Let me explain to you all where I am coming from. I grew up with wonderful parents. My Mum was unionised and I was bought up to learn about, respect and have passion for other cultures. I’m a firm believer in a strong welfare state, I live in London not only because it is home but also becuase I love multiculturalism and couldn’t bare living in a homogeneous monoculture. Also my passion is intelligent black music from funk, soul, hip hop, house to jazz, blues and broken beat.
Although I’m not a pacifist I believe that war should be a last resort and only used in defence and depending on the circumstances against genocidal totalitarian movements.
I believe in the redistribution of wealth, high taxes for the rich, low taxes for the poor and strong unions for workers. I believe we should grant asylum to as many people as we can when they are fleeing persecution and migration should be welcomed.
So I consider myself a fully paid up liberal minded person but being that I am a human being I am complex and things are never that simple.
I was recently talking with friends and I expressed a view that although I disagree with the Iraq war, distrust the neocons and think that spreading democracy at the point of a gun is a bad idea I said that despite all of this the spread of democracy and the defeat of genocidal ultra conservative, homophobic, misogynistic, anti semitic, ignorant and superstiotious Islamic idiologies is a noble cause.....
All hell broke lose I was hit with a wall of venom as if I had revealed I was the new candidate for the Nazi Party.
The idea that anything that the Americans could do would be potentially noble and that I might hope that the enemies of America might be conquered was an awfull act of heresy. Potentially racist, ignorant and arrogant in the extreme.
The conversation descended into a shouting match with me trying to point out that although liberal democracy has it’s faults it is “liberal” and by default much more worthy of my support than ultra conservative theocratic nut jobs.
The hysterical tone in my friends voices and their total inability to have any balance on the subject astounded me.
I criticised the way that Iran executes young girls for crimes of chastity and the barbaric use of Sharia in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Afganistan and they said that was cultural and who was I to judge anothers culture when western culture was so terrible.
Then they cited Guantanamo Bay (which I disagree with) as a massive crime and a direct quote is “We don’t execute young girls for crimes against chastity but we bomb them because of their religion” This is all so twisted and wrong.
It is hysterical and unthoughtfull. The theocrats who persecute Arab secularists, Communists, Union members, Gays, Women and everything we stand for are defended and America opposed at all costs.
A terrible crime against human rights commited by Islamists is deemed “cultural” possibly misguided perhaps a misreading of fundamentaly good holy scripture but “cultural” an illegal prison (Guantanamo) which I don’t agree with but might actually hold guilty men is deemed one of the worst crimes ever, much worse than stonings, amputations and executions carried out in recourse to a book of superstition.
This is Dogma in action. We liberal minded people suffer from the Dogmas of “The west and America equals bad” and “The non white peoples of the world are always downtrodden, not capable of being the bad guys and deserve our support in their wars against America etc”
The other dogma is that if terrible things do happen in Africa, Asia, The Middle East or anywhere else for that matter it is probably our fault and any attack on the west is a legitimate reaction to our arrogant meddling in world affairs.
If I say to a secular liberal “I oppose Islamism in all it’s forms” they hear “The Iraq war is fantastic, George Bush is a great man and I hope the Americans fry lots of Iraqi babies”
There is some kind of very scary disconnect going on there and I have to say I actually find their illogical righteous hostility just as scary as the religious lunacy of the fundamentalists.
At least religious nuts make sense within the framework of their given superstition but the lefties actually make no sense at all and as a result they are far less confident in their beliefs which in my view makes them quite unstable in a way that a god botherer is not.
Yes, well, I would just caution you to not regard your friends as necessarily representative of all secular liberals. They may be living examples of the Chomskian post-modernist extremes of liberalism that the neocons would like everyone to believe is all of us, but as you implied about yourself, reality is a lot more complex than that. I desacirbe myself as a secular liberal and generally agree with most of the positions you started with as examples of your own ideological credentials. Nontheless, I do think sometimes America does the right thing, that democracy and even some bits and pieces of capitalism are useful building blocks for free and just societies, and that extremists and radicals bent on converting or killing all their oppenents foreign and domestic need to be opposed, by force if necessary, regardless of their ethnicity and history of oppression. Of course, I prefer to make reasoned decisions in specific cases, rather than just state such general principles which can be charicatured or may turn out to be too broad when push comes to shove. Invading Iraq was a stupid, immoral thing to do that has resulted in far more harm than good to just about everybody concerned, except perhaps the terrorists and radicals who are using it as a recruting and training bonanza. Now Afghanistan? That’s trickier, and I’m not entirely convinced some sort of military intervention there wasn’t actually a good thing, though I think we’ve done a piss poor job of encouraging the society the people there themselves want and that we’d like to see since we got there. So life is complex, and so are people’s policy positons, if they bother to think them through, which it doesn’t sound like your friends do. STill, don’t give up on liberalism alltogethr just because we have our share of dogmatists and fanatics too!
Thankyou for your reply. It has been rather a difficult experience for me because I realise in most cases I must hold my tongue because my liberal views will be rashly missinterpreted as racist. It seems it doesn’t matter how gentle mild and reasoned my critique of Islam is I risk having a room of people turn very hostile indeed. This bothers me, it feels a bit like I’m the subject of a witch hunt. I must keep my heresy to myself or risk the condemnation and hostility of other secularists. It is quite scary I must say.
My liberal critique of Islam is right wing and potentially racist by default in the eyes of many secularists now that is a worry as most of my friends and family are secular liberals. I dislike being treated like a bigot just for criticising superstition, tyranny, homophobia and murder.
As McKenzie pointed out, not all secular liberals think alike. Your friends apparently need lessons in critical thinking and skill at avoiding critical thinking fallacies. They seem to connect ideas with those espousing them. The U.S. president loves to use the word “democracy” but he obviously doesn’t know or care for the definition of it. Similarly, your friends have to divorce the concept with their antipathy for the U.S. You may want to start your next conversation with them by asking that you agree on some ideas for an ideal government - fairness, equality, compassion, maximizing personal liberties, mutual assistance, avoidance of harming others, etc. Once you’ve done this, ask that they examine the social structure and government of various countries and see how closely they adhere to these ideas.
Then, once you’ve reached a number of areas of agreement, you can introduce the concepts of self-defence and keeping one’s nose out of the affairs of others. (Obviously, that last is an area Bush doesn’t understand).
I certainly agree with you that such things as representative democracy, strongly controlled capitalism, a progressive tax system, and comprehensive social programs are all excellent ideas. In the U.S. there seems to be an ebb and flow between moving toward and away from these. At present we have moved quite far from most of these concepts, but I’m hoping that we can take back the government and correct the damage the neocons have inflicted on us (and much of the rest of the world).
I’m curious about what you’re saying here and I wonder what exactly was said and what you mean by:
brucepig - 01 March 2008 05:54 PM
I was recently talking with friends and I expressed a view that although I disagree with the Iraq war, distrust the neocons and think that spreading democracy at the point of a gun is a bad idea I said that despite all of this the spread of democracy and the defeat of genocidal ultra conservative, homophobic, misogynistic, anti semitic, ignorant and superstiotious Islamic idiologies is a noble cause.....
What do you mean when you say “defeat”? Is this about war, and are the reasons for this war to defeat homophobic, anti Semites centered on belief or that of being under threat? How are you deciding we should defeat these people? If this is about battling threats, then what is the purpose of bringing up such thins as misogynist, ignorant, and superstitious? There are of course, misogynist, ignorant and superstitious anti Semites living in this country also, what should the approach there be? We know that these things are not relegated to Islamist, but need to be battled. But, I doubt we are going to war with the superstitious in this country for being superstitious.
I ask because that quote seems to be the crux of the point in posting. Also, I guess I’m wondering if you are talking about war with extremist Islamist, and if so, how are you suggesting we go about this, should we declare war? Since the conversation is not completely spelled out here, I can’t really tell what your friends are objecting to, is it war, or the mere criticizing Islam. If this about criticizing Islam, then is this how you think they will be defeated? But, then I would wonder why they would object to criticizing only their brand of misogyny, ignorance and genocidal ways. Is this about supporting more global efforts such as is seen in Pakistan?
Sorry about all the questions, but I think they all relate. Why don’t you support the war in Iraq?
This also reminds me of something I posted on another thread today:
It’s about policy in Afghanistan and the efforts and opinion of Zbigniew Brzezinski, HERE
Brzezinski, known for his hardline policies on the Soviet Union, initiated in 1979 a campaign supporting mujaheddin in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which were run by Pakistani security services with financial support from the CIA and Britain’s MI6. This policy had the explicit aim of promoting radical Islamist and anti-Communist forces to overthrow the secular communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan government in Afghanistan…
.........
He revealed that CIA support for the mujaheddin had started before the 1979 Soviet invasion and was indeed designed to prompt a Soviet invasion, leading them into a bloody conflict comparable to America’s experience in Vietnam. This was referred to as the “Afghan Trap”. Brzezinski viewed the end of the Soviet empire as worth the cost of strengthening militant Islamic groups.
As McKenzie pointed out, not all secular liberals think alike. Your friends apparently need lessons in critical thinking and skill at avoiding critical thinking fallacies. They seem to connect ideas with those espousing them. The U.S. president loves to use the word “democracy” but he obviously doesn’t know or care for the definition of it. Similarly, your friends have to divorce the concept with their antipathy for the U.S. You may want to start your next conversation with them by asking that you agree on some ideas for an ideal government - fairness, equality, compassion, maximizing personal liberties, mutual assistance, avoidance of harming others, etc. Once you’ve done this, ask that they examine the social structure and government of various countries and see how closely they adhere to these ideas.
Then, once you’ve reached a number of areas of agreement, you can introduce the concepts of self-defence and keeping one’s nose out of the affairs of others. (Obviously, that last is an area Bush doesn’t understand).
I certainly agree with you that such things as representative democracy, strongly controlled capitalism, a progressive tax system, and comprehensive social programs are all excellent ideas. In the U.S. there seems to be an ebb and flow between moving toward and away from these. At present we have moved quite far from most of these concepts, but I’m hoping that we can take back the government and correct the damage the neocons have inflicted on us (and much of the rest of the world).
Occam
(Wordpad)
Once again thankyou for your response, I know not all liberals think like that but I get the feeling most do. Mob mentality seems to rule because they didn’t really listen they just shouted me down as a George Bush loving Islamophobe. Quite reactionary for people who assume they are above such ill thought out kneejerk responses. The problem is I think over here in Blighty and the rest of Europe the way people think about America is that it is a ferocious military machine building an empire with killing in mind, sort of Hitlerian with a thin veneer of civility.
The feeling I get is people think if America could get away with it they would just open gas chambers exterminate all the uncooperative Iraqi’s then move on to Iran etc etc.
This is not what they say but they talk about America in such scary terms you would be forgiven for thinking that they think that Dick Cheney is more scary than Kim Ill Sung and Saddam Hussein on steriods rolled into one.
You have to realise there is no reasoning with them or appeal to critical thinking because for them democracy is a Chomskyesque lie, Islamism is a conspiracy cooked up to allow the Americans to conquer the Middle East own the oil and expand the empire. Paranoia and conspiracy abounds over here, I think you have the same phenomenon being that you have the 911 conspiracy nuts plus Noam Chomsky.
I can’t use science as a point of reference when talking to many secularists, for them science is just another religion whos Imams, ayaytollas and archbiships are the evil drugs companies, the arms industry and government. For them western medicine is not to be trusted and they only use it as a last resort, “stick to homeopathy, don’t give yet more money to the pharmaciutical companies who kill Africans for fun”
There is no reasoned conversation or critical thinking because everything western and modern is a potential lie and part of a Chomskyesqe nightmare conspiracy. They would more readily listen to a monothiest go on about god (as long as he is from the mystical east not Europe and America) than accept science is the best tool humans have for enquiry let alone the crazy idea that democracy is good.
I do like your idea of searching for things we can agree on then taking the debate from there but they are so wrapped up in conspiracies, dogmas and their kneejerk response to my first statement it will be rather difficult.
I’m curious about what you’re saying here and I wonder what exactly was said and what you mean by:
brucepig - 01 March 2008 05:54 PM
I was recently talking with friends and I expressed a view that although I disagree with the Iraq war, distrust the neocons and think that spreading democracy at the point of a gun is a bad idea I said that despite all of this the spread of democracy and the defeat of genocidal ultra conservative, homophobic, misogynistic, anti semitic, ignorant and superstiotious Islamic idiologies is a noble cause.....
What do you mean when you say “defeat”? Is this about war, and are the reasons for this war to defeat homophobic, anti Semites centered on belief or that of being under threat? How are you deciding we should defeat these people? If this is about battling threats, then what is the purpose of bringing up such thins as misogynist, ignorant, and superstitious? There are of course, misogynist, ignorant and superstitious anti Semites living in this country also, what should the approach there be? We know that these things are not relegated to Islamist, but need to be battled. But, I doubt we are going to war with the superstitious in this country for being superstitious.
I ask because that quote seems to be the crux of the point in posting. Also, I guess I’m wondering if you are talking about war with extremist Islamist, and if so, how are you suggesting we go about this, should we declare war? Since the conversation is not completely spelled out here, I can’t really tell what your friends are objecting to, is it war, or the mere criticizing Islam. If this about criticizing Islam, then is this how you think they will be defeated? But, then I would wonder why they would object to criticizing only their brand of misogyny, ignorance and genocidal ways. Is this about supporting more global efforts such as is seen in Pakistan?
Sorry about all the questions, but I think they all relate. Why don’t you support the war in Iraq?
This also reminds me of something I posted on another thread today:
It’s about policy in Afghanistan and the efforts and opinion of Zbigniew Brzezinski, HERE
Brzezinski, known for his hardline policies on the Soviet Union, initiated in 1979 a campaign supporting mujaheddin in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which were run by Pakistani security services with financial support from the CIA and Britain’s MI6. This policy had the explicit aim of promoting radical Islamist and anti-Communist forces to overthrow the secular communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan government in Afghanistan…
.........
He revealed that CIA support for the mujaheddin had started before the 1979 Soviet invasion and was indeed designed to prompt a Soviet invasion, leading them into a bloody conflict comparable to America’s experience in Vietnam. This was referred to as the “Afghan Trap”. Brzezinski viewed the end of the Soviet empire as worth the cost of strengthening militant Islamic groups.
First and foremost I am talking about ideological defeat but as I stated in my first post I am not a pacifist.
The Taliban who kill school teachers for teaching girls, beat women for showing their hair and execute people regularly for not being Islamic enough. I’m quite happy to see them defeated militarily. I will shed no tears for the Taliban.
Yes there are homophobes and misogynists everywhere but are they in government passing legislation and handing out death sentences for crimes against chastity and god?
Here in the UK if a homophobe kills someone he is locked up, the same in Europe, America, Thailand, Japan etc. In many Islamic countries homophobia, misogyny and religious tyranny are duties duty not crimes. In this case we have a duty to undermine these ideologies.
I’m not saying we should invade all countries who behave in this barbaric medieval way but we should seek their ideological downfall, not to save us but to save all the gays, women, communists, liberals and secularists that are unfortunate enough to be born in an Islamic country. Unversal human rights are just that, “universal” not one rule for us and another for them. It’s funny liberals support the theocrats and hard line religious groups and neglect the communists, unions, womens groups, gays who are persecuted by the likes of Hezbollah and Hamas.
My friends did not really listen to me they just jumped to the conclusion that by supporting the idea that democracy was good and that Islam was not a good form of goverment and deserved opposition put me squarly in the George Bush supporting team and highlighted some hidden cultural superiority and deep rooted xenophobia that deserved their hostility and harsh condemnation. For them there is no reason to criticise Islam and make common cause with Americans unless you are a bigot. So as soon as I opened my mouth they closed their ears and went one the attack. I could have said anything after that all they heard was “I love George Bush and I hate brown people” “I have been hoodwinked by the lies of the evil neocons and now I support them”
My criticism of the Iraq war is the same as most. It was hypocritical because we supported Saddam during his worst excesses, it was Illegal because we didn’t have UN aproval. Saddam had nothing to do with 911, we took our eyes off the ball in Afganistan, we created a sectarian divide in Iraq that threatens to tear the country apart etc etc etc
It’s funny I say I’m not a pacifist and I support the war against the Taliban and this enrages most liberals but if I ask them what do they think of violence carried out by Iraqi insurgents, Taliban and Palestinians they say it is a legitimate response the Isreali and American aggression. This highlights their disconnect. They aprove of violence as long as it is poor people kiiling people from rich nations. All of this misguided and partisan reaction is rooted deeply in the lefts often misplaced but genuinely altruistic desire to support the underdog.
The powerful west is malevolent by default and the disenfranchised poor are noble by default end of argument. For leftists this unspoken dogma is sacred and above criticism. Infact its even worse they act on this dogma daily but they don’t believe the dogma exists, so in a way we are dealing with people in the throes of cognitive dissonance.
I think I understand your position a little better. I’m guessing that your friends did not support the invasion of Afghanistan? Perhaps that is what separates your opinion from your friends, that they are pacifist? I personally don’t know many liberals in my little corner of the world who did not support the invasion of Afghanistan. I supported the invasion because it became apparent they had struck first, perhaps sooner then 9/11 if we got the intelligence right. I agree with folks like Daniel Dennett who hold that the first order of business is to somehow mitigate the more extremist elements of Islam (though I question his prescription). I think this will take support of the brave Muslim’s who speak out against the madness, be they religious or freethinkers and a good dose of military tactics such as better intelligence and to stop supporting puppet masters that become brutal. It does seem a bit strange that we are looking for ways to lessen the grip of the militants when it appears it was the western countries support for them that possibly lead to this mess.
I think I understand your position a little better. I’m guessing that your friends did not support the invasion of Afghanistan? Perhaps that is what separates your opinion from your friends, that they are pacifist? I personally don’t know many liberals in my little corner of the world who did not support the invasion of Afghanistan. I supported the invasion because it became apparent they had struck first, perhaps sooner then 9/11 if we got the intelligence right. I agree with folks like Daniel Dennett who hold that the first order of business is to somehow mitigate the more extremist elements of Islam (though I question his prescription). I think this will take support of the brave Muslim’s who speak out against the madness, be they religious or freethinkers and a good dose of military tactics such as better intelligence and to stop supporting puppet masters that become brutal. It does seem a bit strange that we are looking for ways to lessen the grip of the militants when it appears it was the western countries support for them that possibly lead to this mess.
Oh yes you can be sure they do not support the war in Afganistan. As I said previously they don’t see things rationally and they are labouring under the yolk of a dogma that says that what the media tells us is always lies, that the west is malevolent and that poor disenfranchised foreigners are downtrodden victims. If you put yourself in their mindset for a second you can completely understand their position.
If we grant them the three assertions that America and the west are fundamentaly malevolent, that poor brown people are always victims and incapable of being really bad (they know they are capable of this but of course it is just a reaction to our persecution of them it’s not their fault, Rwanda was because of European colonialism etc) and that what we see of world politics is all just a smoke screen to hide the plans of Haliburton etc you can see why they oppose the war in Afganistan.
If those are your views then it goes without saying that the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden are impotent, 911 was an inside job, the invasion of Afganistan was about oil pipelines and sending a subliminal message to other Muslim countries that the empire was expanding etc.
As I said I’m not dealing with people who are rational. For them everything is part of a conspiracy and the only truly blamless people on the planet are Africans, Arabs and Asians. America, Europe, Britain and Russia are the problem.
I have just been thinking about this and I think it is closely connected to something I heard Ayan Hirsi Ali talking about called “white guilt”
I was bought up in a culture where our British colonial past was not taught to us neutrally but from the perspective of it being a crime that we are all collectively guilty for.
Also the beginings of multiculturalism and political correctness was budding when I was a child so anything we where taught about other cultures and histories was given a positive spin.
So we where indoctrinated in a world view that said British history=Imperialistic and criminal, White English(or those who are proudly so)=Racist, cowardly, agressive and ignorant, English culture=Non existant or just rubbish.
Anything foreign=Noble, colourful, exciting, real, natural and something to be celebrated.
I realise why this is because at this time the NF skinheads where very active on British streets and we where trying to welcome an influx of new citizens to British shores.
The problem is it has left us with a generation of people who feel guilty, cultureless and unable to deal with Asian, Arab or Black brutality when it rears it’s head.
If you look at the situation it makes perfect sense when you apply it to the attitudes I’m talking about. Here we have Left wing British, secularits who went through the British school system and grew up as Political Corectness and or Imperial/white guilt where taking hold and they think that the west is intrinsically malevolent and that Asians, Arabs and Africans are all good guys and or victims who need support no matter what.
Now I think I see where you’re coming from. This actually extends beyond “defeating” militant Islamist and spreading democracy, this is a world view. I had that sense and it was what I meant in the other thread about a post-modernest conspiracy mode. A kind of relativistic world view that actually appears to be as dogmatic a secularist view as the religionist. In this county a radio talk show host named Rush Limbaugh calls these people, when speaking in a political sense, “the blame America first crowd” and speaks a good deal about the “white guilt”. It has fairly deep academic roots that you seem to have experienced growing up (as it siphoned to the general public). Ayan Hirsi Ali ended up landing at the America Enterprise Institute, HERE and HERE, for a few reasons, one being she was turned down at a few places, but more importantly, it is somewhere that supports her views with fairly minor disagreements.
Given the degree to which religious ideas are still sheltered from criticism in every society, it is actually possible for a person to have the economic and intellectual resources to build a nuclear bomb — and to believe that he will get 72 virgins in paradise. And yet, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, liberals continue to imagine that Muslim terrorism springs from economic despair, lack of education and American militarism.
At its most extreme, liberal denial has found expression in a growing subculture of conspiracy theorists who believe that the atrocities of 9/11 were orchestrated by our own government....
Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization....
The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its immigrants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.
To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization.
It also reminded me of some episodes I’ve seen at the beyond belief conferences where Harris really takes Scott Atran to task and goes on to say that Atran and others such as David S. Wilson are contributing to Islamic extremism. I think this is a fairly widely held ideal. Of course Sam Harris has written other such pieces such as HERE.
Katha Pollitt touches on the issue of liberals keeping their heads in the sand - Onward Secular Soldiers
Katha Pollitt-
You would think that the left would savor this new, muscular secularism. But that’s not what has happened. In the progressive media, the atheist bestsellers have gotten a lukewarm reception. Writers continue to blame leftists’ and liberals’ lack of respect for God for the rise of evangelical Christianity, the triumph of the Republican Party, the conservative impulses of the working class and the general failure of events to turn out as we would like. Just what this respect is supposed to involve is never spelled out: behaving nicely to the religious people we know? supporting certain religion-inflected policies? becoming religious ourselves? There’s something both grandiose and masochistic in all this breast-beating.
I had first read that in the Dec. issue of free inquiry. Free Inquiry had a piece by Perez Hoodhoy, also found on Richard Dawkins site Science and the Islamic World. But I think Hoodbhoy is basically be laughed out of the dialog and he cuts rather close to being an apologist mainly because he’s in an Islamic country and thinks you can work with them.
Sorry, but I’m going to have to call for the unpopular moderate stance here. I think it’s vital that liberals critique and challenge oppressive ideologies, including religiously-based ones, wehrever they occur. On the other hand, I think callig religion uniformly and universally evil, calling for its demise, claiming religious moderates are no better than extremists, and other such popular tactics among the more aggressive atheist/secularists is just as dogmatic and unproductive as head-in-the-sand postmodernist liberalism. We need to critically examine specific policy decisions on their own merits, within the context of general principles of course but not with a cookie-cutter approach that cannot take into account the unique features of each situation. If there are issues upon which religious and secular humanists can agree, or even issues in which religious extremists can be brought to the table (as in E.O. Wilson’s recent reaching out to Christian evangelicals on environmentalist issues), then it is arrogant and stupid not to do so just because we hold all religion to be morally or functinally equivalent to the most virulent varieties.
Sorry, but I’m going to have to call for the unpopular moderate stance here. I think it’s vital that liberals critique and challenge oppressive ideologies, including religiously-based ones, wehrever they occur. On the other hand, I think callig religion uniformly and universally evil, calling for its demise, claiming religious moderates are no better than extremists, and other such popular tactics among the more aggressive atheist/secularists is just as dogmatic and unproductive as head-in-the-sand postmodernist liberalism. We need to critically examine specific policy decisions on their own merits, within the context of general principles of course but not with a cookie-cutter approach that cannot take into account the unique features of each situation. If there are issues upon which religious and secular humanists can agree, or even issues in which religious extremists can be brought to the table (as in E.O. Wilson’s recent reaching out to Christian evangelicals on environmentalist issues), then it is arrogant and stupid not to do so just because we hold all religion to be morally or functinally equivalent to the most virulent varieties.
I agree with you telling moderate Muslims they are evil would be damaging, counterproductive and would drive people into the arms of the nutters, although I don’t think I’m doing that.
I had first read that in the Dec. issue of free inquiry. Free Inquiry had a piece by Perez Hoodhoy, also found on Richard Dawkins site Science and the Islamic World. But I think Hoodbhoy is basically be laughed out of the dialog and he cuts rather close to being an apologist mainly because he’s in an Islamic country and thinks you can work with them.
I disagree. Hoodbhoy published this article in Physics Today, a monthly publication that members of the American Physical Society and its member societies (Optical Society of America, etc.) receive and was taken seriously.
See for example this reference in US News and World Report
That’s not how I read the article at all. If you consider that Hoodbhoy is living in an Islamic country with very different ideas about freedom of speech, I think this is a very brave thing to write.
