Despite being an atheist, I am routinely annoyed by militant atheists blaming all the world's ills on religion. They are usually coming out of hard sciences (physics, biology) with little appreciation for historical causation.

Case in point, today's article in Salon by Adam Lee, which can provide the focus for a debate. http://www.salon.com/2012/07/14/reli...ggest_threats/

He gives the usual concession about many religious people being nice and kind, but, MUSLIMS and evangelicals, oh my! He says yeah, there was some historical context to 9/11, but

This is like saying the most important part of an engine is the piston, even though it does nothing without crankshaft, cylinder, etc. Yes, the particular individuals expected a reward in heaven for 9/11, but they also had specific political objectives in the real world.

Al Qaida always said straight up their goal was to get U.S. dominance out of the Middle East, which they blame for supporting corrupt dictators and Israel, and defiling Islam's holy sites. Point being, without a U.S. desire to control the world's energy sources, there is no encounter with terrorist fanatics.

This is just one example of the SOP of militant atheists: blaming everything on religion, even though nothing happens outside a context. You cannot end violence by talking only about fanaticism. The fanatics are immune to logic, you have to address the whole situation.

Since athei-nazis refuse to consider the multi-causality of history, they are nothing but noisy ranters in love with their scientific superiority.

I dare say it would be easier to end the American military empire than to end magical thinking, so athei-nazis should shut the hell up or get real.

A+.

Lol...I guess some people once they've mastered the hard sciences self graduate to "know-it-all" about the world.

Since when did being intelligent in one field make you an authority on everything?

Once you've finished with your atheist made of straw, perhaps move on to the atheists made of sticks & bricks?

I can't tell if you are responding to me or someone hidden, but if it's me, note I was careful to limit my attack to monocausal atheists and named one and provided an example. Are you protesting too much?

Well the thrust of your OP suggest that you take issue with atheists who make claims that religion is the only cause of evil in the world and don't allow for other (particularly historical) causes.

You then cite an article where you admit that the author states that there are historical causes behind the 9/11 attacks. To put back the stuff you edited out:

His point seems to be much more about the religious underpinnings of their methods than drawing unwarranted inferences about their issues with the USA.

There are potentially interesting discussions to be had regarding certain prominent atheists and their positions on things like foreign policy - Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris spring to mind here - but your OP and example article are very poor jumping-off points for meaningful conversation, especially given your use of terms like "athei-nazis".

The guy's concession to complexity is empty. He says sure, there are other things, but it's really all about religion. That's his only target. The stuff I edited out changes nothing. His only concern is religion, he makes a point of dismissing context. It's the same as the trendy scientists who are always making offhand digs at the irrationality of religion causing conflict. They might as well start a campaign against meanness. Yeah, it's out there, but denouncing it takes you only an inch forward.

His position is that context might modify the way irrational religion expresses itself, but religion is really the root of violence. Sophomoric.

And get a sense of humor.

My experiences in a relatively large mathematics department is that almost all the graduate students there are incredibly hesitant to talk with any authority on any subject that is not their very narrow field of mathematics. I suspect that your caricaturization of militant atheists as being products of the sciences is largely a strawman.

Btw, I will say that I do definately dislike the "new atheists" and their tendency to relentlessly bash Islam. With regards to Islam, in our society, the dominant problem is largely xenophobia and islamophobia and problems where our society negatively impacts the lives of muslims both in and outside of our country. I am loathe to try and contribute to that sentiment. However, if one wants to bash religion, bashing Islam is really easy because you can get people to agree with you because of this latent islamophobia. OMG religion is terrible because of 911. What! I hate 911 you must be right! And so in. It is disgusting.

[QUOTE=uke_master;33752824I suspect that your caricaturization of militant atheists as being products of the sciences is largely a strawman.[/QUOTE]

Aren't most of the New Atheists you hate scientists?

Sam Harris
Dawkins
Dennet
Lawrence Krauss, the physicist.

I'm lumping here, maybe some of those guys are capable of nuance in humanities. But the politics they succeed in projecting is: it's the religion.

I'd trade them all for Stephen J. Gould. He understood you cannot advance science by telling theists they're stupid.

I don't hate them. They are right about a great many things and play an important role. I disagree with them at times and certainly dislike the Islam tactic, but that isn't hate.

Anyways, Dennet is not from the "hard sciences" and it isn't close and I also wouldn't put Harris into a hard sciences. I don't know if Krauss says such things about Islam, any time I have heard him talk it is mainly about physics and cosmology and the like. And you are of course missing Christopher Hitchens who is not a scientist at all. So I guess you get to keep dawkings. Certainly not enough to draw the sweeping correlation you implied in your first post. Burn that strawman down!

The point is this: In my extensive experience WITH a hard science, I have seen nothing in it that make people tend to be militant atheists or start making sweeping generalizations on subjects outside of their expertise. Quite the opposite, it usually makes people quite humble about anything outside their field. I am sure there are counterexamples, but certainly not some big general counter trend.

Here's another broadside.

The Middle East is probably the most frequent example the New Atheists use to show how bad religion is. You have Muslin terrorists dying for Allah and fanatical Zionist settlers who say God gave them Judea and Samaria.

Problem is, little of this happens until decades after the 6 Day War in 1967.

Israel was founded largely by atheist socialists. The Orthodox fanatics do not become a nuisance until much later, especially after the secularists give them Palestinian land to settle in and have a fanatic party.

The Islamic revival in Palestine does not get rolling until the 1980s, after secular Fatah fails to win a state.

You don't have Israel launching the '67 war without the US having its back. You don't have the House of Saud surviving without US bayonets. You don't have Hamas (founded 1987) without the US blocking a Palestinian state.

All the religious violence in the ME is closely bound up with contention for control of the energy regions.

[I know some of my specific historical points are hotly contested, but keep in mind the main argument: the religious strife is incomprehensible without looking at geopolitical power contention.]

What is that a broadside of? Just because there were larger geopolitical machinations that took us from where we were to where we are does not mean that orthodox fanatics and muslim terrorists are indeed doing the actions that they do in a large part because of their religious fanaticism. Yes religion is not the only aspect or factor at play here (and I doubt most of the militant atheists would disagree) but it certainly IS a factor.

Harris is a neuroscientist.

Dennet comes out of cognitive science and philosophy of science. Not history.

They plus Dawkins and Hitchens are lumped together as the four horseman. Dennet does not distance himself from the NA's monocausality, does he? And add Krauss. That's all very science heavy.

This leaves Hitchens, who gives much the same schpiel. He knows better, because when he was a leftist he talked about wider issues and was especially strong on the imperial roots of Mideast strife.

Oops, forgot about particle physicist Victor Stenger.

My point was not to trash hard science, something I love. But evaluating historical causality is not how these guys have spent their careers and it shows. The science fuels their arrogance. When non-scientists get excised about religion, that annoys me too. But the NA just happen to be mainly scientists, it's a defining feature, a scientific challenge to religion, not an historiographical challenge of violence.

You are giving them too much credit for nuance. They acknowledge non-religious factors exist in theory, then ignore them. If they really want to reduce violence, they need to also challenge the Great Game of empire. They don't. They don't understand it (except Hitchens) well enough to integrate it with the religious factor. And more importantly, aren't interested in it because their thing is to be arrogant about the dumb theists.

Finally, scientific challenges to religion are great and necessary. My problem is when they start getting political history wrong.

This is pretty bad. You claim that militant atheists don't appreciate the real complexity of historical causation (which fine--that is reasonable). However, you cite as your evidence that it is SOP for militant atheists to blame everything on religion and use as an example an article which you acknowledge doesn't do this. You then decide that not appreciating the complexity of historical causation makes these atheists nazis. Lol.

Not sure if it was Hitchens or Steven Weinberg who said it best: With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion

I'll stand by that quote.

I do agree that much of the US problems in the Middle East stem from years of our corrupt, pompous, and political meddling and interfering with their affairs. I've always felt the US was very wrong for years. But I gotta be honest... Hard core fundamentalist Muslims scare the **** out of me. Come to think of it, so do hard core fundamentalist Christians. In fact, anyone who claims they have iron clad laws and punishments handed down to them by an invisible being, pretty much scares the crap out of me.

Not. I then went on to specify the essential history he left out. The New Atheists only pay lip service to complexity and understand very little of the history. See also #6 response to Zumby who made the same claim. #11 is also relevant.

Regular people with the full range of good-bad personalities carried out Stalin's purges, Khmer Rouge massacres, North Korea, etc. Religion was not used to to guide these. The communist rank and file is motivated by the desire to end poverty and war. I would reword your saying to: "for good people to do evil--that takes idealism." It's the certainty they are doing good that justifies the atrocities, whether the perps are religious or secular revolutionaries.

I agree fundamentalists of all sorts are scary, fascism in the U.S. will come from Christian dominionists. But that won't be stopped by telling the whole theist panoply that they are irrational.

This is hate speech. You should be banned for "athei-nazis."

You are willfully ignorant and dishonest for saying that atheists "blame everything on religion," or don't consider the "multi-causality of history." Despite that, yes, religion encourages ignorance and division, which encourages acts of evil. Are there other causes? Of course. Don't be glib.

Because the height of wit is calling people who irk you "Nazis". Quip on, Oscar Wilde.

your religion is democracy, you would think its not so, but no one thinks their 'religion' is a religion. Then you can say 'well Christians do', but their religion is also mostly democracy, so they aren't really Christians they are hybrids.

Good post. I started to read the link but ran into the same problem I had when I tried to read The G_od Delusion a few years ago. I only got a few pages into it then had to stop it was so bad. Like Dawkins, he simply has no sound understanding of history, philosophy or theology. I can agree that people sometimes do evil things from a primarily religious motivation. But to lump all religions into one and then condemn them all is like condemning all of science because one scientist did something evil. Kindergarten level thinking.

No. You claimed that the article was an example of the "SOP of militant atheists: blaming everything on religion." However, as even you acknowledge, the author of the article doesn't blame everything on religion. Yes, he is focusing on the religious element, but he explicitly says that this is not the only causal factor. Thus, your criticism of militant atheists ends up looking foolish as the only evidence for it--this article--doesn't actually do what you criticize militant atheists for doing. And the nazi thing just makes you look like a troll.

More generally, it seems pretty clear to me that you just don't understand the motivation of militant atheists. You claim that they are only paying lip service to the other factors, and that they shouldn't bother trying to reason with fanatics. However, the actual reason they focus on religion is because, rightly or wrongly, they think that educated people are too tolerant of the irrationalities of religion and that atheists and other thoughtful people should be blunter in their criticisms of religion. Here is Lee's statement on the topic:

Second, it is worth pointing out that none of the New Atheists are really concerned with changing the views of the "religious fanatics." Instead, their writings are addressed more to young people who have not yet settled on their own position or to other atheists and those who generally accept the worldview or outlook of the Enlightenment.

Finally, with regard to your drawing a connection between this historical simplicity and a training in the hard sciences--I'm skeptical. First, there is a glaring omission in your catalog. Hitchens, who was by far the most prominent and vocal supporter of the Iraq War and some of the associated neo-conservative ideas among the New Atheists, was the epitome of the classical man of letters--not a hard scientist. This was unlike Richard Dawkins, who publicly opposed the war in 2003 and in general tends more leftist.

I agree with this (although I would include more than just idealism as a possible culprit here as well). That statement from Weinberg (at least, taken on its own) is kind of dumb.

No, we are not banning Mr. Haywood for this. It is just a case of Godwin come early.

Late to the party, but duh? "If you want to talk about something, you better explain every variable involved in order to make your point valid, admitting the religion is part of the problem isn't enough, you need to explain every other facet of the discussion before anyone should take you seriously, even if that's not what your audience is there for."

Seriously, if everyone had to explain everything when they're trying to make a point, nobody would say anything. His point is about religion, so to make it he targeted that while acknowledging the other factors. But yet it's ridiculous to you because he doesn't explain all the other factors in detail. That's not how conversation works, it's not how articles work, it's at the very best how a academic text works, but even then in a majority of cases they're not submitting to your demands.

There are a lot of things wrong with how militant atheists handle stuff, but your chose the wrong part to argue. The article is about religion, not 9/11.

I know Weinberg is quoted as saying something similar....

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

Certainly some caveats though....religion includes atheist world views like Stalism etc. And religion could possibly prevent evil people from doing evil things and have a net positive result.

It's a misleading quote because it's a categorical misstatement.

You can reflect on it for less than a minute and find exceptions to it. Good people could be led into evil without religion playing any role at all.