his left wing views. Dr Cornel West maybe sinc ehe is leadinga leftwing party and i think he’s Christian but could be wrong? However, does he really “run” the elft ior is he just a snmall aprt of it and does he believe as you put it? (“Jesus was a proto-socialist and that the last 2000 years of faith-based tyranny didn’t happen or wasn’t committed by “true Christians.”) The first part maybe, the second I doubt.
Oprah maybe but does she run the Left as such?
Dr Cornel West maybe since he is leading a left-wing party’** and running for POTUS and i think he’s Christian but could be wrong? However, does he really “run” the Left or is he just a small part of it and does he believe as you put it?
Typos fixed. Wikipage : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornel_West
Bolding added by me for emphasis.
Now, I’m not the hugest fan of West running – I wish he’d drop out and throw his support 100% behind Kamala Harris to stop Trump & Project 2025.*. I think the Left needs to – for flippin once – just solidly, completely unify and work together to do that. But I’m also not going to say we should reject Cornel West because he happens to be Christian still rather than athiest assuming that is the case which I’m not 100% sure about.
Oprah, BTW, I mentioned in the New Agey-y woo~ish context here rather than the progressive Christian one and that because I couldn’t really think of anyone else to name who remotely vaguely fits that description.
Who specifically are you talking about here and are they really what you claim them to be Akira MacKenzie?
Who, if anyone “runs” The Left? Bernie Sanders? He’s kinda Jewish so is that an issue ..? Kamala Harris? Jill Stein? No one? Some nebulous collective comprising, well, just who and what and how now? Beats me..
.* Seems West’s campaign is effectively moribund and finished anyhow and he’s being enabled init by some Repugs FWIW :
Ibid.
.** Yes, really, the Justice For All Party apparently which, erm, seems to be just him. (He’s over there! Splitter!!! MPFC -LoB.) See West’s wikipage again and seems not to have its own wikipage under party so, yeah?
PS. “Karl Marx would be weeping!” – Akira MacKenzie. I can imagine Karl Marx weeping about a lot of things were he alive today. I’m not sure I particuarly care. He was an influential philosopher but also very much a person of his time and not an idol. Does anyone these days live by the principles of What Would Marx Do / think? (WWMD?)
@akira
Surely it is obvious that you will need allies of every kind working together towards what common goals they have, rather than alienating them for where you disagree, if you are to have any hope of making progress.
It keeps surprising me that people think Biden or Harris or Clinton or Obama are politically left. They are not left; they are less right than others. Political left is marginal in the US.
When people say cultural Christian – what they actually mean is secular and humanist. Plus the rule of law, which definitely predates Christianity (as should be clear from the gospel narratives). The “Golden Rule” of the gospels is humanist, not theist.
Religion, superstition, and pseudoscience are like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Hearing anyone talk about it or defend them in any way fills me with rage. I want to punch anyone who spews such nonsense to shut them up.
Why? Because it’s flat. It’s a lie. It contradicts reality and facts and it makes me angry that there are no consequences for these lies because civilization cannot operate on nonsense and will not progress unless everyone is on the same philosophical page. We will be held back by those who claim their magical space tyrant demands otherwise.
I will not go back to the Dark Ages nor will I tolerate those with primitive mentalities that wallow in supernatural belief regardless of their motivations or voting habits. Failing that, I wish there was somewhere I could go where I never have to hear or read some numbskull talk about gods or morality or miracles or the so-called afterlife ever again. But it’s fucking everywhere,
Edit: Why? Because it’s false.
“Hearing anyone talk about it or defend them in any way fills me with rage. I want to punch anyone who spews such nonsense to shut them up.”
That’s not healthy in any way and I honestly hope that you have someone you can talk to about this.
Maybe some do.
The way people like Dawkins say cultural Christian means something very different.
It means secular and racist
Secular and fascist.
Secular and right wingnut.
Secular and mindless hater.
They’ve combined atheist with the worst parts of fundie xianity. You can still hate even if you aren’t a fundie xian.
It’s easier to prove that
is a statement filled with lies than it is to prove that the statement “god exists” is a lie.
Akira, don’t punch yourself. But also stop telling lies about the left. Nobody runs it.
Oh, come on, everyone knows that! It’s George Soros, obviously. </s>
You know who I hate? All those billions of SCUM and TRASH who never learned calculus. It opens the doors to vast areas of knowledge and scholarship, and is excellent training in logical thinking. Yet they simply go about their pathetic lives, living in ignorant bliss, impeding the progress of civilized thought with their ignorance. It makes me so angry I have to wipe the spittle off my screen every time I think of it. /s
I get the feeling that the set {people Akira MacKenzie doesn’t hate} is very small, and getting smaller. Pretty soon it’ll be empty.
@62
Thanks to capitalism, I don’t.
@ 66
I get it, Rob. You think I’m an evil man.
@ 66
I don’t know where you live KG, but here in Wisconsin, religion and fascism aren’t going anywhere.
Akira @68: No, I don’t think you’re evil.
@ ^ rietpluim : or rather relative.. Left of versus reichwing and in terms of the USA not everywhere / anywhere else.
Kamala, Biden, Obama, HRC, etc .. are “left” in USAican terms but in Europe & here in Oz they’d be at least Centrist if not Right-wing.
@ Akira : FWIW I don’t think youare evil. I don’t agree with you necessarily oneverything eitherand strongly disagree onsome things and points but I don’t think you are evil. You do have my respect FWIW.
I would really like a direct answer to the questions I asked in #55- 56 above- whodo you think is running “the Left” and who specifically are you talking about here?
Because I don’t see anyone really running te left or anyone really matching the things you claim.
Seems to me that no one is in charge of (“running”)the left which is bth a strength and a weakness. We struggle tounify and get behdn one person even when its badly needed and we also ar emuch buigger than and not reliant on or unquestioning and all following one strongman person. Do other folks think that’s a reaonable assessment?
To the extent that “atheism” is a philosophy of any sort, a core tenet of atheist thought is that people should not be judged “good” or “evil” by which god(s) they believe in or not, but by their words and deeds. Specifically, as atheists we tend to insist that merely believing in a particular god doesn’t make you a good or better person, and not believing in said god does not in itself make you evil or less good. So if that’s what we really believe, then we must also accept the converse(?) of that, which is that merely believing in god(s) doesn’t make you a worse person, and merely not believing in god(s) does not make you a better person.
Oh, and seriously, Akira, it’s okay to dismiss and be contemptuous of other people’s superstitious beliefs — but as Taylor Swift said, you need to calm down.
@73
I’d be a lot calmer if I could safely ignore religion. If it was something that I didn’t have to worry about. However, theism, particularly Christianity, makes it a point to be in one’s face.
@Akira
A therapist who is skilled with PTSD would be a far more effective way to find calm. Raging on the internet about the people you hate because of reasons is obviously not healthy for anyone.
Sally Strange
Good to see you!
hayyy Tethys! Same to you! Full fucking circle moment right here
Sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Btw I became an anarchist while I was away :)
As an atheist and a Buddhist, I get exhausted by folx using Religion as a synonym for Christianity.
JoeBuddha, heh.
I myself find it amusing so many people equate religiosity with goddism.
One can be religious as fuck and still be atheistic, of course.
—
Nah.
JoeBuddha @78: As an atheist, I get exhausted by folks using Christianity as a synonym for evil. As if being Christian implies culpability for the Crusades, the Inquisition, etc. There are evil Christians, evil Buddhists, and evil atheists. Go figure.
So, Rob, are you similarly exhausted by folk using Christianity as a synonym for good?
(In passing, in older works the term ‘God-fearing’ is used as a synonym for good person because they are ‘Christian’)
John @81:
Of course, but nobody around here does that. Sometimes, you can be pretty much the definition of wishy-washy bothsidesim bullshit. But I still like you.
And yes, I know how ‘God-fearing’ has been used. Most people (and pretty much everyone in the commentariat) knows that. Filed under ‘The Fucking Obvious’.
Let me be clearer:
“As if being Christian implies culpability for the Crusades, the Inquisition, etc.”
Most certainly Christianity is culpable for the Crusades, the Inquisition, etc.
And of course individual Christians aren’t Christianity.
However, be aware that by the same reasoning, extant neo-Nazis have no culpability for what Nazism did in the past.
(I mean, yes, Nazism did atrocities, but Nazis aren’t Nazism in the same way that Christians aren’t Christianity)
Thanks for the further FO, John. But Nazis are called Nazis (or neo-Nazis) for a reason. They excuse or deny what the original Nazis did. If a particular Christian excuses or denies the Crusades, etc., then they are deluded arseholes. Maybe restrict your use of ‘be aware’ to people who may not be aware.
Conversely, if a particular Christian acknowledges the Crusades, etc., then they are knowingly embracing the very belief system that led to those atrocities.
(The analogy remains apt?)
You should be ashamed of that, but I know you won’t be (or you won’t admit to it, anyway).
I know you’re not this stupid. If a particular communist acknowledges the horrors of Stalinism or Maoism, they are knowingly embracing the belief system which led to their atrocities?
Enough, man.
What do Nazis, Dawkins et al, and large factions of Christianity have in common?
The deeply held fascist ideology that they are the white patriarchs whose authority should be obeyed.
Dawkins personally increased misogyny in western societies when he crapped all over Rebecca and then proceeded to write the infamous Dear Muslima diatribe as a way to deflect from his lack of ethics or integrity.
I thought blaming individuals for actions they never committed or beliefs they never had, but solely for the group they belong to, was something we opposed here.
It is.
If the group is Christians.
(If it’s Fascists, not so much)
[meta — I might have been too terse]
BTW, I grew up in 1960s Madrid, Spain.
Franco, Falangism, Catholicism, State Religion.
(Catholicism and Nazism; well… two peas in a pod.
cf. the Vatican’s very existence)
—
The analogy holds perfectly; [Nazis:Nazism::Christians:Christianity]
Also, Rob’s introduction of “Stalinism or Maoism” are akin to “Lutheranism or Adventism”; all are versions of the general thingy. Communism was Marxist, originally, much as Christianity was Orthodox/Catholic.
So. rietpluim, I want to make it clear to you I’m not blaming anyone for anything; rather, I’m drawing a parallel. An analogy. A parallel example. That sort of thing.
Perspective.
@StevoR #71 – The problem with political relativity is that it makes sensible ideas sound radical, like affordable housing or accessible health care. I prefer a more objective approach.
@John Morales #91 – That’s because Christianity is not a single belief system. One can be Christian without crusades or inquisition. One cannot be a fascist without suprematism and authoritarianism. Take that out and it isn’t fascism anymore. You’re blaming sheep for being wolves because they’re both mammals.
@John Morales #92 – So the analogy doesn’t hold.
Fair enough.
I hereby retort:
[1] You explicitly assert that fascism is but a single belief system, suggesting it’s unlike Christianity.
But Fascism is actually a thing, as is Christianity. You can find Wikipedia entries for each.
[2] You furthermore assert that one can be Christian without crusades or inquisition, as if one could not be fascist without Holocausts or wars of aggression.
[3] You additionally assert that one cannot be a fascist without suprematism [sic] and authoritarianism, but then one cannot be Christian without subscribing to the supremacy of God and His Word.
[We’ve seen the results of that; as in, Crusades and Inquisitions etc]
[4] You’re blaming sheep for being wolves because they’re both mammals.
No.
I’m pointing out that blaming Christians for being Christian is the to blaming Nazis for being Nazi.
One is not blaming them for who they are, but for the ideology to which they subscribe.
The analogy holds perfectly; [Nazis:Nazism::Christians:Christianity]
[Ah, slack. 5 >4 :| ]
Akira Mackenzie@69,
I guess you meant @67 rather than @66, but in any case, your #69 in no way contradicts my #67.
John Morales @84, 86, 91, 92, 95
What a silly person you are.
and:
Christianity is a far more varied ideology than Nazism, (or even fascism, which is rather more varied, but since you originally focused on Nazism, so will I). Someone can be a Christian without either justifying or denying Christian atrocities such as the Cruades, the Inquisition, etc. (I note parenthetically that these were specifically Catholic atrocities; and BTW, Christianity was never comprised only of Catholicism and Orthodoxy – try looking up the Nestorian, Armenian, and Coptic churches). You cannot be a Nazi without either denying or justifying the Shoah and Hitler’s aggressive warmaking. The analogy does not hold.
KG:
Not only is that a spurious alleged distinction (actually, an unwarranted assertion), it does not dispute my analogy; cf. #86.
Again: both are adherents of an some ideology that historically justified and performed atrocities.
—
That also is not disputing me.
[OT]
I am more than familiar with that stuff.
This will be about the fourth time I adduce this excellent series on YouTube on this blog:
[A recent schism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocephaly_of_the_Orthodox_Church_of_Ukraine ]
John Morales@98,
No, it is not spurious. If you dispute it, find a Nazi who neither denies nor justifies the Shoah and Hitler’s aggressive warmaking. Christians who do not deny or justify the Crusades or Inquisition are two a penny. And your #86 simply ignores my basic point – that Christianity is a far more varied ideology than Nazism, so Christians who both acknowledge and condemn Christian atrocities are not “knowingly embracing the very belief system that led to those atrocities.”, because their belief-system is, by the very fact of condemning those atrocities, not the same as that held by those who perpetrated them. They would claim (rightly) that the first Christians did not advocate military seizure of Jerusalem, nor executing “heretics” – they believed all they needed to do was follow and preach Jesus’s (supposed) teachings, and God would shortly send Jesus back to defeat their enemies for them.
@99,
So why did you say, falsely, that:
I notice that in fact the first part of that is false too – communism was never exclusively Marxist.
KG, if you want to separate the adherents from their ideology, go for it.
I personally think it’s hypocritical to do it for Christians but not for Nazis, and I think you are rationalising.
—
“… communism was never exclusively Marxist.”
Never said it was exclusive, but, you know…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto
Kind of foundational to the modern concept of Communism; originally published in London in 1848.
Hitchens nailed that one.
IOW, you have no answer to the point I made @101.
@102,
You seem to have the delusion that all Christians are Catholics. But I concede I should have said “not necessarily knowingly embracing the very belief system that led to those atrocities.”
So, anyway.
Far as I am concerned, the New Atheism (the movement) is clearly at least moribund, but the new atheism (the unapologetic sort of atheism) is by far the better for it; the mystique and immorality of it is no longer rampant. Some of us were never “movement atheists”, of course.
No conventions, no rallies, no particular activism. Just unapologetic.
Used to be that to be an accepted atheist one had to be sort of apologetic about it.
Now, it is far easier to be an “out” atheist these days, and I give full credit to the New Atheism movement, faddish as it may have historically been.
And I get a vibe that professed agnosticism is dying out, too… after all, it was only ever an excuse to not be atheistic as such.
Deism, too. Similar thing.
Sorry in advance for flogging a dead horse.
‘Apology’ is one of those curious words that resembles so-called contronyms, or words which have two distinct and opposite meanings (such as sanction, or cleave) and I presume this is due to ‘apologetics’ which are often characterised as defences, excuses, or justifications for something that really should be apologised for, minus the intention or actuality of apologising. We often see apologies that fail to acknowledge wrong-doing, or fail to show remorse, or ignore recognising harms that occurred, or refuse to amend future behaviour to avoid recurrence of the same situation, all of which are possible rationales for describing the defective attempt as a ‘not-pology’.
The crux of the previous argument about drawing some analogy between two different groups – which John Morales helpfully summarised in post 95 as [Nazis:Nazism::Christians:Christianity] seems to hold if one only considers apologetics. Certain groups within Christianity seem to revel in producing apologetics. This is not true universally though. So I am not persuaded that the relation holds if the question is whether the individuals are capable of making a genuine apology, since it seems almost all neo-Nazis are unwilling to apologise for anything that Nazism did (and truculently so); the ideological spectrum of Nazism regards apology as weakness and that all wrong-doing was in service of a greater outcome viewed as ‘good’ no matter what the means.
If one is inclined to be particularly outrageous, the (to my mind, rather suspect) analogy made by John could be extended as follows:
[Nazis:Nazism::Christians:Christianity::Atheists:Atheism]
As I said above – if some atheists are inclined to offer apologetics for the bad outcomes or doings of ‘atheism’ writ large, which lack the substance of an apology, then John’s analogy might hold. However I’m not really convinced by his analogy. There are definitely some atheists (particularly those New Atheists who travelled down the New Atheism to Intellectual Dark Web to unrepentantly fascist pipeline) whom I could squint at, and partially agree with John’s proposition. However I think the ideological breadth of Christianity and Atheism are actual points of difference from Nazism. To finish with a cliché, one of these things is not like the others…
@12. Eric O
Well, Charles Murray is a regressive old white American bigot and author on the reichwing pretends-to-be-intellectual fringe whilst Douglas Murray is a racist reichwing racist old white..Hmm.. Okay, yeah. I see your problem here!
@8. Reginald Selkirk :“Are Douglas Murray and Charles Murray related?”
I tried a google search but my google-fu has failed me, sorry. Anyone know?
Xanthë,
Nope.
Me, above: “both are adherents of an some ideology that historically justified and performed atrocities”.
See, your putative extension only works if Atheism is an ideology (not just an attitude).
No way atheism (lower-case) is an ideology.
Christianity certainly is. Fascism certainly is.
(To finish with a cliché, one of these things is not like the others…)