From Happy Jar by Tom Fonder:
This is indeed how many atheists are acting these days.
Fonder was so worried about how this would appear that he wrote a long (and totally unnecessary) explanation on the site. Here’s about a third of his explanation. . . :
Islamophobia is also not the same as being critical of Islam as a religion. There is a vast difference between disdain for an entire peoples and disdain for an ideology. The problem we have is that people often seem unable to separate the two. There is an unfortunate tendency as of late to label anyone who is critical of Islam as being bigoted, Islamophobic, and a racist. Of all religions, Islam seems to have reached a privileged status in this regard as I rarely see the same accusations being levied at people who are openly critical of, say, Catholicism or Hinduism.
As an atheist, I regard all religions and their associated myths and doctrines to be rather silly. I don’t say that as a source of some sort of pride, it just is what it is. However, whilst I may dislike religion – of which Islam is included – this does not make me an intolerant person, nor behave in a bigoted way toward those of faith. I do not hate or fear Muslim people, nor would I consider someone who is Muslim to be inferior to me and other such nonsense. Criticism of religion is not akin to hatred for the religious, and in the case of Islam it certainly is not akin to racism.
h/t: Adam
The explanation is kind of painful.
But such an explanation is too often painfully necessary these days…
/@ / 29 Palms
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Just read a bit about the Aztec religion and see whether your are a dreaded Aztecaphobian. 250,000 had their hearts cut out to dedicate a new temple to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc.
Say what you like about the Aztecs, but they must, MUST have known their stuff when it comes to management of mass graves.
A cautionary tale about the dangers of chocoholism. How the Swiss have avoided falling to that level of carnality is fortuitous but hard to explain.
They sublimate it into yodelling.
Well, there has to be an explanation for yodelling?
Part of the solution to having so many bodies was to eat the extremities. Protein for such huge populations was hard to come by (some estimates for the Valley of Mexico run as high as three and a half million people). Famines had already hit about 70 years before the Spaniards and smallpox arrived. Heads were stowed on special racks and bodies — well you make a good point.
We stow certain pieces of equipment by the dozens on what we call “Rhino racks” – where 50 items can be moved from shipping container to rig floor, then item-by-item into the hole. They’d do for head storage. Or at least, for drying.
I presume they also invented the chili/BBQ cookoff, including rapid distribution networks to beat spoilage. Mass animal sacrifice is inextricably linked to trophic ecology.
I see your decimation of the language and raise you a hecatomb!
Remind me…how many hogwarts to the hecatomb? And what’s that in liters…?
I’ve never been good with these Imperial units….
b&
Wrong Imperium for me: Alexandrine, not Augustine or British.
(Incidentally, on the subject of measures, a certain bar acquired a personalised beer mug last night.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/96c6/ None of the bar staff are expected to need told who the mug is for.
You’re in desperate need of one of these. Incidentally, calibration markings are guaranteed perfect….
b&
Love the Klein bottle, by Acme, natch.
I brought one of these some years ago. For me. Then I added one to the order for my friend, who was setting up a darkroom at the time and needed calibrated glassware. And then I added one for Dad, to serve as a alcohol-free whiskey dispenser (of there’s nothing in the flask, then you fill your glass form it and there’s nothing in the flask afterwards, then clearly there’s nothing in your glass and you can drink as much of it as you want.
It was the first time the guy had an order for three at once.
They do work as whisky decanters, but they’re a pig to clean.
@Ben
Thanks for the link!
That site – acme klein bottles – is just hilarious. Full of sciencey in-jokes that even a layman can appreciate.
I still have a mental image of Wiley E. Coyote as their chief glassblower. What could possibly go wrong?
great pie chart!
I note that Wiley’s success in repealing the Law of Gravity vastly exceeds that of the average Creationist attempting to repeal the Law of Evolution. not that there is such. However, I just have this feeling that some time this week I’ll see a comment by a Creationist (probably on Saturday), and just think to myself “Wiley!”
He’s not called Wile E. For nothin’
And, let’s not forget: there really are good reasons to fear Islam and those who identify as Muslim.
When Serrano did that “Piss Christ” sculpture, he got plenty of criticism but no death threats.
When schoolteachers name teddy bears, “Mohammad,” they get death threats. And when people make movies for which they receive death threats, they get too-often their heads chopped off.
There are vanishing minorities of Muslims who will renounce the death penalty for apostasy, and they are to be commended. And large numbers, perhaps even majorities worldwide, of Muslims would at least be reluctant to call for said penalty in many actual cases…but, if ever there were an example of “damning with faint praise,” this would be it.
I think most people would express at least some fear of Neo-Nazis and the Klan. Probably all of us would express fear of the Mafia and Columbian drug cartels. Same deal with the IRA and Hamas. And, yes, in all instances, you can find vanishing minorities of sincerely good and harmless people whose only crime is a bit of confusion.
Islam is every bit as violent and insidious as the White Power movement, if for no other reason than that even so-called “moderate” Muslims still almost universally hold to the perfection of the Q’ran and refuse to question the words written therein.
And, yes. There’re significant numbers of Christians who take a similar hard-line position towards the Bible, with similarly dangerous potentials for bad outcomes…but these fundamentalists represent a small minority of the overall Christian population — and, even amongst them, damned few are aware of, let alone take seriously, verses like Luke 19:27. Such was not always the case, of course, and is a large part of the explanation behind the Inquisition and the Crusades and the Conquistadors and the Nazis and the rest…but that’s almost entirely a relic of the past.
Not so with Islam.
A final comparison.
The Vatican is an insidious hotbed of criminal activity that runs its own private child prostitution ring as well as a propaganda machine carefully constructed to lead to massive deaths and much disease especially in Africa. But they have no army and are, all things considered, bit players both regionally and globally. And they’re the most Christian of Christian governments.
In contrast, in the Islamic world…we have Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Lybia…need I continue…?
Cheers,
b&
Thank you Ben.
I am sick to death of the “I dislike the religion but its adherents are fine” paradigm. There IS a connection between the belief and the outcome. Even people who would not themselves kill someone don’t have any problem with one of their co-religionists doing it.
I once heard a Muslim being interviewed who was making the point that when non-Muslims see a Muslim, they immediately think “murderer”. I don’t. But, what I do see is someone who venerates a “prophet” who was a 54 year old man who was f*ing a nine year old child. Sorry, but if you’re someone whom that doesn’t bother, I don’t want to have anything to do with you.
And, for me, this does not just apply to Muslims, but to adherents of other religions, too. My question to anyone who thinks I’m a bigot because I steer clear of Christians is: How many bad experiences am I required to have before I’m allowed to avoid them? Realistically, I don’t have that much time for a social life, and I’m not going to spend what I do have around people I don’t trust. Having to watch my back constantly is a drain. I’ve been screwed by them enough times that I don’t want it to happen again, and I’m not willing to spend a bunch of energy on people like that. L
You remind me of another bit of hypocrisy.
Most of those who cry, “Islamophobia!” wouldn’t think much about somebody who was automatically leery of somebody who identified as a member of the Westboro Baptist Church. They might, of course, call them a perversion of the “true” Christianity and insist that not all Christians should be judged by their example, but they also generally wouldn’t see any problem with people who wanted nothing to do with them.
But the middle-of-the-road Muslim position is at least as repressive and “extreme” as that of the Westboro Baptists…and yet we’re not permitted to not want to have anything to do with people who identify as such?
I mean, sure. If I met somebody from the Wesboro Church who was sick of the thing and wanted out, or at least to start a less-insane schism, I might have more than a small bit of sympathy. Same thing for Muslims with similar rationalist tendencies.
…but the minute that person admitted that he still thinks that God Hates Fags or that Muhammad was right to rape Aisha, even if it’s accompanied by some sort of soft-pedalling about how that doesn’t mean it’s okay for people today to act on those beliefs….
b&
To be fair there are plenty of folks who are inclined to equate “mainstream” Islam with the extremist wings, as we saw with the tussle over the proposed Muslim rec center in New York or the various protests against planned mosques. Plenty of atheists fault “mainstream” Xianity for the existence of Westboro, but it’s a minority opinion that hasn’t had any impact on any other church’s right to assemble. If the apologetic instinct is triggered by the twin realities of Muslim extremism and right-wing hypocrisy it’s understandable – but the tarring of Harris or any other rational critic s an absurd overreaction. It sure seems like issues of race and the need to protect religious exceptionalism are at the heart of it and it’s just silly, as rhetoric with those foundations always is.
The rec center protesters were certainly motivated in no small part by Christian xenophobia.
But, at the same time, mainstream Islam is quite extremist by Western standards.
b&
“Religious people claim that it’s just the ‘fundamentalists’ of each religion that cause problems … There’s got to be something wrong with the religion itself if those who strictly adhere to its most fundamental principles are violent bigots and sexists.”
David G. McFee
Ramen!
If the more “pure” your religion, the closer it adheres to the original texts, the nastier and brutish it becomes…then maybe, just possibly perhaps, there’s something rotten in Denmark.
b&
Clearly the need to be PC, for want of a better term, about Muslims is the need to be categorical in the condemnation of extremists without painting millions of law-abiding, decent people with the same brush. In that way it is unique among all religious and political movements. We don’t feel the need for prefaces and preambles about good Germans when talking about Nazis – maybe there was a time, certainly German Americans were not put in camps the way the Japanese were. It’s an interesting phenomenon and not likely to be resolved as long as Islamic terrorism is a major international concern.
Those “law-abiding, decent” people are fine with the extremists’ behavior.
OK, maybe not all of them, but enough of them that you’re going to have a really hard time sorting them out. L
The problem is…in poll after poll, those same law-abiding people indicate that the law they consider to be most applicable is Sharia. And, when asked if that includes such pleasantries as stoning for adultery, chopping off the hands of thieves, and the like…they again indicate overwhelming assent that American politicians could only dream of garnering for themselves and their own favored issues.
It’s hard to consider somebody decent if he’d cheerfully sign his name to a law mandating whipping for the consumption of alcohol.
b&
Two factual issues with Ben Goren’s post.
1. “when people make movies for which they receive death threats, they get too-often their heads chopped off.”
-I assume this refers to Theo van Gogh, who was shot, not beheaded. Are there many examples of filmmakers being beheaded?
2. “There are vanishing minorities of Muslims who will renounce the death penalty for apostasy”
-This is clearly false. In the famous Pew poll, in only six of twenty Muslim populations did a majority endorse death for apostasy. In Indonesia, the most populous, 27% agreed.
Secular arguments should be backed by facts.
Sorry, but if you’re trying to make Islam look civilized by nit-picking on the preferred murder techniques of its adherents, you’re not doing a very good job.
b&
Ha! This made my day. It’s so true. Exactly how poor Sam Harris is being treated. Hamas wants to exterminate Jews, and Sam is the one who gets compared to the Nazis for criticizing religious ideologies.
I think the point you make is too often overlooked. It is surrealistically easy to find muslim hatred of jews, up to and including genocide. Which makes it seem to me that they really can’t take the moral high ground in whining about islamophobia.
I do think that atheists could more often spend a moment to preface criticism with a word or two about civil & human rights and religious freedom. People don’t hear enough of that kind of talk as it is.
That said, I think that it’s a mistake to politely sidestep issues like the question of god’s existence, questions about the historicity of Mohammad and the origins of Islam, among other things. It might make moderate Muslims feel more comfortable, but it also cedes vitally important territory to fanatical propagandists´of Islam.
(That said, I do think atheists (and anyone else) could spend a moment a bit more often, to emphasize civil & human rights, and religious freedom. That’s also important territory that we need to claim back — ironically it’s often the religious themselves who ignore it, inasmuch as it applies to others.)
Huh?
‘Cuz that’s about all I ever hear Sam Harris at the least say on the subject. Richard Dawkins, too, come to think of it. And, of course, our own esteemed host…and, for that matter, Christopher Hitchens…and, likely, pretty much anybody else I might think of….
b&
Wasn’t aiming a snipe at anyone, just got the impression that that message people seem so woefully ignorant of that when Harris & Dawkins et al are talking that maybe the message has gone under the radar a bit.
I defer to your better judgment, though. I’m out of the loop a bit too much maybe.
Watch again that bit with Sam and Bill Maher and Ben Affleck that started the current kerfuffle:
It’s what Bill leads with, what Sam leads with…if you can offer any suggestions as to what they could have done better to put for the importance of liberal idealism, I’m sure we’d all want to know them….
b&
Thanks, Ben. Retraction.
No worries…but, you do point to a disturbing phenomenon that Ben Affleck demonstrated so forcefully: that apologists for Islam so blatantly ignore everything that the critics of Islam are saying that nobody else realizes that we’re saying exactly what we’re saying….
b&
The thing that fills me with the most disquiet is that whereas xtians will simply bow their head and kneel when they worship, a Muslim will prostrate himself in total submission – an act which I find terrifying as there is nothing in this universe that I would prostrate myself for. All these religions do is to make sure that their adherents understand that they are utterly worthless. Part of me wishes there were a heaven so I could burn the place to the bloody ground and urinate on the ashes
It’s not just Muslims. See how Catholics prostrate themselves before the pope (not even God): http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/long-simmering-tension-over-creeping-infallibility
Sadomasochism. The secret to happiness.
An interesting article as well. Catholicism is experiencing the beginnings of a schism, one that could be interesting to watch in the coming years. A very conservative Catholic I know refers to the linked publication as the “National Schismatic Reporter,” because, he says, it was very critical of Benedict XVI and is now portraying Francis as something he’s not (i.e., liberal). The ideological purity demanded by his strain of Catholicism doesn’t appeal to most of the other Catholics I’ve met outside of his circle. The Vatican might soon need to decide whether to cater to the purists or to the majority* who don’t know and/or don’t care what the church teaches (but still contribute to its coffers.
*Based on surveys of contraceptive use. I would guess that the percentage who think that the Immaculate Conception refers to Jesus is also significant.
Now back to the original topic: too true.
What bugs me most is when they do it as a form of protest, in a busy street, stopping traffic, then accuse those who complain of Islamophobia.
But yes, the whole idea of complete submission is quite revolting.
The “nice” thing about complete submission is it removes the need to think for yourself and absolves you of any responsibility.
I saw on the news that there was a bus advert in London saying,”Islam is peace” I have just googled and found a website by that name. However it is not peaceful to threaten most of the people on earth with eternal suffering after death. In fact it could be viewed as hate speech. It is cruel to imagine that people will suffer after death. Even when I was trying to hold to some sort of Christianity I was embarrassed by the idea of hades. I think there probably is no supernatural realm at all but a perfect, caring god would not have let hades come into existence. A god who did allow hades would be the one most eligible for it and the first to fall in. I think universalism is a more peaceful notion but then so is the idea that we just rest in peace, perfect entropy.
Was it Mohimmad or illah who banned any further prophecies ?
Maybe Nohammade hung up the phone before iller could say,”Just kidding” or “No, erase & forget those ideas, now that I have spoken them out loud they are clearly mostly blethers, mumbo jumbo and nonsense”
Maybe Nohammade hung up before iller could tell him all about the medicine and science we now know. Did Mohimmad’s prohibition on prophecy block a revelation about germ theory for 1000 years ? The Coran didn’t even record the best science from BCE Greece. The Coran failed to predict 21st century technology, I doubt if the content of the Coran represents the information the humanity most urgently needed to know. However it is interesting to see the changes they have made to the Babble tales.
“However it is not peaceful to threaten most of the people on earth with eternal suffering after death. In fact it could be viewed as hate speech.”
Yeah but it’s very different from actual violence. Which would I prefer, a threat of burning in hell forever (which I know is BS), or a threat to beat me up some time in the future, or a punch in the mouth right now? I’ll take the empty threat of hell, thanks, because I know there’s nothing in it. The other two options would be far more of a concern to me.
Those empty threats are not confined to Islam, most religions in fact threaten all unbelievers with some sort of penalty after death, even if it’s just not-going-to-heaven. If some oick comes up to me in the street and threatens me personally with hell if I don’t repent, I’d see that as offensive. Also idiotic. But if they do it in the privacy of their own home (/church/mosque) as a general condemnation of all outsiders I couldn’t care less so long as it stays there.
What a satisfying cartoon!
& resub