It’s very strange that there are some people who claim that there is no real difference in the harmfulness of different religions as practiced during our day. As nearly all the Four Horsemen maintained (and Sam Harris continues to do so eloquently), Islam is the faith that, as practiced now, causes more harm than any other faith, and certainly more harm than does Christianity. And yes, I freely admit that between the 12th to the 18th centuries—the period of the Inquisition—Christianity was the world’s most harmful faith. But we mustn’t forget the Aztecs, who routinely engaged in mass and gruesome murders of both their own people and prisoners.
But now the most pernicious faith seems to be Islam. Certainly many Muslims (and I know some) practice their faith benignly and even charitably. But many others don’t, and they enable harms throughout the world—harms that were never produced by Christianity or that have been largely abandoned by them. Here are some practices promoted or exacerbated by Islamic doctrine:
- Islamism: the desire to dominate the world with Islamic doctrine, including sharia law
- The codified oppression of women. In many places women must be veiled, put into cloth sacks, can’t go out without a male guardian, can’t go to school or get many jobs, must walk behind their husbands, can be beaten (or divorced) by their husbands without sanction, can be stoned to death for adultery (a practice just resumed by the Taliban in Afghanistan), and so on.
- Honor culture: killing of family members who supposedly sully a family’s “honor”
- Female genital mutilation, which is encouraged in many places by Islam
- Sharia law, which is also oppressive. For example, the testimony of women under sharia law counts only half as much as a man’s
- The oppression of gays, including outright murder in places like Gaza and legal execution in places like Iran.
- Blasphemy laws, under which you can be killed for insulting Islam or burning the Qur’an
- The demonization and sometimes the killing of apostates or atheists
- The issuing of fatwas when Westerners insult Islam, sometimes calling for killing those perceived to insult the religion (Charlie Hebdo, Salman Rushdie, etc.). This is connected with the blasphemy laws mentioned above
- Divisiveness within the religion that leads to war and death: Sunnis kill Shiites and vice versa, so there are internecine killings as well as cross-cultural killing
- The propagation of hatred of Jews and propagandizing of the young
- Favoring religious teaching in madrassas above secular teaching
- The suppression of freedom of speech in general, particularly that which criticizes the government, often an explicitly Islamic government. Masih Alinejad, for instance, fears for her life in America because she criticizes Iran, which has tried to both kill and kidnap her in separate incidents. Why? Because she’s against mandatory wearing of the headscarf (hijab) for women.
I could go on, but I’ll stop here so I can finish this post.
While I suppose you can find instances of some of these practices among Christians (e.g. honor killings, Orthodox Jews inhibiting secular learning, the demonization of gays), you would be a fool to say that the harm caused by Islam, as instantiated by the acts above, is as serious as that caused by Christianity in our era. There’s simply no argument to be made for it.
Except, of course, by P. Z. Myers, because Richard Dawkins has just defended Christianity against Islam in the way I have above, and we all know that P. Z. Myers is obsessed with criticizing Dawkins. And so Myers does, in a deeply misguided and logically confused piece on Pharyngula called “Banality and bigotry“. The point Myers wants to make is that Dawkins, as a “cultural Christian” who also sees modern Christianity as morally superior to modern Islam, is thus bigot against Islam—an “Islamophobe”, if you will. (I prefer to think of “Islamophobia” as “fear of the consequences of Islam, which isn’t bigotry.) I won’t psychologize Myers, as I just want to rebut his argument, but I’d suggest that he reflect on his obsessive animus against Dawkins. In this case, the animus has forced Myers to twist the facts to imply that Christianity is precisely as bad for the world as is Islam.
Myers’s jihad comes from the video below, in which Dawkins conveys an “Easter message” of the moral superiority of Christian behavior over Muslim behavior—comparing behaviors based on religious dictates. The interlocutor is journalist Rachel Johnson, and the venue is LBC, originally the London Broadcasting Company. It’s an interesting discussion, for Richard also queries Johnson about her own beliefs, sometimes making her squirm.
But the main error of both her queries as well as Myers’s article is to claim that because there are bad behaviors inspired by both Christianity and Islam, they must be equally bad. And if you say that, you’re a bigot. The error, of course, is the neglect of the real issue: how often do bad behavior promoted by the two faiths occur? Further, says Myers, both the Bible and Qur’an promote some bad behaviors, so the two faiths again must be pretty much equally bad. Here I’d disagree, maintaining that the Qu’ran is full of more hatred, animus, and oppressive dictates than is the Bible. (Yes, I’ve read both.) But that’s really irrelevant to the question at hand, as most modern Christians don’t follow the bad parts of the Bible, while the Qur’an hasn’t been equally defanged.
Click to listen:
Dawkins mentions some of the bad behaviors inspired by Islam that I’ve listed above, including hostility to women and gays. He adds that “If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I’d choose Christianity every single time. It seems to me to be a fundamentally decent religion in the way Islam is not.” It seems clear that he’s referring to behaviors emanating from the religions today, which is further clarified when Dawkins says that, if given a choice, he’d prefer to to live in a culturally Christian than in a Muslim country—though he “doesn’t believe a word of Christian faith”.
I’d agree, and I’m betting that, given a choice of living in the U.S. or U.K. on the one hand or Iran or Afghanistan on the other, Myers would choose the Christian countries. You don’t have to believe the tenets of Christianity to make that no-brainer choice, nor do you have to believe that liberal democracies are the inevitable result of Christianity. It’s simply a matter of the average well-being in a country taken across all of its inhabitants.
Here, however, is how Myers deals with Dawkins’s claim that he’s a “cultural Christian” because he likes church music and cathedrals, even though he entirely rejects Christian doctrine:
It’s meaningless and trivial to say that we have all been shaped by our environment…although, of course, many Christian believers think that this is a huge deal and are acting as if Dawkins has renounced his unbelief.
He has not. What he then goes on to do, though, is to declare his bigotry, and that is what I find disturbing.
He likes hymns and cathedrals and parish churches — fine, uncontroversial, kind of boring, actually. But then he resents the idea that people would celebrate Ramadan instead of Christmas. Why? They both seem like nice holidays, that some people follow a different set of customs shouldn’t be a problem. Then he goes on to say that Christianity is “a fundamentally decent religion, in a way that Islam is not.”
How so? Because Islam is hostile to women and gays. He goes on to talk about how the Koran has a low regard for women.
Jesus. It’s true, but has this “cultural Christian” read the Bible? I don’t see any difference. The interviewer tries to bring up the record of actual practicing Christians, and he dismisses that as only those weird American protestants, as if jolly old England has no gay baiting, no murders of young women, and as if JK Rowling were just an open-minded, beneficent patron of the arts. Many American Christians are virulent homophobes who treat women as chattel, but his equally nasty culturally English Christianity has people and organizations that are just as awful.
70% of women teachers in the UK face misogyny. The British empire left a legacy of homophobia. The UK is so transphobic that some people are fleeing. Cultural Christianity does not seem to have made Great Britain a kinder, gentler place, but Dawkins must have some particularly rosy glasses that he wears at home, and takes off when he looks at any other country.
Dawkins has come out as sympathetic to Christianity, but only because it justifies his bigotry. At least he’s being open and honest about both biases.
Here Myers makes the two mistakes I mentioned above. First, he sees no difference between the proportion of bad stuff in the Bible and the bad stuff in the Qur’an. I do see a difference (I presume Myers has read both, as I have), but, as I said this is really irrelevant.
The main question is where one wants to live: in a Christian or a Muslim country, and whether Islam has more pernicious effects on the modern world than does Christianity. Which religion promotes behaviors that lead to a better, more desirable society? To me the answer is clear, but apparently isn’t to either Myers or his faithful acolytes. For crying out loud, America doesn’t systematically execute gays (yes, very rarely one gets killed). And yes, some Christians are “virulent homophobes”, but it’s insane to argue that, across all Americans (or American Christians), homophobia or oppression of women are just as bad as they are in Muslim societies. Perhaps 70% of women teachers in the UK have faced sexual harassment, a figure that is 70% too high, but in Muslim countries women can’t even become teachers, nor can women and girls become students. If you followed John Rawls and, behind the curtain of ignorance, had to choose whether you’d grow up as a women in a Muslim or Christian country, knowing nothing else about your circumstances, I think the choice would be clear.
The British empire left a legacy of homophobia? Well, I don’t know much whether that was a ubiquitous result of colonialism, but for the sake of argument I’ll agree. The point, however, is that homosexuality is a capital crime in many Muslim countries. That’s why the notion of “gays for Palestine”, seen on some banners and placards, is so ridiculous. Below is a map showing where homosexuality is legal versus illegal. Notice anything?
Myers ends by accusing Richard of bigotry, presumably because Dawkins thinks that Christianity breeds better societies than does Islam. One can look up the data on various indices of social well being, happiness, and so on (the situation for gays is in the map above), and I’ll let the readers investigate, but the bullet points I’ve given already show that there are very great harms in some Muslim countries that one doesn’t find in majority Christian countries.
To conclude that Dawkins is a bigot, then, you have to not only cherry-pick the data and add confirmation bias, but also decide that making a rational argument supported by data is an instance of “bigotry”. This is the same error as concluding that it’s “Islamophobia”, a form of bigotry, to argue that Muslim societies are more dysfunctional than Christian (or atheist) ones. In reality, you can hold the argument I’ve made above without being bigoted towards individual Muslims. “Islamophobia” should be a term for “fear of what Islam does”, rather than a form of bigotry.
I had a quick glance over at Pharyngula and Myers misses a fundamental point: Dawkins ( and myself ) live in a culturally benign religious environment. The modern Church of England ( and I suspect the Episcopal Church in the US although to a lesser extent ) is, with its customs, churches, and, probably wrongly but there isn’t much you can do about that, part of the establishment.
By far the best description of the modern CofE came from the brilliant BBC political satire “Yes Prime Minister” of a few years ago:
“Sir Humphrey Appleby : The Queen is inseparable from the Church of England.
Jim Hacker : And what about God?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : I think he is what is called an optional extra.”
and elsewhere
“James Hacker : Humphrey, what’s a Modernist in the Church of England?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Ah, well, the word “Modernist” is code for non-believer.
James Hacker : You mean an atheist?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : No, Prime Minister. An atheist clergyman couldn’t continue to draw his stipend. So, when they stop believing in God, they call themselves “Modernists”.
James Hacker : How could the Church of England suggest an atheist as Bishop of Bury St Edmunds?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Well, very easily. The Church of England is primarily a social organization, not a religious one.
James Hacker : Is it?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Oh yes. It’s part of the rich social fabric of this country. So bishops need to be the sorts of chaps who speak properly and know which knife and fork to use. The sort of people one can look up to.”
+1
+1
The British Empire left no legacy of homophobia. Don’t be silly. A remarkably high percentage of colonial officers were……um, happily married men. Who happened to gift us with the most wonderful collection of terms for those who were otherwise inclined. I can give many examples, and have beloved relatives who both exemplify and enjoy the descriptors. But for Jerry’s sake, I’ll save you all from falling over laughing.
I rewatched all of Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister recently, and it brilliance remains undimmed by time. Not just one of the best sitcoms ever made, but quite likely the smartest too.
Probably, definitely, would not get air time nw!
Those quotes came from an episode called “Bishop’s Gambit” which involved Sir Humphrey, for his own devious reasons, organising a mission by a C of E cleric to save a UK woman from 40 lashes in a Islamic country for having a bottle of whisky.
I think that covers most of Dawkins’s points!
Though a “phobia” is defined as an irrational and inappropriate fear, so it’s likely not sense to re-interpret the word in this way. Better is to decry it entirely as an attempt to prevent criticism of Islam.
By the way, PZ is pretty ignorant about the UK if he really thinks it is full of misogyny, homophobia and transphobia promoted by Christianity.
I could shorten your last paragraph and save all the sense of it.
I had the same thought as expressed in your final sentence. Certainly there’s plenty of misogyny and homo/trans phobia, but the UK’s not ‘full of it’. In fact I’d say it’s almost reached a point where it could be described as tolerant of these issues. And Christianity is almost irrelevant in a day to day sense, other than when used by our gutter Press to stir our misplaced patriotism.
There is misogyny, homophobia and transphobia in Britain, as in almost any society, but does not really stem from Christianity and the Church of England’s attitude is generally pretty benign towards those groups.
This tendency to label criticism as phobia or bigotry is a logical fallacy if ever there was one. It’s like Trump defending himself by saying anyone that criticizes him is a Trump-hater, or their daughter is. Anyone armed with facts to criticize or hold accountable is a hater, so, once again, the facts are shelved. Because a hater is on the loose! There ought to be a good way to counter this obnoxious tactic. Is it a logical fallacy or an obnoxious tactic?
“Is it a logical fallacy or an obnoxious tactic?”
Why not both?
I just enjoyed comparing PZ Myers to Trump.
Though I’m not totally on board with Richard’s concept of being a “cultural Christian”—I consider myself a cultural Westerner brought up in a milieu that included Christianity, the Greco-Roman Classics, humanism, and other subcultures—I agree that Islam is the most bellicose of the Abrahamic religions. Indeed, war is at the heart of the religion, which conceives of worldly existence as being divided into the Dār al-Islam, the Realm of Peace (literally, Submission), and the Dār al-Ḥarb, the Realm of War, that part of the world into which Islam must expand. Thus, there must be war until the whole world has become the Realm of Peace. Just as we ask self-proclaimed Christians whether they believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, that his dead body was reanimated and went up into the sky, and that he will return to rule the earth, so we must ask self-proclaimed Muslims if they believe in the necessity of the Realm of War.
[… sigh… ]
The idea of heresy comes to mind – what, precisely, constitutes heresy today, vs. orthodoxy?
I don’t know. But this was a big deal to churches.
Another thought : how do the religions handle humor, jokes made at their expense, or other kinds of expressions that say something against taking things Puritanically, or too seriously?
Didn’t Ayatollah Khomeini say that’s there’s no humour in Islam? Joking about Islam would be blasphemous to a true believer.
The problem with “moderate Islam” is that Islam isn’t moderate and is almost wholly intersected with the political/caliphate. Islam needs a reformation as Christianity has had via the new testament and the reformists.
https://www.hoover.org/research/ayaan-hirsi-ali-west-dawa-and-islam
“Ayaan Hirsi Ali joins Peter Robinson to discuss her new book, The Challenge of Dawa: Political Islam as Ideology and Movement and How to Contain It, and her views on the challenges facing Western civilization in regards to political Islam. She argues that Islam needs to be separated into two different parts, one part of religion and the other part, political philosophy. She concedes that many aspects of the religious part of Islam are peaceful but argues that the political side is much more concerning due to its focus on Dawa, which means “to plead or to call non-Muslims to Islam.” This call to convert people to Islam is what she argues was a driving force behind the spread of Islam throughout history.”
Re: Dawkins
Dawkins is a decent human being, the allegation of bigotry is as irrational and thoughtless as it is misplaced.
And, Dawkins is right (of course) about Islam. And I hope he doesn’t give a shit about yet another misguided attack on his character.
+100%
Hi Jerry, You got this one reversed, or else very unclear: “you would be a fool to say that the harm caused by Islam, as instantiated by the acts above, is as serious as that caused by Christianity in our era.”
Rather than saying that Christianity is better than Islam, I wish that Richard Dawkins had said that it is less bad (currently, and since the Enlightenment largely sorted it out).
Maybe Prof. Dawkins meant that Christianity actually is better than Islam, and said what he meant.
+1
Hey, Myers: please republish what you did to a Koran if you want us to believe that you are a solid atheist. Surely you have no objection to doing so, being a rationalist and all. I rather liked the photos you took. Do please show us them again, because we all know you were never wrong, about anything, ever.
And no, I’m not suggesting you were wrong then. Just that you are too chicken to stand up for what the other horsemen (yes, I remember the self-appointed fifth internet horseman, don’t you?) stood up for.
Cheers, Mr. Moss. I find myself 100% in agreement with you again.
I bet PZ will ignore us. Actually… I used to be an options trader, I’d like to bet on that…
takers?
I might be wrong of course though a self important professor like PZ surely reads us here. What do you say, sir….. wanna talk about Islam? I’m all ears!
D.A.
NYC
Myers should stick to the day job. All those groundbreaking zebra fish articles aren’t going to write themselves.
He’s moved on to spiders. Zebra fish are so last year.
R Dawkins likes a Christian hymn but not say, throwing gays off a roof… hmm, what confuses PJ Myers here?
Does R Dawkins really need to break it down? message not so much, tonal qualities, frequencies, etc. Nice.
Does PJ Myers like stoning of adulterous females? certainly he likes to put the boot in of people or individuals, who don’t.
Well we know both fairy tales have done their damage and persisting, the body count has never stopped, let alone the bullshit claims…
” tRump was sent to us from god” that one makes this person the village idiot of the decade, culture going to hell in a hand basket!
Well we also know there is ample evidence that damns all religions to oblivion no matter what stage their cultural state.
Yep, Science has obliterated any truth claims of religion like the mobile phone has blitzed smoke signals…
I was going to say carrier pigeons but I’ve read somewhere recently that pigeons are still useful b/c they’re a little more difficult to hack
: )
(This book was written in 2021 and it illuminates our present.) I’ve just finished reading “The Spectre of War — International Communism and the Origins of WW2” by Jonathan Haslam. About how the Bolshevik revolution and the world’s reaction to it led to rise of Nazis and war. But he also shows in his conclusion similarities in todays world, by the West again misunderstanding states ruled by ideology. There was Communism, Nazism, fascism and now Islamism. Haslam shows how western democracies had a policy of watchful waiting, that sooner or later common sense would prevail in these revolutionary states and they would become a normal country. It didn’t work then and it’s not working now. Haslam writes “… the Islamist revolution, as with the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 did not just peter out…. The “moderates” did not take the place of the “extremists”… Moreover, as in 1919, the fanatics proceeded to spread the revolution abroad with a speed, a vigour, a discipline and a determination that took everyone aback.” Of course, attacking this as racist is giving the Jihadists another useful tool. So, if Israel can be relentlessly attacked for it’s response after October 7, if Ukraine is left hanging after blatant Russian aggression, it’s obvious there should be a reevaluation and concrete steps need to be taken. Democracies need to come together and face this threat now. Appeasement never works.
Blaming British colonialism for ant-gay laws in African nations is the latest new think now. Because modern Africans can’t possibly think for themselves.
Yes, I’ve noticed this hilarity in the past decade or so, OCS.
So deeply dumb.
This after the Union Jack, Tricolor, etc. were taken down GENERATIONS ago. Long before I was born and I’m 53.
The population pyramid of Africa is such that I’d be an elder there. So few people even remember, let alone care, about colonial laws which didn’t intersect with most of the locals then anyway.
But…. “COLONIALISM!!!” is an easy black and white binary for the hopelessly, irretrievably retarded.
Apparently these century old laws are *still* the fault of London and Paris.
This theme you note is aggressively stupid, painfully ignorant.
D.A.
NYC
You nailed it. Apparently these countries are accorded full responsibility for driving out the wicked imperialists but none for keeping their customs. They thought for themselves in rejecting Imperialism but no one wants to acknowledge they did the same in retaining homophobia.
Yes, Prof. Coyne. Yes yes yes. Nail on the head!
Sad we even need to maintain this in the face of woke nonsense whose practitioners seem to be ignorant of the actual tenants of Islam – how it is supposed to be practiced. And how it IS practiced in much of the Islamosphere, particularly in the lower classes there. We don’t see that – we just see English speaking, very educated analysts who are unrepresentative of the person in the street in, say, Egypt, Pakistan, Morocco, etc.
And how deep religion is held in the Islamosphere – much deeper than Christianity is here in the west.
And THAT is a central problem. It partly explains support for Hamas/Hezb. etc.:
Westerners don’t seem to understand how central to identity, community organization and society religion actually is in places that aren’t secular like us.
I see that as the main problem.
D.A.
NYC
my articles about this lately for those interested, syndicated variously and reposted again here:
https://democracychronicles.org/author/david-anderson/
Not long ago I read that there’s no word for “compromise” in Arabic. It’s not a concept in that part of the world. And they certainly act like it.
There must be something akin to it in haggling and baksheesh. They sure know those concepts.
Well stated as always.
Peak Sam Harris on Islam: “the moder lode of bad ideas”
Christianity is not a problem because it doesn’t rule a country. Look at all the countries where christianity has a large say and you find a country that is against gays and abortion. USA being a good example of what happens when christianity starts to think it has power.
On Christianity vs Islam, It seems as though people like to dwell on Christian practices and events from centuries ago, which are not particularly relevant to current risks.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, but nobody rationally fears it, either. Traveling in Spain, one has an infinitely higher chance of being blown up by Islamists while riding the train than being held for interrogation by an inquisitor. Besides, the inquisition was mostly a response to 700 years of Islamic occupation.
If your cousin converts to Christianity, you should not be surprised if he gives you some tracts or even talks about the “blood of the lamb” at your next meeting.
If he converts to Islam, there is a reasonable chance that he is going to eventually post a selfie of himself in Afghanistan with a bunch of severed heads.
+100%
And if your cousin renounced his Christianity, the worst that would happen to him would be that he might not get invited to weddings and christenings anymore, and then only if the rest of his family was particularly devout.
If your other cousin renounced Islam the consequences don’t bear thinking about, but they do involve at least one severed head.
How messed up is Islam? Well, apparently Hannity debated Anjem Choudary about 9 yrs ago, and without looking at the video I instinctively supported Hannity. I watched the video, and I was right.
I think that is an invalid comparison and yet it supports your overall point.
It’s invalid because you re comparing a modern secular democracy with a religious theocracy. If we were being fair we would say “would you prefer to live in a Christian or Muslim theocracy”. Unfortunately (or fortunately!), we don’t know what a Christian theocracy would look like in the modern world because there aren’t any. Conversely, whilst there are democracies with Islamic cultural backgrounds, it seems to me that they are always in danger of backsliding (see Turkey and Egypt, for example). The seems to me to be one of the fundamental differences between Islam and Christianity: Christianity has relinquished its hold on the levers of power, and, for the most part, is not trying to get it back. The same cannot be said for Islam.
Another point on the so called “homophobic legacy” of the British Empire. The British Empire now consists of a few small islands. The vast majority of it was divested between 80 and 60 years ago. If your ex-British empire country still has anti-homosexual laws, it’s not our fault anymore. Not only that, we got rid of ours in 1967. If your country had still been part of the British Empire, it’s likely it would have lost its anti-homosexual laws at around the same time.
Myers and his infantile Horde have had it in for Dawkins ever since Dawkins’ ‘Dear Muslima’ letter mocked Rebecca Watson and her fans over the ‘Elevatorgate’* nonsense. Their vitriol ramped up when Dawkins showed himself to be a non-believer in the transgender religion.
* Elevatorgate, which preceded the rise of the trans cult, introduced the concept of ‘Schrodinger’s rapist’, the notion that it was impossible to know the intentions of any individual male around women and therefore it was important for the comfort and safety of women that men respected their boundaries and single-sex spaces. Myers was fully on board with the whole ‘Guys, don’t do that’ thing. Oddly, nowadays he’s equally on board with ‘Guys, except for guys who call themselves women, don’t do that’.
Yes. Mr/s Special – thank you for repeating this.
Interestingly, and horribly, Ms. Watson due to that elevator incident alone, has garnered a large youtube following and associated financial gain.
A few views of her prodigious content evince her less than stellar mind though.
Part of it is — and being careful here – she was quite a hottie back then and I do think that helped her “cause”.
She has the amazing ability to be so wrong on so many areas at once. She was in small part responsible for the excesses of the metoo mvt and other disasters.
D.A.
NYC
Prompted by your post, I viewed the ‘interview’ on LBC.
As always Richard Dawkins comes across crystal clear in his responses.
Only fundamentalists of ‘faith’, or even some ‘fundamental atheists’, could wilfully misunderstand what Dawkins means about ‘cultural christianity’. In the main here referring to the UK Anglican variant.
Here, the interviewer Rachel Johnson (sister of Boris) is clearly out of her depth and one can only admire Dawkins calm professionalism, as his opinions on her brother are well known!
Of course, just the fact that he allowed himself to be interviewed by Johnson will be used by PZ and his Horde as more proof that Dawkins is on the political far-right. They’re very big over there on assigning guilt by (the most tenuous) association, unlike, say, Richard Dawkins, who is clearly able to avoid letting his feelings about the brother affect how he interacts with the sister.
HAHHAHA. You’re kidding me. Sister of Boris?
That explains so much of her disappointing side of the interview and the wild asymmetry of intellects on display.
hehhehe
Thx, Mr. Taylor, our British friend!
D.A.
NYC
In short, PZ and the Horde are crying that Dawkins is too mean towards Islam.
Next thing you know, Dawkins will be ripping a page of the Koran as part of a stunt, just like PZ did 15 years ago…
Despite his deeply held and shouted desires… PZ is not a serious thinker by any metric at all.
One of his MANY mistakes is how different religion as a thing in society is treated in the Islamosphere vs what would be Christiandom were the Enlightenment never have happened.
Christianity, and Judaism actually, have some utterly obnoxious ideas but many/most of them were defanged and castrated with the Enlightenment.
Islam never had that.
Further, there are only 10 things essential to Christianity (commandments), hehehe – written in stone no less! – but the rest is squishy and – as the rich plethora of sects attest – negotiable.
And you can LEAVE and not be a cross worshipper/christ clapper if you like, thanks to the Enlightenment to the detriment of Christianity. 🙂
Islam will have NONE of that. What their prophet is alleged to have heard in a cave in Arabia is the actual, real, unalterable word of the creator of the universe and no quarter against that, no analysis or argument will be tolerated.
PZ is a sparkly fool and a dotard with a blog. He has been proving this for decades pretty much every time he opens his mossy mouth to the multitude.
I didn’t need to read WEIT every day for a decade to get that, but I like when I hear it bc intellectually he is a contemptuous little….
D.A.
NYC