Jeffrey Tayler, the Russian-based contributing editor to The Atlantic, continues his series of anti-theistic and pro-atheist articles in Salon, with the latest an analysis of atheism and Craig Stephen Hicks, the man who gunned down three young Muslims in Chapel Hill—for reasons that are completely opaque. Immediately after the shooting, not only theists but also some “social justice” atheists declared that, since Hicks was an atheist, the killing was clearly the product of New Atheism, with at least one person—the noxious C. J. Werleman—declaring that Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins had blood on their hands: that this murder was the harvest of their anti-Muslim animus.
I can understand theists making this argument, for, after all, they hate atheists and would pin on us anything they could; but I was a bit surprised at the atheists’ rush to judgment. After all, the motive for the killing wasn’t at all obvious. Hicks didn’t say anything, and still hasn’t, his wife claimed it was a dispute over a parking space (who knows if that’s true?), and Hicks’s own Facebook page, though providing much evidence of his unbelief, gave no clue that he had any rancor against Muslims in particular. The subgroup of atheists eager to pin the crime on New Atheism could be explained only as their way to get back at those people, like Harris and Dawkins, whose ideologies (or age, or gender, or race) they found repugnant or oppressive.
Tayler’s piece from March 1, “Religion’s new atheist scapegoat: Why the Chapel Hill murders weren’t about Islamophobia,” emphasizes the lack of obvious motivation for the murders, but also excoriates those atheists who blamed them on other atheists. He concentrates largely on Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig, a Ph.D. candidate at the notoriously p.c. Brown University, who wrote a wrongheaded attack on atheists in The New Republic called “The Chapel Hill Murders Should Be a Wake-Up Call for Atheists. ” Her piece not only blames the murders on New Atheism, but indicted the “movement” (whatever it is) for a host of other sins: racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, and “modes of thought and expression that privilege educated white men.”
Tayler sticks to the blood-on-the-hands trope, and simply takes Bruenig apart. A good takedown of a bad argument is delicious, and I’ll let you savor it. Here’s just one bit, when Bruenig reproduced a sympathetic tw**t from Dawkins:
She then made this confused argument:
Dawkins takes the obviousness of his moral frame for granted; he doesn’t feel the need to offer an earnest denouncement of these murders because he does not honestly believe any person could view them as an outgrowth of a system decent people like him are a part of. But this is a persistent problem with the New Atheist movement: Because it is more critical of religion than introspective about its own moral commitments, it assumes there is broad agreement about what constitutes decency, common sense, and reason. Yet in doing so, New Atheism tends to simply baptize the opinions of young, educated white men as the obviously rational approach to complicated socio-political problems. Thus prejudice in its own ranks goes unnoticed.
What Dawkins’s tw**t had to do with a lack of earnestness or sincere morality, or “young educated white men,” eludes me. But Tayler has a few pungent words:
Stoker Bruenig then presses Dawkins’ (above-instanced) tweet into service to show New Atheism’s culpability in the shootings, “because he does not honestly believe any person could view them as an outgrowth of a system decent people like him are a part of.” This is textbook begging the question. She has provided no proof – nor has Hicks, nor have investigators – that New Atheism or anti-theism had anything to do with motivating the crime.
Stoker Bruenig then flashes her credentials as a postmodernist and highlights the gender of the atheists (mostly male), their average ages, their high level of education (which Hicks did not share), and conflates all these factors to assert that “the id of New Atheism tends toward ordaining modes of thought and expression that privilege educated white men.”
This statement is, to borrow a phrase from the Honorable “slayer of intelligent design”Judge John E. Jones, a “breathtaking inanity.” None of these factors in any way bear on the veracity of atheism, its merits or demerits, or the “id” presumably impelling its advocates. People of all genders, ages and races would benefit by abandoning stone-age myths and morals – and especially women, who suffer the most from them, with their rights to do as they please with their bodies under threat from Neanderthals with high pulpits and deep pockets, and, in certain well-known parts of the world, their very genitalia threatened by razor-mad butchers. To ignore these realities is to miss the genesis of said “id.”
It goes on in that Hitchensian vein, and Bruening comes out no better. In end, we simply know nothing about Hicks’s motivations, and perhaps we never will. But one thing is for certain: pinning the blame for the murders on the New Atheists is simply dumb, since none of them have ever sanctioned, encouraged, or approved of violence against anyone. They have criticized the tenets of faith and the bad actions they inspire—period. It’s time to stop using this tragedy, and the death of three young people whose lives were all ahead of them, as an excuse to bash your favorite atheist. As Tayler says at the end (and I love his last sentence):
The Chapel Hill murders are a tragedy, and must be investigated carefully. Perhaps Hicks will, after all, unbosom his motive as hatred of Muslims. By doing so, he would not, after all, enhance the severity of his punishment, given that North Carolina’s statutes do not provide for this. Moreover, he could not believably or demonstratively justify his homicidal actions by citing works by atheists or anti-theists. But whatever his motive, one fact remains: the answers, ultimately, to the growing problem of violence perpetrated with religious sanction lies not in more religion (that is, in more superstition and irrationality), but in a collective determination to resolve our problems through reason, discussion, and secularism.
If the promise of youth for the Chapel Hill victims has been tragically shattered, the promise rationalism and the renunciation of dangerous myths, void of prescriptive value ab initio, but openly called into question by atheists over the past decade or so, remains ours to realize.
Reason, consensus, and secularism – I defy anyone to exploit these lofty, laudable concepts to arrive at anything but progress.
As usual, the motive is probably somewhere in between whatever is being presented. There were those who said that the cops said it was a parking dispute, end of story. And then there were those who blamed Dawkins or whomever. Two rushes to judgment with little room for details. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was just a little more motivated to murder by his hatred of religion, but blaming atheism is like blaming all men for a misogynistic crime against a woman.
Why can’t we just say “we don’t know”???
In the absence of other evidence “we don’t know” is the only logical stance.
“We don’t know.” is fine. But that ends all discussion rather quickly. There are reasonable guesses and then less reasonable ones. That’s the only point I had to make.
What evidence do you have for his hatred of religion?
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His Facebook profile. I don’t have a recording of him saying “I hate religion.” but I would lean more toward him hating it than loving it. Too strong with my language? Ok, sorry. I can accept that. It is fairly safe to say he dislikes religion.
Anyway, see for yourself. There’s a lot to scroll through.
https://www.facebook.com/craig.hicks.967
‘Hating religion’ and ‘hating religious people’ aren’t the same thing. I really hate cancer, but I wouldn’t shoot cancer patients.
I’ve made the same observation, and I agree, but unlike cancer it’s people who are infecting other people with religion. So hating religion could conceivably motivate someone to kill those engaged in spreading religion. Evangelists, or those indoctrinating children for example.
There is evidence on his Facebook page that he doesn’t hate Muslims in general – he stood up for them over the Ground Zero mosque for example, calling Christians hypocrites in that instance. There’s other stuff like that too.
And for those who think he’s stupid, he in fact has a very high IQ – over 140 – so qualifies as a genius even though he isn’t lucky enough to be educated to his full potential.
Or so he claims, but I wasn’t arguing he had killed based on religion. I see no good reason to believe that. I was simply responding to the above comment, and pointing out a mechanism whereby an anti-theist could be motivated to kill based on his anti-theism.
*could*
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We all have bias, though. I’m sexist and racist on an unconscious level. This is something I came to accept after taking some implicit-association tests. I think I am largely able to filter out these things and keep them under control. I cannot say that they never influence my actions or that they would be absent especially if I am feeling especially emotional at some point. This bias, which is sometimes very subtle or small can sometimes present itself with dramatic consequences. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not saying this guy sat around in his house and plotted a hate crime.
Sure, he±s an anti-theist. But not a hater. And supportive of religion freedom, iirc.
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Jeffrey Tayler nails it again. I wish I didn’t have to go out, because I want to say quite a lot in praise of him here.
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Bruenig wrote “New Atheism, the contemporary phenomenon of aggressive disbelief coupled with a persistent persecution narrative.”
I have never felt persecuted, I have always seen Christians, Muslims and other religions play the persecution card, but never by a new atheist.
” . . .coupled with a persistent persecution narrative.”
Refusing to any longer keep ones mouth shut so as to accommodate religiosos, and standing ones ground in opposing clerical bullying, apparently constitutes “a persistent persecution narrative.”
“Criticism of atheists is the last acceptable bias on both ends of the political correctness spectrum” is a common enough trope; I think I’ve even seen it explicitly stated around here. Everyone likes to play the underd*g, after all. Even so, that’s a far cry from “persecution”, which has more than a little bit of the conspiracy mindset to it. Also: irony.
Amazing how one atheist kills three innocent people and it was obviously due to New Atheism, but hundreds of Islamists kill thousands of innocent people and it’s obviously “nothing to do with Islam.”
Alternatively, where are the folks arguing that even if he says he murdered them for “atheist reasons,” of course the REAL reason is that he was oppressed and poor and uneducated and disagreed with some countries’ foreign policies.
Agreed. Except where you put “amazing how,” I might say “it’s to be expected that.” There’s a common thread to the two scenarios, and the same class of people are the scapegoat in both. Namely, my class of people!
I’m not one to complain generally about the overuse of white male privilege as an explanation for the world’s ills – it’s often a very good example! – but there is just no way this case calls for it. If the shooter were to receive a slap on the wrist instead of the stiff punishment he’s going to receive, one would have to wonder. But since the shooting didn’t occur in Florida or Texas, there’s little reason to fear he’ll get off lightly.
And to think I was worried the shooter was actually going to have expressed anti-theist motives, which expressions would be bad for the movement (whatever that is). How naïve of me! The movement is being pilloried anyway! It’s gnuphobia I say.
The other difference is that when people say they killed for religious reasons, there are a lot of people who give them a pass, because somehow religion can be a valid reason for murder. If Hicks is found to have killed because of his beliefs, I bet no-one will excuse his actions (and rightly so).
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Tayler did a very nice job of grinding this Bruenig into the dirt where she must live. What might be of no interest is the motive behind the likes of Greenwald, Aslan or Bruenig. I can borrow one of Tayler’s words to describe what comes out of all three and that is nonsensicalities.
Assuming she has yet to defend her dissertation, this article/publicity/backlash can’t do her much good as she preps to defend it. (Unless things are THAT bad at Brown U.)
The whole concept of collective blame and guilt is crazy and irrational. Supposedly a specific race, creed and sex can connect a person to a lone psycho’s horrible act? The so-called new atheists are not responsible for any individual’s act of murder any more than law-abiding gun owners have blood on their hands for every school shooting. This dark ages’ line of reasoning is mystical but alive and well.
If we are required to accept collective guilt for anything and everything bad in the world then we should also get collecvtive credit for all the good things in the world. Personally when I read someone use “privilege” as a verb I turn off because I know that we have a purveyor of illogic, faux-emotion and falsehood to deal with.
As in, “Tax laws unfairly privilege religion”?
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If Hicks was inspired by the New Atheists to commit the horrible crimes he committed, it still doesn’t matter unless one can go to the statements or writings of any of the New Atheists and find that they evenly remotely encourage or countenance the violent acts against Muslims. Lacking such statements by New Atheists, even if Hicks says he was motivated by atheism, the New Atheists are completely blameless.
I am an atheist who dislikes most aspects of religion. I have also really come to detest most Republican politicians – for which I can provide many reasons if anyone cares to hear them. If someone should happen to read something I’ve written about the execrable political views of today’s run-of-the-mill Republican and decides to kill some misguided Republican this evening, am I at all to blame? Of course not – unless I have said or implied that is what I think should happen to Republicans.
Not only can’t you find incitements to violence in gnu atheist writings, I have yet to see ANY support from any ‘anti-theists.’ No New Atheist is coming out with either a “Yay for Hicks!” or even a “This was wrong, BUT…” It’s complete condemnation.
That’s not a small distinction. Any crank can distort a passionate message and read extremism into it. But the argument that it’s not a bizarre ‘distortion’ but a ‘plausible interpretation’ shouldn’t just be based on scholarly analysis. It seems to me that this accusation ought to rest on the presence of lots and lots of loyal followers who are reading the text the same damn way.
But nada.
Again, “Ditto.”
How often do Muslims hand out sweets in the streets in celebration of some terror attack? How many “liberal” imams say of the various cartoon killings something to the effect of, “Murder is bad but these guys had it coming to them”? And how many imams in official government positions have issued fatwas calling for death and dismemberment?
Yet the condemnation from us Gnus has been universal and unequivocal.
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Yes, because women and people of color who are New Atheists — and are excellent writers and popular speakers on the topic — obviously don’t count. They’re invisible. Let’s overlook them so we can complain about their absence.
Taylor’s assertion isn’t just racist and sexist. It also seems to sneer at a movement because it “privileges” modes of thought and expression which hint at having an education. So I guess we’re not so much ‘damned by faint praise’ as being praised by a particularly feeble form of damnation.
Beat me to the point.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a privileged white male? Maryam Namazie? Annie Laurie Gaylor is white, I’ll grant, but hardly male. Sam Harris, one of the Four Horsemen, is male, sure, but no more white than Yasser Arafat.
I could see somebody arguing that the Gnu Atheist movement has a statistical overrepresentation of white males, but that’s most emphatically not the result of any ideological bias and rather the lingering effects of systemic cultural influences — with said effects eroding more rapidly amongst the Gnus than, for example, the Republicans in Congress who have chosen all white men for committee chairs with a lone token white woman in charge of the dining / cafeteria committee.
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Sastra, I don’t think you meant to say Taylor is racist and sexist.
I think she did.
It’s quite racist and sexist for Taylor to presume, contrary to lots of evidence (see my own reply), that non-white non-male people can’t possibly adopt the Gnu Atheist position.
Taylor can’t even get away with the argument that they’re advocating against their own best interests, as would be the case of, say, a black lesbian Neopagan Republican. It’s the major religions that are most commonly the driving force behind sexism and jingoism, and atheists overwhelmingly oppose those at the same time they oppose the religions themselves.
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I think both of you meant Breunig, not Taylor. Taylor is the reasonable one.
No, it’s Breunig who is racist and sexist.
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Ah … you beat me.
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You’re right. I got confused. I meant Breunig, not Taylor. My bad.
Though I’m not saying she’s racist or sexist either — at least not consciously. She’s trying to make a point against sexism/racism which is ironically being undermined by the fact that she has to discount many prominent New Atheist voices in order to do — voices which happen to belong to people who are neither male nor white (though I think they’re all educated, which would include self-taught.)
Anyone else getting to hate the use of privilege as a verb( both grammatically and PCly)?
No. Verbing nouns is a linguistic change with a long history. But perhaps we should table* that discussion.
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* U.S. sense.
Most nouns I’ve known get uncomfortable when they’re verbed. It’s rather like adjectivising a gerund.
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I hate verbing nouns, so that’s why I never verb nouns.
(Also, everybody, it’s Tayler.
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In the immortal words of Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes): “verbing weirds words”.
Speaking of “tabling”, I assume UK uses the word in the same way as Canada, to put something forward. As a Yank, I was really confused when I moved to Canada because I was used to tabling meaning to set aside, or shelve. Had all kinds of heated discussions before realizing that we were both saying the same thing. I have to admit that the Brit/Canuck version makes more sense.
We’ll leave “verbing” aside, but “privileging” people, as in “accomodating”, can get very annoying.
Yes.
I think you mean Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig. She was the one who wrote that stuff about privilege educated white men. Tayler quoted her and criticized her.
Yup, thanks. I scrolled back and mixed it up.
It’s good to know that you are fallible after all.
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And I trusted you!
Sorry, folks; my bad, too. Please do a mental substitution of the two in my responses where appropriate.
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That was Bruenig’s statement, not Tayler’s (and certainly not Taylor’s!).
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I completely agree.
It’s true that there is a high proportion of educated well off white people among atheists, as there is among liberals in generals, but this does not mean that atheism (and liberalism, in the sense now used in American politics) serves this type of people more than it serves other groups. It’s actually reasonable to argue that conservatism serves them better.
What Bruenig and her kind really advocate is rejecting ideas not because they are bad, but because they are held by “the privileged”. But it is incredibly foolish to reject ideas just because they are held by educated people.
Urgh… Forgot to click the checkbox
The Plumber Joe knee-jerk anti-elitist attitude:-(
“The Plumber Joe knee-jerk anti-elitist attitude:-(”
(I would like to hope that) There is surely one (former academic) Ph.D. “elitist,” rationalist plumber/plumbing business owner out there, just as I know of at least one Ph.D. tractor trailer driver.
I have absolutely nothing against plumbers or tractor-trailer drivers, or workers of Ny type. I was talking about the specific Plumber Joe who was so touted by the Repubs during Obama’s first presidentisl campaign. They were saying they’d rather have a beer with P. joe than with some elitist law prof, and implying that they’d also prefer said plumber to lead the country…
Where did I say you said that? I’m merely reflecting on the fact that at least a few Ph.D.’s decided to do something else, surely including plumbing, and that one will be hard pressed to discover that in the mass media, predisposed as they are to run the “Joe The Plumber” thang into the ground.
To clarify: Where did I say or imply that you had something against plumbers, etc.?
Agreed;-)
Boils down to “smarrypants! Neenerneener!”
No. It boils down to *smartypants*. I don’t know what smarrypants are.
I think Philomena might say smarrypants
The issues with Bruenig’s article are so profound it is hard to know where to start. The idea that the “id” of the atheist movement (whatever that is) is patriarchal, and therefore a problem, is laughable. I was just thinking about how Sue said, you know, in the Bible (Sue 10:14), that men should listen to their wives, daughters, sisters and mothers. And it was Beth, you know, Jesus’s second favorite apostle, who said that the female gender identity is a continuum of fluidity that knows no bounds; their is no male, there is no female. Man, that Beth was one heck of a futurist. No wonder Ms. Bruenig loves Christianity so, it was never a patriarchal tool used to oppress women, it has a 2000 year history of gender equality. Right.
The noxious CJ Werleman is really noxious as an “atheist” atheist-basher. I know we shouldn’t give him any more platform but I find it very difficult not to challenge his nonsensical views. I really waver between rebutting his inanity and leaving him alone. But his latest article exposed so clearly his moral delusion that I couldn’t stop myself. I know Dr. Coyne has challenged him before so I thought perhaps he would be interested in his article and my response. Read it here:
https://imperfectidea.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/isis-slavery-and-wartime-sex-violence/
The noxious CJ Werleman is really noxious as an “atheist” atheist-basher. I know we shouldn’t give him any more platform but I find it very difficult not to challenge his nonsensical views. I really waver between rebutting his inanity and leaving him alone. But his latest article exposed so clearly his moral delusion that I couldn’t stop myself. I know Dr. Coyne has challenged him before so I thought perhaps he would be interested in his article and my response. Read it here:
https://imperfectidea.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/isis-slavery-and-wartime-sex-violence/
(sorry if this is double posted, I had trouble login in) 🙂
I have often been amused by people who have a high level of verbal ability but have absolutely nothing meaningful to say.
The odds are very good that any batshit crazy person who happens to be an atheist and then goes on to kill a neighbor in North Carolina will be killing someone who is a believer in some religion or another.
p.s despite being able to write very long sentences, I decided against continuing in academia because no matter how long the sentence, I simple could not figure out how to use the word “queer” in it as a verb.
…having been thoroughly repressed by the hetero-normative male dominated society I’m apparently beyond saving.
…or perhaps growing up without a dad made it difficult for me to focus on heteronormative male bullying as the cause of the world’s troubles, and thus not find it necessary to project my wounded psyche onto any random (male) target that appears in the news.
…and so, I judge the ideas of others based on their merits and not on my twisted, wounded childhood experiences.
In other words, I could never be a post-modernist.
Or use adverbs, apparently …
Not even in stock phrases like “queering the pitch”? Or am I missing a nuance here?
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Isn’t the pitch where you Brits play the soccer you call football? And, if so, I’m sure the pitch is already as gay as anywhere else in life, even if nobody talks about it. If I remember right, in the States we’ve only just recently had our first out football player, so our gridirons have been officially and openly queered.
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I think the use of ‘queer’ as a verb is limited, these days, solely to that somewhat archaic expression ‘queering the pitch’. I’ve never heard it used (as a verb) in any other context.
‘Queer the pitch’ means to spoil the occasion in some way.
A ‘pitch’ is most often a cricket pitch, soccer can use a ‘pitch’ but I think it’s more often called a ‘field’.
No, in football/footie/soccer it’s a pitch, as in “pitch invasion”.
But in the phrase it refers to a trader’s pitch.
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Hmm, Wikipedia quotes ‘pitch’ or ‘field’ for soccer.
Cricket is almost always ‘pitch’ except when it’s a ‘ground’ (but never, I think, a ‘field’)
Oh, yes, re footie; just not not pitch.
In cricket you don’t have a field … but you have fielders …
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Cricket is a game specially designed to baffle furriners. And me.
The fielding positions are even more cryptic than the rules.
… still haven’t used the word “queer” as an adjective, noun, or verb. I’m an utter failure.
…which is a rather queer thing to say on someone else’s site.
There! I did it!
Congratulations, but ‘queer’ as an adjective is easy. “That’s a queer-looking duck”.
‘Queer’ as a noun is limited exclusively to homosexuals, I think, easy to use but very non-PC.
‘Queer’ as a verb is, as I said above, limited to the archaic ‘queer the pitch’.
In the early 70’s I went with several relatives, including a great-uncle (a retired Tennessee state circuit court judge, and therefore presumed to be possessed of some meaningful education and congenial “judicial temperament”), to see an internationally-known outstanding instrumental duo.
As we were leaving he said he much enjoyed the concert, but in the next breath referred to the performers as “queers.”
I felt a great rage welling up in my adolescent self, wanting to ask him what he could possibly know about them that he felt entitled to so presumptuously hold forth on, and bless us with his bloody fatuous opinion about, the matter.
But a youngster just can’t openly, verbally retaliate like that. (At least not back then) Good training in self-restraint, self-discipline.
I just pointed out that it’s easy to come up with a grammatical sentence that uses ‘queer’ as a noun, I wasn’t recommending it. (Though it’s my impression that ‘queer’ (meaning ‘gay’) is sometimes used by gays themselves – see the Wikipedia page. I guess whether it’s offensive is all in the context, though I’d be cautious.)
On the subject of taboo language, and right after the fuss over Benedict Cumberbatch and ‘colored actors’, I couldn’t but help but be amused by the WEIT story on the twin sisters – and I quote “Lucy explained: ‘Maria was outgoing whilst I was the shy one. But Maria loves telling people at college that she has a white twin – and I’m very proud of having a black twin.’”
It’s all in the context.
Queer as a verb is what they do in straight conversion therapy.
Not sure what ‘straight conversion therapy’ is, but that sounds like a jargon term to me. i.e. not regular usage.
I was punning on “gay conversion therapy”, in which a hapless gay youth can allegedly be “straightened” out through the application of religion.
Ah, sorry. Got it! Don’t need therapy, it is well known that one look from a gay person can turn the most upright, straight, G*d-fearing gun-toting he-man into a rabid, atheistic, strident, Communist, Satan-worshipping pacifist queer.
“modes of thought and expression that privilege educated white men.”
This is probably because most of the prominent atheists are educated white men. Discounting the magic pomo buzzword ‘privilege’, how would we expect them to express themselves?
(Note I said ‘most’. I absolutely acknowledge the existence of non-white and/or non-male (though rarely uneducated) prominent atheists.)
You know, I actually wrote something on this whole thing a while back too:
http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/2015/02/16/the-chapel-hill-murders-and-wake-up-calls
Re your “I can understand theists making this argument, for, after all, they hate atheists and would pin on us anything they could;”:
Is that really a fair statement to make about theists in general? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that some theists or certain theists or the theists referred to in the article hate atheists?
I am a theist, and I don’t hate atheists. Does that make me the fossil rabbit in the Precambrian that falsifies your statement?
DCC:
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… I was a bit surprised at the atheists’ rush to judgment...[declaring that Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins had blood on their hands: that this murder was the harvest of their anti-Muslim animus.] ”
That’s because you kind-heartedly stayed above the fray regarding ElevatorGate, Dear Muslima, etc.
But there is a significant faction within New Atheism which has a pure white-hot hatred of Dawkins and Harris. They consider one or the other or both, to be actively and gravely antifeminist, pro-torture, soft on child abuse, and dangerously Islamophobic.
Try defending Dawkins or Harris on any of the above topics at Paharyngula, Butterflies and Wheels, Skepchick, etc and you will see what I mean.
I find it pretty disgusting that people were so quick to assume that it must have been a hate crime, based little, if anything, on the fact that he critiqued, if not entirely criticized religion. I expanded on this point in my personal blog, and I’ll share it here as well: it’s dangerous to equate criticism with hate, and that’s how I perceived this tragedy turned political façade. While I certainly agree with the point that this tragedy shouldn’t be used to trash and bash atheists, the underlying thought train that perpetuates the blame game is this idea that one must be inherently bigoted for critiquing, disagreeing with, or even rejecting outright faith, or viewing it as a vessel for oppression.