Source: Loonwatch
By Jai Singh
There is currently increasing journalistic scrutiny of the atheist British scientist Richard Dawkins and his ally Sam Harris’ statements about Islam and Muslims. In December 2012, the Guardianpublished an excellent article highlighting the acclaimed physicist Professor Peter Higgs’ accurate observations about Dawkins’ pattern of behaviour when it comes to religion in general; Professor Higgs (of “Higgs Boson particle” fame) has forcefully criticised Dawkins. More recently, superb articles by Nathan Lean in Salon (focusing on Dawkins), Murtaza Hussain for Al Jazeera (focusing on Dawkins, Harris etc) and Glenn Greenwald in the Guardian (mentions Dawkins but focuses predominantly on Harris; also see here) have received considerable publicity. Readers are strongly advised to familiarise themselves with the information in all of these articles.
Before I address the issue of Richard Dawkins, it is worthwhile highlighting some key information about his ally Sam Harris. As mentioned in Glenn Greenwald’s extensively-researched Guardianarticle, Harris is on record as a) claiming that fascists are “the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe”, and b) stating “We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim”. Furthermore, bear in mind the following paragraph from a previous Guardian article about Harris: “…..But it tips over into something much more sinister in Harris’ latest book. He suggests that Islamic states may be politically unreformable because so many Muslims are “utterly deranged by their religious faith”. In another passage Harris goes even further, and reaches a disturbing conclusion that “some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them”.
Richard Dawkins’ “atheist anti-religion” agenda has noticeably become increasingly focused on Islam & Muslims; his online statements (recently including his Twitter account ) have now become so extreme that a great deal of them are essentially indistinguishable from the bigoted, ignorant nonsense pushed by the English Defence League leadership and the main US-based anti-Muslim propagandists such as Robert Spencer etc.
Categories: Anti-Islam Attitude, Anti-Islam Campaign, ATHEISM, Belief, Europe
unfair, why do they have to hate muslims??
Those atheists are against Muslims only. Why? They do not read any faith scriptures. It is a biased agenda against one religion only while they do not believe in any religion. They have no law of their own, no sacred book, no code of ethics except whatever their evil self may formulate. That means following ones own desires. How bad!
People of all religions will have to come out against such disbelievers who deny the existence of a God Almighty.
i wish those who do not believe in the existence of God may read this surprising information about our own origin and evolution as outlined by scriptures of theology. you may not believe this text written in contemporary biologic terminology but it is proved to be the truth. This is credibility or no credibility situation. Please don’t miss out.
Hello, I was browsing the Internet for religious viewpoints and I found this article. I find this article interesting since it tries to portray the views of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris as propaganda. This article even states that it is exposing Atheist/antiislamic propaganda, which would lead believers to think that anti Muslim propaganda exists, and that this article will than causes of Atheism/anti- Muslim propaganda since it is being exposed.
As a person who was raised Christian I will tell you that it was not propaganda that eventually caused me to reject Abrahamic as a whole, but Abrahamic religions and the conduct of their very own followers that led me to ultimately reject religion as the answer to all of lifes problems.
It was listening to hundreds of interpretations of Christianity, each of which denounces the others, all whilst telling you their own code of conduct to get right with God.
I remember youth groups that would use scare tactics regarding hellfire and damnation, with a heavy influence on the book of revelation, and the tribulation period where all relationships wax cold.
I remember stepparents meaning well, and trying to implement rules suggested by radio preachers, typically the rules being much too restrictive and the bible used as the justification for the rules themselves.
I remember some churches would quote the old testament all day long, some would tell you not to read the old testament at all, and in the end, reading about a people that worshipped one God, and the punishment for not believing in him was that your parents were to kill you with rocks, or that if a wife were to cheat on her husband, she was killed with rocks, all coupled by doctrine of original sin where we are all damned from the beginning due to the actions of the first people that existed, all of those things together painted pictures in my mind of a brutal god, and a game where the rules are set to where you have automatically lost before the game had even started.
What I am saying is simple, people that are Atheists are atheists for one of any infinite number of reasons. I identified as an Atheist long before I had even heard of Harris or Dawkins.
Harris does make an aggressive statement, but have any people in this community heard some of the things followers of Islam have said? Is anyone here aware that there are indeed inequalities or facets of Islam that would make a peaceful nonbeliever just a little bit wary?
It is a fact that there are Muslim scholars that say apostasy is punishable by death, and that even if the apostate is not killed, that they should be punished. A person might argue that this may not explcitly be in the quaran and act outraged at the suggestion, yet whether there is punishment for nonbelievers of the quaran or not this is happening in predominately Islamic countries, and followers of Islam would than support these unjust laws and allow the killing of people for losing their faith.
Christianity does not currently kill people for losing their faith. There are also Christians who are respectful of others that I, as an atheist am proud to be friends with, just as there are Islamic people I have met that were wonderful people, whom I wish have long and fulfilling lives.
Yet all beliefs have their people that feel obligated to kill for their beliefs. All groups have people that feel everyone else’s beliefs are inferior, and subject to be changed until one day the entire world believes the same as they do. Until that happens, those who do not believe must be coerced with violence.
There are Christians that believe the world will only be peaceful when everyone excepts Christ, and Muslims that believe the world will be at war as long as there non-Muslims.
The last point I make is simple, if one is to condemn Harris for his own words, than the things that Islamic scholars have said must also be examined. If islamic scholars are arguing for the death of apostates, and atheists in general and are actually acting on these laws than they are far worse then Harris.
I suppose the best solution would be for people of all groups to stop talking about people that they want to kill and put up with each other. If grou
Dear Alex, when reading The Muslim Times you will note that we do NOT want to kill anyone. Our Motto is ‘Love for All and Hatred for None’. Please also visit http://www.alislam.org and you will find a large community of Muslims promoting peace all the time.
Dear Alex, I fully agree with your last para as an advice for good living. Presently, all faiths have been modified by their followers. That includes Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buudhists and Christians.
There is no original teaching with any one except with Muslims now. But that is also useless because majority Muslims do not understand their book (Quran). So it is no use to them.
However there is an advantage of having an original revealed book. If the revealed book does not exist in original shape, that causes a double fault. The problem is multiplied. There is no way to correct the mistakes, except by being very peaceful.
But with Muslims, it is possible to come back to the right path because they have an original book.
If I sugeest that every one should present the teaching of their faith from their original book peacefully and should present the good points of their faith from their original book only, we will find that all will fail except the Muslims.
In my next comment, I will present the real teachings of Islam as per Al-Quran, well supported by verses. If any one will have any objection to any point (and Alex), may bring it up.
The differences among the followers of faiths will always remain. Difference can be reduced by careful preaching. But devil is active putting wrong ideas into peoples head all the time. We have to guard against evil and follow a good way of life which is useful for the whole mankind.
Ghulam Sarwar and Rafiq,
We live In world that is morally relativistic. What is acceptable in one place of the world may be condemned in another. In the end, I think if individual people just existed without homage to any gods, stories, or revealed teachings the world might be a better place.
If there is one thing this relativism teaches is that with any group of people you will have good people, bad people, smart people, stupid people, the whole spectrum of people.
In each group of people you will have peaceful people and violent people. In each group you will have people that inflict violence without provocation, and people that inflict violence in defense.
So long as there are these different beliefs, and so long as there are violent people, there will be conflict.
As a person who worships no gods I feel much of the ‘evil’ placed in my head was from Ill thought things parents and clergy would say without realizing the deeper implications of their actions. I do not feel this to be the larger work of a devil, I do not feel the evil of the world to all be orchestrated by a terrible being…
In the end the cruelty of the world is orchestrated by people, and sometimes while hey are busy ruining everything they have the best, most godly, patriotic thoughts in mind.
In the end, I wish you all peaceful lives and I just hope the people in the world who are acting as poorly as they are stop, regardless of what they do or do not believe in.